Contractors often use multiple building products on a daily basis and come to trust certain brands. Often times, they stick with the brand on which they originally learned to work. Additionally, you have an older generation that is aging out (the average age of a contractor is late 40’s/early 50’s) and have a new, younger generation coming in who are more apt for trial. However, once a contractor has become comfortable with a specific brand or product, he is understandably hesitant to switch.

Research has shown that 44% of contractors tend to reuse products they like and only 6% of contractors like to try different brands of products. However, A recent study found that 55% of contractors would be willing to change brands if they had the opportunity to try a new product before purchasing.

In order to convince contractors to become your loyal customers, here are a few steps you can take:

Trial Offers and Guarantees

If contractors have the opportunity to try your product – touch it, feel it, use it and see how well it performs, they will be more likely to trust your brand and welcome the changes or improvements your product can provide. Additionally, if they know that a product is backed by a guarantee, it means that it is a lower risk for them to try the product, thus incentivizing trial.

Distributor Support

A recent study of contractors found that the biggest factor contractors consider when purchasing building products, after cost, is service. Manufacturers who recognize the anxiety produced and risks faced when contractors switch products have an opportunity to demonstrate a deep understanding of their customers through their distribution network, and thus earn enough trust to make them open to trial.

Peer Recommendations (aka word of mouth)

This is a community that relies very heavily on peer recommendations as contractors know that if it works for their peers who are used to professional-grade equipment and products, it will likely work for them. Getting your foot in this network, listening to what they are saying to one another, and being able to have valued discussions with them on their level will not only help to have contractors recommend your products to other contractors, but also ease the path to trial.

Once you have trial, if your products are made well, you will likely see repeat purchases and eventually, the golden goose, brand loyalty. Now more than ever is this important with an audience segment that is younger and more impressionable.

To learn more insights about contractors, download our white paper Connecting to Contractors.

Image courtesy of rhinolabour.com

Its no news that the economy has put a damper on new construction the last few years. Despite a slow down on the construction front, contractors still command significant control in terms of spending.

Residential contractors spent an estimated $25 billion on building products last year and are expected to spend $4.6 trillion by 2015, but marketers who want to capitalize on that growth will have to navigate an increasingly complex and fragmented customer base,  according to a new study recently conducted by Point to Point. Also during the downturn, we’ve seen a shift in demographics among contractors.

“With the profound shift the industry has encountered over the past few years came a division of the contractor audience,” said Aylie Fifer, V.P., account director for Point to Point. “insights into how these segments have emerged, how they are absorbing media, and the technology they are using is critical to the success of manufacturers who want to market to contractors. You can’t talk to them the same way you did 5 years ago because the landscape has changed.”

Read the news story and learn more about this shift in our latest white paper Best Practices for Selling Building Products Through Contractors.

Image courtesy of http://marcheawards2011.blogspot.com/

In a recent study of the Architect and Designer audience, Point to Point delved into the minds of this segment. We uncovered several key A&D insights including the mobile usage habits of Architects and Designers.

With millions of mobile apps being downloaded each month, mobile marketing is increasingly seen as one of the most viable new marketing methods. This trend has become obvious in the Architect and Designer market as well. As a building product manufacturer it is crucial to keep up with this technology.

Consider this, a few years ago, 69.2% of architects said they did not want to receive industry news on their smartphones. The tables have now turned as a recent study counters that 55% of architects now use smartphones to download apps. Only 6% of the audience don’t use mobile content at all. A whopping one-third of architects use mobile apps developed by building product manufacturers, a number that is increasing by the minute.

So what types of apps are architects and designers looking for? When they download an app, their primary motivation is to have tools that they need at their fingertips, making their work more efficient and convenient. From a manufacturer’s perspective, this means building apps with concise yet comprehensive product details and user-friendly design.

Some of the popular apps among architects have followed these rules and achieved popularity, like CAD touchR2, which allows architects to sketch floor plans, and Architect’s Formulator, which aggregates the formulas architects use most often.

