Digital-Promotion

Background:
Banner Solutions is the leading national supplier of security opening hardware products. It provides service, support, and sells 250 quality brands of products to contract hardware distributors, building materials dealers, locksmiths, glass and glazing contractors and systems integrators. The company offers inventory breadth and depth for more than 140,000 items and it ships the same day from 10 nationwide distribution centers that reach 75% of the U.S. within a day. Before its redesign, BannerSolutions.com generated 19% of the company’s revenue (compared to 81% in other channels) and 30% of orders initiated online (compared to 70% through other channels). Locksmiths and contract hardware distributors ordered online more than other groups. System integrators had the fewest web orders.

Challenge:
The company, as its chief digital officer said, already had a “great website” and a service reputation built from decades in the market, but wanted to elevate every customer web experience to grow online orders. After feedback from customers and employees, Banner decided what web features the company could add to continue its commitment to advance customer interactions and “wow at every opportunity.” Once the website was redesigned, Banner requested a strategy and marketing plan to introduce the new Banner Solutions and create associated assets to engage new and existing users both pre-launch and post-launch. The goal was to stimulate engagement with the new site. Objectives included increasing online orders to more than 50% of all orders and to reach 50% of total revenue via online orders by the end of 2024.

Solution:
Extensive research on the psychographics and customer pain points of each customer group, revealed pain points that included fear of change, account management complexity, and project order disorganization. For those with this pain point, the concept of the redesigned website as productivity partner hit the mark. For those whose pain point included supply and shipment ambiguity and options uncertainty, transparency and seamless search were highlighted. After working to understand the target audience and the new site’s capabilities, an overarching big idea emerged: The new site is workflow simplified. To engage the target groups effectively, the strategy had to speak to how a new website made their jobs and interactions more straightforward and manageable. The addition of “We Heard You” in the campaign acknowledged the target groups’ concerns and Banner’s understanding of those concerns—and its subsequent solutions. Trade publication ads, advertorials, explanatory videos and direct mail promotional items were created and dispatched prior to and immediately after the website launch.

Summary:
Once the site launched in November 2022, Banner Solutions’ engagement goal was quickly met, with 1.5 million impressions, 48,500 clicks and a click-through rate of 3.2%. Also remarkable were the Product Snippets with 1450 clicks. (Product rich snippets is used to display product rich results that provide searchers with more detailed information about an item, its price, rating, description and photo, according to Google.) In a comparison of time frames, from Nov. 4, 2022, to May 1, 2023, BannerSolutions.com saw a 60% increase in sessions over the same time the previous year (673,000 sessions vs 419,450) and Paid Search saw 57,070 sessions vs 25,500, a 123% increase. Display sessions went from zero to 3,000. The company’s online ordering objectives continue to be on-track for 2023 through the end of 2024.