Johnstone Supply

The Abstract

The HVACR industry is often considered "20 years backwards" in how business is performed. In layman's terms, marketing is ran by a bunch of old men. If you're not spending significant time in this industry, you wouldn't know that a mandatory change to "A2L" refrigerant is causing an upheaval in product diversity/offerings, and is followed by a hefty increase to prices across the board. In these strenuous market conditions Johnstone Supply, a cornerstone in the wholesale distribution of HVACR parts & equipment, were met with a challenge in multiplying costs, analog marketing strategies, and a pickier, more price sensitive consumer base.

I was hired in part to aid in business development tasks and diversify the marketing channels at Johnstone. This was done through a careful, measured approach. Despite having an app and a fully functional e-commerce platform, 80% of transactions are still done at the counter, in store. Doubly, social media and online marketing was at a complete standstill (petrified, even..) before my arrival. With this in mind, I designed a solution set to retain business in-store through pursuing customer loyalty via rewards programs, cross selling perks and benefits, and promotions urging customers to purchase in store. In addition to this, I drove traffic to our website through email marketing efforts, a newsletter promoting online-only deals and developing an automated lead generation strategy tied to our website platform. I also overhauled the segmentation process for our customers, filtering them based on their location, favorite store (of which we have 11), job title (whether they are an owner, a manager, or a technician, etc.), and much, much more.

The Challenges & Opportunities

• Running lean, so accurate and quick decision making was crucial.

• Creating a robust infrastructure with which future marketing campaigns could be built off of.

• Deciding on optimal content strategy and capturing the eyes of the consumer.

• Capturing a customer base that is relatively unfamiliar to digital advertising methods.

The Goal

• Grow organic traffic to our e-commerce platform that leads to conversion and repeat purchase behavior.

• Combine marketing channels to create a holistic brand experience across all of our channels (physical, digital).

• Craft a marketing strategy that is current but also flexible in the lieu of changing HVAC economic legislation and in a way that is empathetic and relatable with our clientele - HVAC businesses.

• Implement segmentation features, increasing the likely-hood of continual travel through the customer journey and making customer touchpoints as comfortable as possible.

The Segmentation Issue

We service a wide customer base in the HVACR industry. With this comes a broad set of product needs. The "mom-and-pop shop" isn't going to need a $10,000 piece of industrial equipment, but a private equity-owned billion dollar install company will need a dozen of them by next Thursday. When you're sending the same promotional emails to everyone, there's customer fatigue, lack of personalization, and failure to capture the needs of our consumer base. Revenue might not plummet, but lack of segmentation certainly does not help the business grow. With that in mind, I conducted deep research to see how exactly to segment and divide our customers into different personas. In regards to 'company size,' we decided to have them divided into "Trucks". Companies who have more trucks, have more business, and different needs. Plain & simple.

On the same string of thought, we needed to know what to purchase to cater to our customers most effectively. If we buy the $10,000 piece of industrial equipment, and there's no one in the segment to buy it, we have to eat the bitter loss.

So, when business owners sign up for their accounts to purchase parts and equipment, they're given a series of questions so that we can serve them better. We ask about what equipment they like to purchase, their main customer type, and their size. This aids in cleaning up sources of friction in our current sales pipeline, creating an easier to navigate sign up form easing customer consideration into conversion, and better personalizing their experience at Johnstone.

The Lead Generation Conundrum

Lead generation is vital for a B2B business like Johnstone Supply. Previously leads had been generated through traditional sales-driven marketing strategies, but virtually nothing in the way of digital marketing-qualified individuals. Fun fact: 80% of Johnstone's business is made through only a handful of high-volume purchasing accounts. The vast majority of customers have high churn, and by tapping into the digital space it not only allows us to generate user loyalty, and access omnichannel marketing by connecting our marketing channels, but also allows us to have higher visibility, thusly widening the berth of potential leads at TOFU.

Social media was a big growth point in the Johnstone customer journey. This was mainly accomplished through full utilization of the platforms (primarily Instagram). By leveraging UGC, applying every possible avenue of sharing content (stories, comments, links, etc.), and pinned posts + story highlights, it not only gave our social media accounts more professionalism and credibility, but also drew in engagements. For example, we were able to share A2L related resources through story highlights, featuring our website which carries video tutorials, and an overview of all the equipment changes that will come with the switch. Our trainings, which in and of themselves build customer loyalty and brand credibility, are featured heavily on our social media platforms and co-posting with vendors like Bosch, Fieldpiece, VetoPro among others has been essential to attracting attention.

Year over year, we've multiplied reach x5 and views by over 120%.

In developing leads, we've implemented a pop-up banner to appear on our website to entice potential customers to educate themselves on the brand, potential promotions, and upcoming trainings. This in conjunction with our email marketing nurtures leads into the consideration stage, and has been one of our biggest resources in rapport-building. Through this channel we've been able to automate steady traffic to our email, and from there incorporate our newsletters, educational resources, and online-only promotions to drive sales and see a healthy ROI.

The Promo Problem

To facilitate sales in-store, we took an approach that married our online segmentation efforts and reflected on our shared experiences and understanding of our customer base. By and large our customer base are male, in their middle-to-late 40s, and love sports, outdooring, and shooting. With this in mind, we found the perfect promotional item to push in order to stimulate sales. We offered a promotion leading up to the Superbowl where individuals who purchase $1,000 or more in-store (excluding equipment and refrigerant), they were automatically eligible to win a free firepit, perfect for grilling, and perfect to fit in your truck and take tailgating. Through our customer knowledge, we pushed out a suite of social media posts, an email campaign, and flyers in the store through the playoffs and into the week of the event. During this period we saw a 10% increase in sales at the counter, with an average ticket amount 20% higher than prior to the promotion's start.

The Good Things (Deliverables, Results)

• Promotion material (flyers, online advertising, social media) aided in growing in-store sales 10% YOY from December - February.

• Qualified leads generated increased 210%

• Created a detailed, robust segmentation process to easily target our ideal customer, as well as expounded on the characteristics and tropes of our many 'ideal customer personas'

• Increased social media reach by 480% across Facebook & Instagram

• Improved revenue drawn from our e-commerce platform by 30% for the off-season.

  
  

The Outcome

Through this process, we overhauled the customer journey with optimized traveling between touchpoints and created new marketing solutions that capitalize on time-sensitive events and the wealth of knowledge collected about our clientele.

Working through these projects I learned how to really get in the weeds on connectivity between platforms, and how to guide the consumer through the funnel, into conversion, and ultimately becoming a repeat customer.