DOORS & COMMERCIAL ENTR ANCE S
For the majority of companies in the home
improvement window and door sector,
the decision to shut up shop and wait
for the storm to pass was a simple one.
With the industry’s primary customer base off
limits there was little point in keeping factories
open and incurring costs unnecessarily. There
was some consternation about the ease and
speed with which the decision to close was
taken, leaving some in the lurch, but it was largely
unequivocal and the majority of window and
door companies, at every level in the supply
chain, completely suspended operations.
During lockdown however, if you were one
of the millions that viewed social media such as
July www.ggpmag.com
Facebook, or amused themselves by cruising
YouTube, then dependent upon the cookie
trail left by your lockdown surfing habits, any
one of more than half a dozen stylish videos
featuring residential doors by Apeer will have
regularly flashed up on your screen. For whilst
the Ballymena-based composite door maker and
window maker locked its factory gates, it also
stepped up its consumer-facing promotional
campaigns.
“In the past couple of years, we have focused
on developing our consumer marketing,”
explained Apeer MD Asa McGillian. “At the core
of this were campaigns to drive homeowners to
the Apeer website where they would find and
frequently use the Apeer Doorbuilder, from
which any leads would be distributed to our
dealers. This proved successful early on and so
quite naturally we have built upon that, to make
it work even better.”
Video has proven to be one of the most
powerful mediums in consumer marketing and
late last year Asa and his team, led by marketing
manager, Linda Tomb, decided upon the
creation of a series of videos to promote Apeer
residential composite doors, and the company’s
Lumi replacement windows: “We decided to
revamp our whole marketing portfolio, a huge
undertaking as any company out there knows,
including our websites, brochures, Doorbuilder
and seven videos for Apeer doors and three
for Lumi windows,” said Asa, “and all to be
completed by June.”
And then, of course, came Coronavirus. Linda
Tomb takes up the story: “We had production
of the videos well underway, with a couple
Holding the door ajar
When the axe fell and lockdown was announced, Apeer
actually intensified its consumer marketing reach. GGP
talks to MD, Asa McGillian, and marketing manager, Linda
Tomb, on how effective this proved to be.
“We decided to revamp our whole marketing portfolio,
a huge undertaking as any company out there knows,
including our websites, brochures, Doorbuilder and seven
videos for Apeer doors and three for Lumi windows”
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