What Are You Doing to Keep Contractors Coming Back?
By John Sonnhalter, Rainmaker Journeyman, Sonnhalter
The biggest challenge manufacturers face today is the ability to keep contractors interested and engaged in their brands. It’s much easier to keep an existing contractor than going out and trying to convert a new one.
In a recent eMarketer article they talked about how B2B International surveyed 266 U.S.- and Western Europe-based B2B marketers from a variety of industries in October and November 2015. The market research firm found that 62% of respondents said building market share remained the top challenge among others.
But how do you build market share without building relationships with those you sell to? Contractors are looking at solutions, not new products! If your product can help them do their job better or quicker, then you have a winner.
What can you do? One way is helping them identify pain points in their daily routine. A common one is getting new business leads. Owens Corning has a great website where on the one page it focuses on getting the user to the right contractor.
Another pain point for contractors is training employees, both old and new. Most good contractors are limited on growing their company because they can’t find qualified people to do the work. Dust off those YouTube videos and training tips and tricks and offer them to contractors. They can be offered online and you can incentivize the recipients for taking and passing the course. What better way to build brand loyalty from both the contractor and the worker.
There are plenty of ways to build market share and one of them is loyalty. You need to get and keep them engaged and always answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” Word gets around (contractors talk to each other).