For an audience that lives in a chaotic world – tight deadlines, multiple projects and stressful work environments, tablets are a natural fit for designers that are constantly on the go. The designer audience responds to apps that help automate or at least make very efficient some of the activities that are a part of their daily work, such as:

• Working on drawings and designs
• Meeting with clients, project teams, vendors and consultants
• Researching products
• Specifying products
• Preparing presentations

For architects, the world is equally chaotic, if not more so, and mobile apps present a great opportunity to connect with architects in a meaningful, contextual way. This may be especially true for a mid-career architect, whose specifying sequence offers many opportunities to connect. Consider the following process steps:

1. 1. Design inspiration
2. 2. Google text search
3. 3. Review product images
4. 4. Download detailed images of built-out product
5. 5. Check manufacturer’s web site
6. 6. Download specifications and detail drawings
7. 7. Contact manufacturer rep
8. 8. Present product to senior management
9. 9. Senior management presents product to client
10. 10. Integrate product drawing  and spec into design plan

As a manufacturer, you can find success connecting to the A&D community if you develop a mobile app that helps this process. Offer design inspiration, allow access to detailed images of built-out products, or provide specifications and detailed drawings that make it easier for your product to be included in the spec list. The opportunities to connect with mobile apps are extensive.

Read our latest white paper to learn more insights about the Architect and Designer audience.

Image courtesy of sha3teely.com

In today’s marketing environment, the customer controls the terms of the engagement more than ever and screens out anything that lacks relevance. This means that it is more important than ever for marketers to connect with customers using surgical precision — to know their customers well enough to tailor both the context and the messaging to them as individuals (what we refer to as Pinhole Marketing™). If you spray and pray your marketing dollars, you’ll waste a lot of valuable money and time and won’t get the return necessary to generate growth or profit.

An interesting working example of how this is being done well can be found in how politicians are targeting you for your vote. After all, its an election year and there is going to be no shortage of political spending.  A recent NY Times article explores the use of highly targeted political advertising. So, which party are you affiliated with? Which candidate appeals to you? Don’t worry if you don’t know. Because the folks running political campaigns can answer these questions for you. It wasn’t always this way though.

Consider this quote from the NY Times article:

“Forty years ago, you’d watch the same evening news ad as your Democratic neighbor,” according to Kenneth M. Goldstein, president of the Campaign and Media Analysis Group at Kantar Media.

In contrast, today:

“Two people in the same house could get different messages. Not only will the message change, the type of content will change” said Zac Moffatt, the digital director for Mitt Romney’s campaign.

The article goes on to describe the process of microtargeting using digital cookies and matching up your online footprint (cookie crumbs) with offline data about you, such as your credit information, the organizations you belong to or support, possibly even the brand and model car you own.  This is matched up with voting data (excluding the candidates you voted for).  Your data is combined with other similar profiles and candidates are buying access to you as part of an audience profile.

The big advantage here is that the candidates can buy ad placement that targets people they care to target rather than everyone that visits a particular website which may be a wide range of audience segments including many eyeballs they will never convert into votes and therefore don’t want to pay to advertise to.

Underscoring the importance of targeting in a political campaign, consider this statement:

“We want to hit the people who can actually go out and vote,” Blaise Hazelwood, the president of Grassroots Targeting.

So, how can a marketer selling windows, cars, homes, insurance or otherwise make use of this type of targeting? Profile data has been available for some time and has become richer as consumers spend more and more time online and share information. Using third party sources such as Clearspring or Quantcast or even through Google, an advertiser can designate a specific type of audience they wish to target and advertise to only that audience. Offline data from companies such as Experian, or Axciom, can be supplemented with online data to make ads even more laser targeted.

If you want to sell more windows, you would target your ads to an audience profile that possesses the demographics you desire, in the geography where you wish to sell more windows and at a time when they might be in the market for windows. All this is accomplished using the type of data profiling described above.

You can also make your ad dollars work harder by using the insights you gain about the audience to help shape your messaging and offer. Knowing how to target an audience using media is the first step. We’ll cover the messaging discussion in a future post.

For now, remember that you are leaving a trail of personal information everywhere you go online and offline from websites you visit to the stores you shop and buy goods. You’ll be seeing more political ads this year than you likely care for, but remember they should be targeted to you. Unless, that is, you happen to be on your spouse’s computer.

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about audience targeting or how to make your ad dollars work harder for you.

Image courtesy of thegreenkey.net

I keep reading about the new normal.

That the over-the-top spending of the late 90’s and early 2000’s is over. That spending has gone down while saving has increased. That this pessimism everyone feels about the economy is here to stay, maybe not forever, but for a long, long while.

Even though the recession was declared over as of last summer, consumers and companies alike still feel its effects.

Most companies have not returned to their pre-recession ad budgets and there’s a chance that they won’t for a long time. For the first time, many companies were asked to justify their advertising budgets. Most companies have not returned to their pre-recession ad budgets and it’s going to take awhile before they do.

