It is second in the market to Howdens, the clear market leader with more than twice as many outlets. Based in Darlington, Magnet Trade have operated for over 90 years and have a strong manufacturing heritage
Strategy
In October 2009, the UK building industry experienced its 19th successive monthly contraction in activity; a market in which many of the main suppliers suffered sales declines.
Market intelligence indicated that October has traditionally been by far the biggest month of the year for the market leader.
Analysis of historical sales indicated that a small number of large value orders form a significant proportion of Magnet’s total sales; it was decided to focus the campaign on stimulating purchases in excess of £1500.
The promotion focused upon the idea that “Making it Magnet makes you more”, i.e. if the builder chose Magnet kitchens (over competitive products) there were clear financial and business benefits for them – more orders, more profits and more customer satisfaction, as well as greater rewards.
In order to gain maximum ROI and help switch sales from the competition, it was decided to launch the promotion a month ahead of the competitor’s promotional activity.
Objectives
To optimise sales from high-spending customers in the key sales period, by:
- Increasing kitchen sales volume and value by switching customers to Magnet Trade
- Increasing volume of transactions in excess of £1500
- Increasing the number of builders signing up for a trade account with Magnet Trade
- To build web traffic and harvest e-mail addresses and mobile numbers to enable multi-channel CRM activity
Target audience
- Small local building firms – typically 1 or 2 person businesses.
- Most of these traders will hold accounts with both Magnet and Howdens.
- Value for money and getting the best deal on products is of great importance to this audience in order to ensure greater profitability for their business, this can result in a lot of brand switching amongst Magnet Trade and their competitors
Media or channels used
A range of communications channels were used to attract both existing customers to spend and to encourage potential customers to open an account:
- 200,000 “boarding cards” to hand to customers/prospects and attach to quotes
- Banner on web homepage linking to promotional landing page/ Ts&Cs
- Customer magazine, The Mag (78,000 copies)
- In deals mailer, The Deal (87,000 mailed, 112,000 in branches)
- External and internal POS in branch to attract passing traffic
- A direct mail piece to customer base
- e-mails and reminder part-way through the campaign
- SMS reminders to register
- Two radio commercials on TalkSport – identified as one of the most popular media channels for the target audience via research
In order to participate, customers were directed to the promotional website to pre-register. If they made a qualifying purchase of £1,500 or more they were then emailed their promotional flights voucher within 28 days of the end of the promotional period.
Timescale
Planning phase: May – July 2009
Campaign build-up: August – September 2009
Launch: Sept 2nd 2009
Campaign close: Oct 31st 2009
Results/analysis: Dec 2009
Results
The campaign exceeded all targets but the results remain confidential
“Making it Magnet Makes You More was the flagship promotional activity for the brand in 2009, leading to a significant and measurable commercial benefit to the Magnet Trade business, the results of which are still felt throughout the business today. The promotion was so successful we are likely to be repeating a similar model in 2010 and the fact that we were able to achieve such impressive results in a highly competitive but flat market is testament to the impact that the activity had, not only amongst our existing customer base but also on new account recruitment and conversion. On top of this, Magnet Trade has accumulated a high quality segmentable database who we are able to retarget and communicate to, in order to further cement the brand relationship.” Matt Bunnell, business development & research manager, Magnet Trade
