Marketing muscle: leveraging big-time corporate assets for local marketing gains, 84 Lumber, Carter Lumber, and ORCO Construction Supply back their brand and relationship-building efforts with consistent customer service to become titans of contractor marketing

Prosales, Feb, 2005 by Chris Wood, Katy Tomasulo

Brand Identity / 84 Lumber relies on the support and decisions of individual yard managers to power the company's national branding strategy and succeed at local contractor marketing efforts.

As general manager for 84 Lumber's headquarters yard in Eighty Four, Pa., and a previous 84 area manager of yards throughout the Ohio Valley, you'd expect Dave Fisher to be extremely brand conscious when it comes to discussing marketing. But instead of touting a corporate line, Fisher says marketing programs and strategies at his location and the locations of his peers have to remain decidedly independent. "When it comes to marketing for my customers, I need to look up at that ball everyday and not see '84 Lumber,'" Fisher says. "I need to see 'Dave's Lumber,' because marketing is just like any other service: It is in our hands to develop it or fail--we're the ones held accountable."

Even in the midst of developing national branding initiatives that include the 84 Lumber Classic PGA golf tournament and a partnership with Ford Trucks, marketing executives at 84 say Fisher's outlook is right on target. "Our company strength is that each store is different," says company vice president of marketing Jeff Kmiec. "We provide them with the resources, and leave it up to the store manager to how they want to conduct their marketing plan. Each store has its own annual specific marketing budget, and its own marketing strategies. Each store is in charge of its own destiny."

No doubt, 84 managers have a lot of muscle to flex toward those marketing destinies. According to Kmiec, 84 Lumber's total corporate marketing budget is the company's third-largest expense after payroll and delivery costs, and runs from 1 to 1.1 percent of revenue. With 84 hitting approximately $3.4 billion in 2004 gross sales, that puts the company's marketing war chest at about $34 million. "Smaller yards can't compete with what we do," says Fisher. "This is my shop from a marketing standpoint, but it is the enormous assets we have behind us that allow us to be flexible and both serve and grow with our customers."

Entertaining the Customer

It is notable that Fisher mentions service and growth as part of his single-location marketing mantra. "84's marketing platform is basically customer service, customer retention, and customer acquisition," says Kmiec. "Those are our driving goals."

Key to fulfilling those goals is an almost daily slew of relationship-building contractor events, sporting trips, and incentive vacations, highlighted by the 84 Lumber Classic PGA tour stop held at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa in Farmington, Pa., owned by 84 founder and president Joe Hardy. In 2004, 84 brought in 1,500 contractors to the PGA event, putting them up in Pittsburgh hotels for three days with their 84 store managers and outside sales reps, treating them to a Pittsburgh Pirates game, and bringing them to the tournament for a day, where they were able to watch 84-sponsored pros John Daly and Vijay Singh and also visit a vendor area with booths and presentations by tournament supporters including Pella, Jeld-Wen, and Weyerhaeuser.

As an added PR bonus, total tournament proceeds--$750,000--were presented to the United Way of Allegheny County, continuing a charitable giving tradition at the company that culminated in Hardy being named 2004 Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. "[Charitable contributions] obviously paint the company in a positive light," says Kmiec of the recognition. "[It's] important to have your company and your employees recognized as deeply committed to community."

Whether it is the 84 Lumber Classic, the Daytona 500, the Super Bowl, or just a local event, Kmiec says that pro dealer tickets to the game alone do not guarantee marketing success. which is driven instead by the overall entertainment value that the contractor customer takes home. "We don't like to just go into a market and purchase tickets," he says. "We want to enhance the visit for the customer-not just sit in the stands. It can be something as unsophisticated as a tailgate party and cooking hot dogs to being in a hospitality suite at a Steelers game and having Jerome Bettis stop by and give the customer an autographed picture."

Packing entertainment value into marketing programs also carries over into 84's Inner Circle Rewards program, a travel incentive system launched in 2003 that awards points to builders for purchases that can be redeemed for various vacation packages and merchandise. "All of my employees are raving about 84 taking care of them." says Jim Marshall, president of Indianapolis-based Adams and Marshall Homes, which will close on 1,000 homes across 12 active-adult communities in 2004. Marshall's purchases garnered 14 vacations that he then used for rewards to standout members of his staff'. "From taking care of car rentals to renting fishing boats, the vacations were awesome. If you want something, you ask for it, you got it."

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