Super marketing: whether word of mouth, direct mail, or on a billboard, effective dealer marketing promotes services that help pros manage their businesses

Prosales, July, 2005 by John Caufield

Hayward Lumber's San Luis Obispo yard has been mailing fliers to customers to promote its 1,000-square-foot design center, as well as the fact that the yard is an authorized dealer for Marvin Windows, with which Hayward is partnering on this marketing campaign.

Last fall, St. Paul, Minn.-based Lampert Yards began including promotions for a new turnkey installation service for kitchen cabinets, closets, and insulation in the invoices it mails to customers. Lampert, with 38 yards, is also among the dealers that aggressively stimulate business through incentives. Under Lampert's LamPerks program, for every $25,000 in materials purchased a customer earns 0.5 percent toward the purchase of any product he or she can buy anywhere. "We've had people use those points to buy grave plots," says Pam Leier, Lampert's vice president of marketing. She thinks that Lampert's newly installed POS system will make it easier to tie LamPerks into manufacturers' rebate programs.

Live and Learn

Beyond advertising, one of the more cost-effective ways that dealers market to pros is through educational seminars. Haynes says that McCray Lumber's local home builders association conducts about 15 seminars per year on various topics, and that McCray Lumber is often a "gold" sponsor, "which gives us top billing at those events." On April 19, Causeway Lumber held a luncheon in Stuart, Fla., and a dinner in Fort Lauderdale, for pros who wanted to hear Dr. Joseph Lstiburek speak on the topic of water intrusion, which has become a very big deal there after last year's hurricanes. (Lstiburek wrote a 65-page paper on that subject for the Florida HBA.)

Hayward holds monthly breakfast meetings at local hotels where pros can hear vendor reps discuss new products and installation techniques. Hayward's three yards in central California recently conducted a seminar on sealing homes and installing windows to prevent mold. Mark LaLiberte, the consultant who spoke at that seminar, which drew 250 people, is associated with Tyvek, which sponsored the event.

"We're careful [to bring] in people who offer information and not just a commercial," says Rodriguez. "We are trying to create a presence in the market, and it's important to define who you are. We want to be the best supplier to contractors."--John Caulfield is a contributing editor for PRoSALES.