The good thing that has come out of it is the need to understand what is working and what is not. For the first time, many companies were asked to justify their advertising budgets. Of those that weren’t, it won’t be long until they are asked “But, how do you know it’s working?”

Here are just a few tips to get you moving in that direction:

1. Have some sort of tracking software for your website. If you don’t want to make an investment right away, use Google Analytics. It’s free and will still let you learn some valuable insights. When done properly, this will let you know what is bringing eyeballs to your site, how long they are staying and what they are looking at.

2. Vanity URLs. A vanity URL is just an extension on your web address. It could be something like www.WebAddress.com/Vanity. These should be used anywhere someone will actually see the address. When they type this into their browser, your tracking software will register what ad placement brought that visit in. Note: Using a vanity URL requires a 301 redirect.

3. For online, each placement should have it’s own tracking URL. The person on the other side of the screen doesn’t see a different URL, but when they click on your ad it’s coded to tell your tracking software what site the ad was on. If you’re using Google Analytics, there’s a tool that helps you build each one.

4. Use a call tracking system. Every site/publication/station should have it’s own phone number. When someone calls that number the source is retained in a database that can be accessed at any time. Many call tracking systems will let you record the phone call. As a CMO you can log in and listen to calls to see how your employees handle themselves.

5. Actually use the data. Compile the data in a way that is easy to see the big picture and actually pay attention to what it is telling you.

If you follow these and other tips, you should be able to see what part of your media plan is working and what part isn’t. I know this can sound tedious, but that is where an outside resource should be able to help. If the cost is something of concern, ask yourself “what is knowing worth?” And consider the fact that you could learn that the $100,000 media buy you thought was a perfect fit, actually wasn’t. Or you could learn that $2,000 campaign brought in more customers than any other buy.

Now that the wild wild west spending of the last decade is over, let us help you be prepared to answer the inevitable question.

Photo courtesy of Canolais

Lets say you are male and somewhere between the ages of 18-34 years old. Lets also say you are into cars. You like to drive cars, fix cars, read (online and offline) about how cars perform, and you’ve bought a few cars. Your car is your prized possession and you baby it. Lets also assume you are not into movies. You’ve never cared much for movies, except maybe for movies about cars.

Knowing you are between 18-34 years old, you have a high tendency to use the Internet to research cars, read about cars and you post content and comments on sites about your favorite subject – cars. Now that we know a bit about you, lets talk about what is relevant to you.

You go online frequently and visit sites such as caranddriver.com, motortrend.com and other car sites. You are leaving a trail of bread crumbs all over the web about who you are and your interests. When you visit other sites, perhaps news related sites, you see ads. These ads might be about movie – something you don’t care much about. You don’t click these ads. You don’t pay attention to these ads. You don’t go on to visit the movie’s website at a later time.

The GOOG has been working hard to build a system that is designed to flip this scenario on its head. No, they are not trying to get you to click on the movie website. The Google Display Ad Network will be smart enough to know that you are a car enthusiast and when you visit a news site or non-car site, they will serve you an ad about cars. The ad might even be for motortrend.com since you’ve been to motortrend.com. If it is raining outside while you are visiting the news site, the ad might be for windshield wipers or tires that offer better traction in the rain, in your specific location (e.g. Cleveland, Chicago, etc.).

If you run a company that sells things (what company does not) or are responsible for marketing a product, you know that targeting is a key driver of results. You want to target a specific audience that will consider and buy your product. This is a relevance game. If you are into cars, you don’t want to see an ad for a movie. If you are in Cleveland and it is raining, an ad for a car driving the coastline in southern California is less relevant than one driving in the rain that talks about Cleveland. Showing an ad that is geo targeted and talks about the current weather conditions increases relevance. Higher relevance equals better results.

Relevance is the name of the game with the Google Display Ad Network. They are not the only company doing this. Retargeting, geo-targeting and relevance is going on elsewhere. The difference with Google is they have the in-house tools to package with their network to help you understand how the ads are performing, how they impact search results and vice-versa, can be bought in real-time and give you the insights to make smart ad buying decisions.

Again, if you are trying to sell something whether windshield wipers or widgets, you want your ads to be seen by the very people that are interested in them and have a higher likelihood to buy your products.  Using tools such as those offered by the Google network, you can test different placements, retargeting and get the insights necessary to make your campaigns a success and be accountable.  You’ll know where success is coming from and where results fall short.  You can optimize your spending to improve results and gain efficiencies.

