Are You Marketing What Installers Really Want To Buy?

Craig Barker, Managing Director of Koobr and Balls2 Marketing, explains why the most effective marketing for fabricators and systems companies goes beyond product features to answer the questions that really influence buying decisions.

If you’ve been in the glazing industry for any length of time, you’ve probably had this experience more than once. A homeowner seems genuinely interested. They ask for a quote, spend time discussing colours, finishes and glazing options, thank you for your time, then disappear.

A few weeks later you discover they’ve gone elsewhere. When that happens, it’s natural to assume somebody beat you on price, offered a better product or simply got there first. Of course that’s true in some cases, yet I’d argue there have been plenty of times that decision was taking shape long before your salesperson walked through the door.

What homeowners are really buying

I think installer marketing often answers the wrong questions. Spend a few minutes on most websites or social feeds and you’ll find plenty about profiles, U-values, security features, glazing options and guarantees. Useful, yes. But rarely the things swirling around a homeowner’s mind when they’re debating whether now is the ideal time for that extension.

They’re thinking about the money, the mess, whether the fitters will turn up when they say they will. Whether they’ll regret the decision once the excitement has worn off. They don’t just need information; they need to feel safe saying yes.

Making sales easier

The role of marketing is often misunderstood. Some clients tell us they’ve weighed up whether to work with Koobr or employ another salesperson. We tell them the two aren’t comparable. Marketing isn’t there to replace a salesperson, it’s there to make that salesperson’s job easier.

If a homeowner already trusts your business before you arrive, believes you understand their concerns and has seen enough proof that you can deliver, the conversation starts in a very different place. You’re no longer trying to create confidence from scratch, you’re building on confidence that’s already there.

Too much marketing focuses on getting somebody to enquire. The better question is whether it’s helping somebody feel comfortable enough to choose you.

Answer the doubt, win the work

I’ve always believed good marketing should make buying easier. That doesn’t mean oversimplifying the product or avoiding technical detail. It means recognising the point somebody has reached in their decision-making and helping them take the next step.

Seeing a completed project in a similar property can be more reassuring than another product specification. A past customer explaining how tidy the installers were can remove doubt that a brochure never will. Showing what happens on installation day, introducing the people behind the business or explaining how you deal with problems all help homeowners picture themselves choosing you.

Why?

Every piece of marketing should answer a question, remove a concern or support a sales conversation. If it doesn’t, Koobr will question why you’re doing it in the first place.

Meaningful Marketing

That’s the thinking behind our Meaningful Marketing approach. We’re not declaring every social post or email needs to generate a direct sale. We are saying they should have a clear role in helping the business grow. Sometimes that’s creating awareness. Sometimes it’s overcoming an objection. Sometimes it’s giving a homeowner the confidence to pick up the phone.

When marketing has a unified purpose within your team, it stops being another job on the list and starts becoming something much more valuable. It helps homeowners make decisions, sales teams have better conversations and installers spend more time quoting for the work they actually want to win.

Picture: Craig Barker is the MD of Koobr and Balls2Marketing (Koobr bought Balls2Marketing). The PR agency works with big suppliers, fabricators and window and home improvement installers. Barker is an advocate of Meaningful Marketing for installers which revolves around actually answering the questions customers early so that trust makes sales more likely and easier.