Harvesting Homeowners
Most pro dealers still get some sales from consumers, and therefore must skew at least some of their marketing toward their retail customer base. Many suppliers, in fact, still require dealers to use a certain percentage of their co-op dollars for mass media like TV and newspapers.
Hammond Lumber in Maine, which gets half its sales from consumers, places ads with two television networks that cover that state, and focuses on broadcasts of sporting events and news, “which pros watch, too,” says marketing manager Rod Wiles. But Hammond’s marketing extends as well to community support of local Little League teams and even high school yearbooks.
McCoy’s Building Supply in Texas, which gets 30% of its sales from consumers, relies on co-op dollars from brands that homeowners know, like Owens Corning and Glidden. Dan Stauffer, McCoy’s vice president of marketing, says his company maintains a large database of customers, and that co-op is “best spent” supporting direct-mail programs to those buyers. Stauffer notes, though, that the claim-verification process for co-op dollars spent on consumer-oriented advertising can sometimes be a lot more rigorous than claiming what’s been spent on event marketing to pros.
Several dealers point out that, on item-driven advertising in particular, vendors are very specific about logo size and how many times their names get mentioned. For example, Elk Roofing–which reimburses up to 50% of dealers’ net media costs on eligible advertising and allocates between 5 cents per bundle to $1 per square of roofing purchased in the previous year–spells out in detail what guidelines dealers must adhere to for newspaper ads and inserts, billboards, radio and TV, and direct-mail. Elk requires that its logo appear on every ad piece alone (in other words, no other vendor allowed); that broadcast and billboard ads be approved by Elk in writing before dealers produce them; and that Elk reserves the right of final approval on all ad materials.
–John Caulfield
