With the boom in the home improvement market now clearly a distant memory, we all envisaged that the demand for new windows and doors would not be able to continue at the rate that we had experienced over the last few years. Selecta Systems Marketing Manager, Mark Walker, talks about how they are taking fabricator and installer sales and marketing support to a whole new level.
Over the last few years, we have been working meticulously in the background at ways of adding real value and benefits to our sales and marketing support service, tools and mechanisms. Our main drive and objective being very clear; to make our sales and marketing support package a real game changer, not only for ourselves, but more importantly for our fabricators and installers.
New Trade & Homeowner Websites
One of the first investments we identified was a brand-new website. In fact, we saw huge opportunities for two new websites, one for trade and one for retail. We were experiencing a number of homeowner enquiries, some 25+ per week, just through the website alone and more via telephone and email. This highlighted that there was potential for a consumer dedicated website with improved homeowner-based information and branding.
This in-turn would be capable of generating and capturing sales leads for our fabricator and installer customer base. Hence, we designed and built both a trade and retail website, with the latter aimed at promoting the ADVANCE 70 brand. The way we see it is that our fabricators and/or installers sell the ADVANCE 70 window and door system, not Selecta, and the end consumer has ADVANCE 70 windows and doors installed.
On both the selectasystems.com and advance70.co.uk websites, a Find a Fabricator / Installer feature was added, to make it easier and quicker for consumers to engage with our growing customer base. By filtering it down to their area, distance from their location and products required, consumers can drill down their most local fabricators and/or installers. Direct links to the fabricator and/or installers website and contact details are included in the customer card, all contained within a Google map with directions, street view and other map functions.
Window & Door Designer and Home Visualiser
The biggest and most exciting addition to the consumer dedicated website is the Window and Door Designer with Home Visualiser, delivered by the amazing TOUCH. The complete range of Selecta products, direct from our Business Micros dataset, have been included thus allowing visitors to the site to design their own windows and doors!
They can choose the style, configuration, colour, hardware and glass decoration before saving each design within the portal. The most valuable part of the designer is that a homeowner can upload images of their home and drop on their newly designed windows and doors! This enables them to see if the colour or design they desire compliments the style, period and location of their home before submitting the enquiry. Once completed they can submit their enquiry which lands within the Dealer Network section of our newly upgraded Connect customer portal. A professional PDF copy of their design lands in the homeowners inbox too!
Once the enquiry hits our admin area of the Connect portal, we are then able to assign it to their local fabricator and/or installer! Every customer of Selecta is included within the Connect portal and has an account to not only access their sales leads, but a host of other sales and marketing tools and information. The fabricator and/or installer is now able to accept the lead, which comes complete with the customers design and contact details. It also allows them to download a professional PDF copy of the design and a survey sheet to quote the customer.
Selecta are the first systems company to launch the TOUCH Window and Door Designer and provide this level of sales and marketing support, as we continue to put fabricators and installers at the heart of our business. Between the Find a Fabricator / Installer feature and the Window and Door Designer alone we are currently generating in excess of 200 sales leads per month. These are distributed through the Connect Dealer Network to our customer base, dependent on leads location. We see this figure increasing greatly during 2024 as we venture on an exciting campaign to further promote the ADVANCE 70 brand, website and Window & Door Designer.
Stay Connected
As part of the website updates, we also upgraded our Connect customer support portal. Connect is designed to provide fabricators and/or installers with 24/7, 365 days a year access to a host of sales, marketing and technical support tools and information.
Originally launched in 2018, our Connect customer support portal, now includes more sales and marketing tools than ever before! The same Window and Door Designer with Home Visualiser that features upon our homeowner website, is available to fabricators and installers to have branded and sit on their own website. This amazing designer package and sales lead generator revolutionises the way fabricators and/or installers present and sell windows and doors to a whole new level.
Also, within Connect is a brand-new website support package, where themed ready-made websites for both trade and retail businesses are available to fabricators and/or installers, who don’t want to go through the headache of a website build. With pages full of quality imagery and product information, all that’s needed to complete your branded site is your logo, contact details, colour scheme and about us bio. Combine that with the Window and Door Designer and you have the complete online package to help you win new business!
We also have a web2print brochure creator on its way that allows our customers to brand and edit our range of brochures with their own information and imagery, without requiring any graphic design experience. There will also be a stationery and promotional product shop, where customers can design and purchase everything from branded pens and letterheads, through to workwear and mugs.
With the addition of new sales brochures, branded sales videos and images, these investments in our range of sales and marketing tools demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the industry and more importantly, our customer base. Everything has been purposely designed to provide fabricators and/or installers with a simplistic way of upgrading their sales and marketing offering, helping to promote their products and services. All of which is aimed at helping fabricators and/or installers win new business and take their business to a whole new level in 2024 and beyond.