5 Things to Know About Your Builder Customers
September 3, 2020
Building product manufacturers looking to enter the builder channel and work directly with home builders gain the potential to learn crucial information about their customers that helps to develop and maintain lasting relationships.
In this post, we look at five pieces of information or data you should know about your home builder customers that will help you in your overall business, sales and marketing planning. Importantly, this information is key to understanding who and where you valuable customers are.
We've talked before about how it costs 5 to 25 times less to retain customers than gain new ones, so maintaining — and improving — relationships is as important as customer acquisition.
[1] The builders getting your business
Knowing the builders who are purchasing your products, or who could be a great fit for purchasing your products, is the foundation to all of this. And it’s also why building product manufacturers choose to pursue the builder channel. There's generally a lack of transparency once a product leaves the warehouse.
To demystify where products end up, you could develop relationships with distributors and suppliers. It’s a good move, and one of our subsequent tips is to learn builders’ networks. Still, that doesn’t always provide a clear picture of exactly where your products are installed.
That’s where rebates come in. When a builder claims a rebate on a product, you’re able to learn who purchased that product and where it ended up, down to the home address. Not only is that useful for future sales with the builder, but in maintaining a relationship with that home’s owner when warranties come up.
[2] Your share of a builder’s business
Once you know who your customers are, you can start to gather the vital details that help to keep them as customers. This includes how much of their business you’re actually getting.
If it’s very little, you have an opportunity to learn why and grow them as a customer. If they exclusively use your brand, you could have a powerful brand advocate to partner with. Or, alternately a customer whose lack of business could hurt your sales if you were to lose them.
This information can also be a powerful conversation starter for more than just sales reps. Builders hold a treasure trove of valuable insights into why they, or their subcontractors, use the products they do — particularly useful for when your brand is rethinking sales and marketing approaches, or even product development.
Not yet a HomeSphere partner?
HomeSphere manufacturer partners have access to the largest community of home builders in the United States.
[3] Their lifetime value as a customer
Knowing the value of each customer is also imperative to knowing where you can grow with a customer, and which builders are your most loyal.
This data gives you the opportunity to track growth with a customer and see how your profits with them have expanded. You can use the information to project growth and also to set goals.
It can also show the bad news: when their usage of your brand has dropped off or decreased.
[4] When you’re losing a customer
It’s not enough to find out you've lost a customer when their brand usage completely stops. There’s a chance at that point that bad feelings are involved, and they're possibly lost for good.
So, knowing when a customer is heading out the door, but isn’t there yet, can be a huge advantage.
When you closely track a builder’s brand usage in financial value and the share you have of that builder’s business, you can start to pinpoint when you’re losing them.
This information can then be used to take corrective action and retain their business. It’s a good opening to show you care about them as a customer.
[5] A builder’s industry networks
Knowing a builder’s trade partners, subs, distributors, suppliers and installers is invaluable when you’re trying to win a builder’s business.
For one, it’s helpful when you sell a product that an installer, for example, heavily influences. Or, in another example, if you provide a product a designer would influence.
Knowing who a builder works with, or who’d they be likely to work with in a given region, can help you get a better audience with that builder.
It also widens your own network and can help to bring in more leads.
How HomeSphere can help
HomeSphere’s platform for building product manufacturers, HomeSphere-IQ®, provides all of this information and data without the need for you to manually track it.
We work with 2,600+ builders across the United States as part of the HomeSphere Rebate Program, where we partner with manufacturers to negotiate and facilitate builder rebates.
As a manufacturer partner, you’ll gain access to:
- Demographic and behavioral information on the builders who use your brand
- Insights into whether a builder is claiming your brand exclusively or if they also submit rebates on competitors
- Data on the revenue a builder brings you annually
If you’re interested in learning more, visit our solutions page.
If you're a current HomeSphere partner and have questions on where to access this information in our platform, contact your partner manager.
We also offer solutions for direct rebate management. Contact our team for more information.
