Immersive marketing that wins the sale

For Hurst Doors, the UK supplier of PVC-U door panels, composite doors and fire doors, investment in marketing correlates directly with its customers’ success.

Fully acknowledging this reality, Hurst has invested heavily in an integrated marketing package. Making use of the latest technology, whilst retaining simplicity, the package is designed to help retail installers sell more doors, more effectively.

“Investment in marketing is critical for Hurst because it’s critical for our customers,” says Hayley Barker, Head of Marketing at Hurst Doors.

“The brochures, augmented reality (AR) tool, and video content that we’ve created have all been designed to support the sales process for our retail customers.”

With around 80% of those customers operating a smaller-scale business model, Hurst’s marketing plan was centred around recognition that many installers don’t have access to dedicated showrooms.

“This means going into their customers’ homes with a brochure full of 2D images, which often doesn’t do the products justice enough to sell them,” explains Hayley.

“Our task was to give our customers the tools to bring those doors to life – in the comfort of the homeowner’s own living room.”

The result is a suite of marketing tools designed to create an immersive showroom experience, whatever the location.

 

‘A showroom in your pocket’

Central to the package, Hurst’s AR sales tool enables installers and homeowners to visualise doors in 3D and in-situ, directly on the intended property.

With CGI imagery used throughout Hurst’s brochures, homeowners can access their chosen door style instantly on their smartphone through a simple QR code. The technology also allows users to rotate the door 360º, zoom-in to see woodgrain effects and glass styles up close, and walk around the visualised door using AR.

“It’s like having a showroom in your pocket,” Hayley explains. “From a sales perspective, the fact that you can walk around the door, see the grain effect, see the glass style – those elements go far beyond ‘what does it look like on your front door, Mrs Smith?’ It’s far more than that.

“It also makes it much easier for installers to sell to those homeowners who may be housebound or live too far from a physical showroom to make a visit.”

In addition to the AR tool, installers also have free access to high-quality CGI renders for websites and social media, customisable social graphics and video content to support digital marketing.

With all this available, free of charge, to all Hurst customers, the marketing package also helps smaller installers to compete against larger companies, with access to greater resources, on a level playing field.

“All of these tools are absolutely free to use for our customers,” Hayley confirms. “Along with any of the imagery from the brochures, they can have the QR codes – even for their invoices and emails – which link to the 3D imagery.”

By equipping installers with tools that genuinely bring products to life, Hurst is helping them convert more leads, increase customer confidence and differentiate themselves from the competition.

“When manufacturers invest in marketing that helps installers sell, they’re investing in everyone’s success,” says Hayley. “That’s our marketing mission, here at Hurst.”