Silence Is Golden Some companies forego actual demonstrators, preferring to use in-store kiosks or other unmanned displays. Several years ago, for instance, Massachusetts sunroom dealer John Esler struck an agreement with wholesale club BJ’s to test market a sunroom kiosk in select BJ’s units.
The tests proved so successful that BJ’s opened up its stores to other Betterliving dealers, who operate not only DVD-driven kiosks but also have built entire sunrooms “ inside BJ’s stores.
Among the Betterliving dealers that participate is Maine Window and Sunroom, in Kennebunk, Maine, which now has kiosks in three BJ’s. Marketing manager Sven Johnson says those “silent salesman” leads set at a high rate — 50% — because customers are essentially qualifying themselves by requesting further information.
In addition, the contractual agreement between BJ’s and Betterliving Craft-Bilt, which manufactures the product for its dealer network, requires the 11 Betterliving dealers that do in-store marketing in BJ’s to give its member-customers the best possible price.
Esler says his DVD-equipped kiosks, in 20 BJ’s units, cost approximately $6,000 each to build and maintain and are one of two major lead sources for his $10 million company.
“It’s on the higher end of per-lead costs,” he says. “It’s more expensive than canvassing but not as expensive as direct mail.” Esler says 40% of kiosk contacts become issued leads, a set rate he compares with television ads.
At the moment, BJ’s and the Betterliving sunroom dealers in its stores are stepping up the program, planning to use store demonstrators on select occasions.
Johnson and others emphasize that in-store programs need to be modified with new promotions and new methods of approaching prospects. Otherwise the lead flow starts to diminish.
Gloomy Days For any home improvement company involved in an in-store marketing relationship with a retailer, danger No. 1 is that you can have the rug pulled out from under you. Management at Statewide, a $20 million window and siding company, found this out five years ago when retail giant Lowe’s pulled the plug on the SFI program Statewide had in Eagle Hardware and Garden, a home center chain Lowe’s had recently acquired.
“One gloomy day, we got a call saying Lowe’s is terminating the program,” McCourt says. “They just told us that Lowe’s didn’t want to do an SFI program.” It was, he says, “devastating.” At the time, Statewide was generating $9 million a year in sales of windows, siding, sunrooms, and roofing through 17 Eagle outlets in Washington state.
The company scrambled to re-invest in media, but without prior experience or relationships, the investment failed to generate anything like the number of leads the in-store marketing program had been producing. Statewide was forced to lay off employees, and it took several years to recover the volume lost.
As the company rebuilt its in-store marketing operation in 30 Kmart stores — 10 in each of the three markets where it operates — management was careful to do so, McCourt says, without adding significant overhead.