To learn more about how we can help you navigate the waters of targeted online media planning and buying, measuring the results of advertising or if you want to see a movie with us, give us a shout today.

Flickr photo courtesy of hdc.

Since I work at a media planning agency, part of what I do includes research into new and interesting media opportunities. Besides it being part of my job, I really do love reading about new ways I can help my clients reach their audiences. In a recent AdAge I ran across an interesting article about just that. In it, the article describes how Cardlytics has partnered with some financial institutions to market in a previously uncharted territory – online bank statements.

How it works: The bank downloads the software, marketers sign up, consumers buy, which generates ads relevant to their purchases. The ads can be served on a rewards page, within the transactions or in a column beside the transactions. To activate the ad, the customer must simply click the ad. The coolest part, in my opinion, is that this is all the customer has to do. Once they make a purchase, either online or in-store, Cardlytics sees the purchase and applies the advertised discount or reward.

Currently they do not have a business model established for the B2B market, but I don’t think it will take long before one is created. After all, banks know whether an account is business or personal. Here is how I can see it working:

I, owner of Firestone’s Books, need office supplies. I decide to go to Office Max to pick up the items necessary to run my business. The next day I log on to look at my statement and below my purchase at Office Max is a Staples coupon for 10% off my next purchase. I’m interested and click to activate the ad. Later that month, I run out of ink for my printer. Knowing I have 10% off my next purchase, I head to Staples to buy a couple boxes of ink (they’re 10% off, so I might as well buy more than one), and some other items I forgot to pick up on my last supplies run. Staples is happy because they took market share from Office Max, I am happy because I saved 10%, and the bank is happy because I used their card when I could have used another company’s card. I should note, it doesn’t only work for competitors. A company can choose to use this as a form of loyalty program and reward their current customers.

The stats: The average activation rate is 15% but they’ve seen campaigns as high as 46%. This is a pay per performance model, so unless the ad is activated the marketer doesn’t pay.

Although it may seem like privacy would be a concern, Cardlytics only has access to the store’s name, date and total of the purchase and the customer’s zip code. All other information belongs, and stays, with the bank.

I like this opportunity because you know that the person seeing your ad is your target. If you’re trying to target your competitor’s customers, there’s no self-cannibalism of your current customers/sales to do so.

Contact us if you’re interested in hearing how we can incorporate new ideas into a media plan for you.

Image courtesy of mag3737

As a media planner I’ve had the opportunity to work on all types of plans across a wide variety of client types.  We’re talking B2B to B2C, traditional to emerging media, and client industries ranging from healthcare to manufacturing to technology.  One thing that is always important across all these types is understanding the target audience.  Where does your target audience spend time?  What media do they consume?  What interests them?  Understanding these variables plus several others will help marketers eliminate wasteful spending.  Ads will be delivered to relevant, qualified eyeballs.

An increasing important audience segment is the Hispanic population.

The Hispanic population recently surpassed African Americans as the largest minority in the United States. This is an extremely important shift to understand as it has implications to how marketing and media plans are developed.  The significance of this can be seen as we consider planning for the building products category.

As of 2007, there were an estimated 690,000 Hispanic-owned businesses in the construction, repair and maintenance industries. By 2008, over 30% of the workforce in the above industries were Hispanic. As if that stat wasn’t amazing enough, in the next 15 years, that number is expected to more than double and reach 63.2%. What does all of this mean? Building product manufacturers have a huge opportunity, however few have campaigns that focus entirely on this audience.

Hispanic-owned businesses are generally located in 3 areas of the U.S. – California, Florida and Texas. Considering that these 3 states include over 50% of the total Hispanic population in the U.S., it makes perfect sense that those same 3 states would have the highest percentages in Hispanic owned businesses.

Through our media planning experience we’ve identified several benefits to developing plans that focus on the Hispanic marketplace.  First, because the media is still emerging, it is generally more efficient than the equivalent, mainstream outlets. Next, because of the concentration of the audience in a three-state geography, a regional advertising plan to these states can be implemented.  This reduces the dependency on larger national media that carries a premium and has less targeting to offer.  Finally, the ad market is down.  This is true across most segments including the Hispanic market.

This is a great time for building product manufacturers to develop Hispanic focused marketing programs and conduct outreach to this ever-important audience.

