Most construction product brands that sell to professional construction firms typically sell to distributors. Beside the distributor designation, channel participants might be designated as dealers, wholesalers, jobbers, installers, manufacturers representatives or brokers.
In this post, we’ll cover various tactics for distributor and channel marketing and share a survey with you, taken by construction marketing professionals, on which channel promotions they use for their marketing and which initiatives they find most and least effective.
Distributor Channel Marketing
Distributor channel marketing tactics encompass a variety of activities including partner research, recruitment, retention, training, advisory groups or distributor councils, administration (including reporting) and fulfillment, call center or customer service, CRM and marketing automation, and legal requirements.
Channel Promotion
Channel promotion encompasses a variety of initiatives including Co-op marketing or market development funds (MDF); contest and sweepstakes; Spiff/Rebate and Trade-in programs; communication, training, certification and support programs; new product or program launch; special packaging or merchandising; event marketing (dealer demos, jobsite visits, entertainment, etc), sale premiums or ad specialties.
Survey on Distributor Channel Marketing
To further understand channel promotion, the Construction Marketing Association undertook a national survey in 2011, with the following questions on distributor channel marketing:
- Does your company/brand use Channel Promotions?
- What type of Channel Promotions do you use for marketing?
- Which Channel Promotions are the most effective?
- Which Channel Promotions are the least effective?
Below are the results from the Distributor Channel Marketing survey:
You can see from the above that most construction marketers use channel promotions.
When it comes to types of channel promotions used for distributor channel marketing, price incentives, events and merchandising displays were among the top three marketing tactics used by construction marketers.
The most effective channel promotions for construction marketers appear to be price discounts, merchandising and event promotions. This makes sense considering these are among the top three types of promotions that are in use.
The survey indicated that giveaways and contests were not effective channel marketing promotions. We believe this could be due to lack of quality leads from these sources. Perhaps the giveaway and contest entrants are just trying to receive free information and are not actually interested in the brand or product.
Please share this with others who are interested in distributor channel marketing, and share your experiences and tips on these tactics below.
Interested in reading more on channel marketing? Check out our additional reading on marketing to Home Improvement Retailers below.
Additional Reading:
Marketing to Home Improvement Retailers: Snapshot & Survey Results
Marketing To Home Improvement Retailers: Merchandising and Packaging
Marketing To Home Improvement Retailers: Line Reviews