InHouse Inspired Room Design MD Wayne Dance shares a tactic he has used in the past that could make your KBB project the hot topic of conversation at your customers’ homes this Christmas
It’s been a strange year for all of us and we aren’t out of the woods yet, with Covid and Brexit firmly in the hourly news.
In reality, this has been an eight-month year for most showrooms in terms of being able to be open to the public. Even the busiest have suffered in footfall, but most have been innovative when finding ways to keep the selling wheels turning.
This led me to think again about an idea we used to use in the past come Christmas time.
It’s traditionally a time to say thank-you and show our appreciation of relationships present and past. Many retailers have a Christmas card database to thank past customers and remind them they are still there. But, in reality a Christmas card that goes on the wall of a customer’s home among hundreds of others will not stand out.
So how can you stand out? Of course, you can use social media and hard copy advertising to attract new customers, but does this really reach customers from the past and push them into recommending us to friends and family? It can help, of course, but it needs a catalyst to be truly effective.
Or you could use Interflora to be the catalyst. For £20 per customer, you could have a lovely thank-you bouquet of flowers delivered to the door of every customer you’ve supplied throughout the year. Go back two years, if budgets allow. Attach a big thank-you card that stands out proudly in the middle of the bouquet, saying ‘thanking you for choosing us for your kitchen/bathroom/bedroom’ and attach your business card to the message.
So why should this be such a good catalyst? Well, here’s why:
- It’s the one time of year when family and friends definitely get together and visit each other’s homes – Covid restrictions permitting;
- A bunch of flowers always stands out and creates conversation, such as ‘Who’s the secret admirer?’ or ‘Who bought you those beautiful flowers?’;
- Once the subject is raised, it leads to the answer ‘Oh it was a lovely surprise. We didn’t expect this, but it was from the people who we bought our lovely new kitchen/bathroom/bedroom from’. That then makes the new kitchen/bedroom/bathroom the focus of attention and admiration and creates a discussion about it.
When you buy a new car, for the first couple of months you will get pleasure in driving it anywhere. Even for errands you normally don’t like doing. But, as time goes by, the newness wears off and you start to take it for granted and it’s not such a pleasure anymore. This is human nature and it’s no different with a new kitchen, bathroom or bedroom.
At a time when your customers are bound to be having visitors, they should be proud and excited to show off their new investment and that’s the time when the retailer needs to rekindle the client’s enthusiasm so that they can create a bit of peer envy. A nice thank-you gesture that stands out in the crowd does exactly that – and for those it gets interested, all your contact details are there too.
As today’s world is fed by social media, you can even ask clients you have a good relationship with to send you a picture of the flowers in place and ask their permission to post it alongside the project photos and a referral letter. What better way to cost-effectively get the message out there to say ‘Come to us for your new kitchen/bedroom/bathroom?’ And make sure it is linked to your website.
If you sell a project a week over the year, it will only cost £1,000 to make this standout gesture and to put you right back in the minds of those customers who may have forgotten to mention you.
It’s just a thought.