I’ve garnered several insights having developed many media plans that focused significant portions of the budget to reach Hispanics. First, relationships matter. If you can develop a trusting relationship with the Hispanic audience your budget will gain efficiency.  Next, the Hispanic audience has demonstrated brand loyalty that exceeds the loyalty found in other segments. If building product manufacturers are successful at building and maintaining relationships now with the audience, they could see a substantial reward for doing so over the several years.

Building product manufacturers have an opportunity at hand to develop plans that reach out directly to the Hispanic contractor, construction companies and allied trades.  Contact us to find out how Point to Point can help with your media planning and buying or audience segmentation efforts.

Flickr photo courtesy of atomicShed

Media planners/buyers spend hours slicing, dicing and negotiating dollars so we can build a plan that not only meets campaign and media goals, but also stays on budget.  We demonstrate to our clients that we can effectively and efficiently take their investment and get them the most bang for their buck.  But most importantly, we need to show them the money.

In the B2B market, ROI metrics are extremely important – but as it turns out, B2B marketers may not be as confident in their abilities to show you the money.

A recent study by Lenskold Group, surveyed marketing practitioners in B2B companies.  The findings place special attention on the importance of financial marketing metrics over the non-financial kind.

The results of the study show that 42% of all respondents indicate that although they use some metrics (namely cost per lead and cost per sale) they do not implement profitability metrics such as ROI.  In other words, almost half of respondents are aware of the dollars it takes to acquire a lead, but they aren’t tracking to find the return on investment on that lead.

It’s not surprising that a dismal 9% of those surveyed believed their marketing to be highly effective and efficient.  The fact that these stats are coming out of the B2B space is especially surprising.  This is an area that thrives on acquiring leads – continually asking us to fill out a form, call a particular number or visit a special landing page – all the while monitoring those conversions.

So what about those of us that do use profitability tracking? The study found that B2B lead generation marketers that use ROI metrics are more likely:

1. To be outgrowing competitors (22%, compared to 10% of all others)
2. To report having highly effective and efficient marketing (20%, compared to 5% of all others)
3. To generate more than 10% increase in profits with a 10% increase in budget (42%, compared to 23% of those that only use traditional metrics)

Not only are we more confident, but we can also leverage that confidence to prove earnings for our clients. Almost half of the marketers surveyed did not know their profit potential. In fact, an overwhelming 44% said they did not know how much they could increase profits with a 10% increase in budget.

An interesting finding from this survey notes that of the marketers polled, 36% belonged to agencies/consultants and these folks reported the highest levels of reporting capabilities.  This compares to 11% for marketers alone.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can show you the money, visit our Marketing Analytics or Media Planning and Buying Pages.

Flickr photo “Lazy” courtesy of Darkumber

One thing (of many) they don’t teach in college is in order to be successful in media planning you need to have good relationships. Trust is something I never realized was going to be so important and can make (or break) just about any client situation.

On a recent pitch for a client in the architecture and design (A&D) market, it was my relationships that allowed me to say: “Here’s what we’re trying to do, what can you do to help me make this work? Are there any ideas you have that would be cool that this market would glom onto?”

Not to mention the fact that I needed that information at that exact minute. And in the instances where I had good relationships with reps, they really pulled through for me. Together we were able to come up with some great ideas, that the client loved.

On the flipside, a bad relationship and/or lack of trust can be brutal.

Keeping it within the A&D market, I recently had a situation where  a new rep asked why we did not include them in a recent buy. When I gave my reasons, that person became upset and went to the client touting how amazing his properties were.

And you know what, his properties are good, and I told him and the client that. But so are his competitors. It just didn’t make sense to go with his properties with the rates he was giving me. It still has to make financial sense.

Fast forward a couple weeks: I received information about the past year’s performance of one of those properties, and it was down almost 25% year-over-year. Once I saw that, it all became clear. The property is hurting for customers and the rep was trying to go over my head to get the client’s sign off on a campaign. This situation was a tutorial in what not to do when trying to build a relationship.

Luckily, the majority of agency/rep relationships fall within the good column, but occasionally someone does something to make you question their intentions. It’s because of this that I’ve learned to play 20 questions pretty well. And if something still doesn’t seem right, I’ll just keep going. For the most part I think reps respect the questions and that only helps me stock my toolbox with good, strong relationships. However, I did have a rep complain once that I asked too many questions. My response: “I’m just doing my job.”

If you’d like to take advantage of my good relationships, or just play 20 questions with me, contact us.

Flickr photo courtesy of sgrace