Timber Merchant Branch Opening – Case Study

Our client is one of the UK’s leading timber merchants with branches across the UK. We have worked across multiple campaigns focused on customer acquisition, engagement, market research, loyalty building and data cleansing.

WHAT THEY NEEDED

After a flurry of new branch openings, our client reached out to us to help increase awareness and footfall in some of the newest branches. Although brand awareness was high, our client wanted to drive customers to the new branch, build the sales pipeline, and generate immediate opportunities for the sales team to follow up to allow them to hit the ground running. Our client also wanted to understand the buyer landscape in terms of what would attract customers to shop at their branches.

WHAT WE DID

We started by understanding their current customer personas and the types of businesses that typically bought from them already and used this as an indicator to profile and segment further data, encompassing their ideal target market. This included looking at factors such as employee size, main business activity and drivetime from the new branch sites.

After understanding the types of tradespeople our client wanted to reach out to, we segmented our target database to focus on those key areas which were likely to be receptive to the offering to generate immediate opportunities for the branch to quote for live projects. We developed a multi-channel approach to marketing, utilising both telemarketing and email marketing to reach prospects and nurture businesses along the sales pipeline.

Where prospects had no live projects of relevance, we sought to understand upcoming projects and typical buying patterns to build a medium- and longer-term prospect pipeline. This valuable market intelligence provides a contact list for the in-branch team to contact in future, and for the marketing team to segment for targeted email campaign. Where there was sufficient interest, we also encouraged them to open an account to they could begin to access targeted incentives and offers.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

Our first campaign targeted one new branch to pilot the approach. We were able to uncover 306 traders who wanted branch information, creating a strong sales pipeline to follow up. Of these 306 leads, we identified 30 hot leads who requested a quote for a live project or requested to open an account with our client. These 30 leads were passed over to the branch in real time meaning no opportunities were lost. These instant quotes not only generated interest in our client but allowed the sales team to be utilised from offset, meaning no resource was wasted.

The success of the pilot campaign led to our client not only utilising our lead generation and market research service for all new branch openings, but for the lowest performing branches identified as needing an extra boost.