BMJ BUILDERS MERCHANTS JOURNAL
SUPPLIER SUMMIT
FACING UP TO NEW CHALLENGES Adam Callow talked about harnessing the power of social media to augment what independents are already doing well.
It is the best live market research there is.” “We’re in the most social industry ever but we’re not actively social on social. It’s a conversation space,” he added. “This stuff isn’t a threat, it’s a channel to actually use to amplify your business.” He wasn’t, he said, asking people to change what they do, rather to amplify what they already do so well. “You know as well as I do what that is. It’s relationships. “The goal for today is to inspire you to think about how you use platforms like Facebook to scale the relationships you have with your customers. Don’t forget that you have a recording studio in your pocket with your phone. If you hold a breakfast morning video some of it, letting people see what’s going on. Create a post on Facebook, click Boost and tell Facebook who you want to see that post. You can target, say, plumbers within five miles of your branch and who shop at Screwfix. Facebook will do the rest.”
“I
Gone are the days of videos needing a huge camera and days of editing he said. “Facebook
n the last 48 hours, who has opened up either the Facebook app, the Twitter app or LinkedIn or YouTube,” Adam Callow, founder of trade directory Expert Trades asked delegates at the NBG Supplier Summit. When more or less the entire room stood up he said: “This is what fascinates me more than anything. As individuals we are consuming content every single day through our phones. So are your customers, yet less than 5% of the organisations in this room today are deploying real resources to communicate to their customers where those customers are currently spending all of their attention.”
His presentation, he said, was not going to be about Facebook, rather it was about understanding where merchants’ customers are directing their attention. “If you do not have the attention of your customers you cannot hope to sell them stuff and the trade’s attention right now is on their phones,” he said.
“Any of you who are thinking to yourselves that this is rubbish. That your customers aren’t on Facebook and that they don’t use social media - you are wrong. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook this year is the 55+ category. Your customers are on Facebook.” As an example, Callow told delegates to look on Facebook for the BuildersTalk group. “It has just shy of 80,000 members. These are tradespeople who are going online every day because often their best friend on site is the radio and they go online to kill some time, to see what’s happening out there. As marketers in the room, you need to get your product in front of customers in order to sell to them. This really is a platform you should all be paying attention to.”
He pointed out that it is not just builders who are active on Facebook. “Whatever product you sell, whether it’s paint, roof windows, or electrical equipment, whatever you sell, there’s a group for it. We have places like GasChat for heating engineers, there are decorators’ forums: join the groups, don’t talk in them but listen to the stuff that goes on.
January 2019
videos do not have to be perfect. The thing that everyone gets a bit hung up on and which stops them getting the best out of this platform is that they want it to be perfect content. But the power you guys have is that you are real, you are real people and your customers are real people and real people aren’t perfect. No-one expects your Facebook marketing videos to be perfect.”
“ “ The fastest growing
demographic on Facebook this year is in the over 55 category. Your customers are on Facebook.
Callow gave an example of how he worked with Kingsley Plumbing and Heating Merchants on a joint promotion with Monument Tools, who themselves have a big Facebook following. “They held a joint breakfast morning, launching it through both the Kingsley Facebook page on the Monument Tools Facebook page. Every £10 customers spent got them a free Monument pipe slice with their name inscribed on it, saying that it had been supplied by Kingsley. Kingsley said they thought it was their best day ever in terms of Monument sales.” He added that he believes that merchants have an amazing opportunity to work together to create really valuable engaged content. “When you have finished a breakfast morning, get the relevant area manager on camera saying ‘If you didn’t come to the breakfast morning, here are the three products you missed out on hearing about
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