Redwood dealer's path to success

llt HAT marketing strategy does a UU lumber and hardware dealer use when their formerly rural location is becoming a fast-growing suburb? Yaeger & Kirk have found that redwood products attract and hold customer attention. They also believe in a solid, back-to-basics sales approach combined with mass mailing, television and radio advertising.

Yaeger & Kirk's main yard is in Santa Rosa. Ca.. 90 minutes north of San Francisco. The company has two other outlets in nearby Sonoma and Ukiah. It is a region shifting away from primarily small farming and ranching towns to include new, affluent suburbs and fast-growing urban centers.

Their current customer mix is approximately one-third do-it-yourself homeowners and two-thirds contractors. One product that galvanizes the attention of both is redwood.

"This is an increasingly competitive market." says company president Buck Yaeger. "We need to promote the company aggressively. At the same time, we don't have a huge marketing budget. We have invested in radio and tv spots, but they aren't flashy or expensively produced. Their purpose is to communicate the Yaeger & Kirk message, and we've opted to keep that message simple to stress the basics: good service, quality products and accessibility. Our redwood deck display is a perfect example of this approach."

The display is a sectional demonstration redwood deck, complete with decorative railing samples. The deck can be broken down and moved, and Yaeger's staff rotates it among the three stores. "Customers are really taken by the sectional display. It looks great and I think it makes the idea of building a deck seem more feasible," he says.

Another Yaeger and Kirk innova- tion is pre-packaged deck construction kits. There is a lot of new construction in their Sonoma County area as well as a great deal of old home upgrading. Accordingly, demand for garden grades of redwood is high. Yaeger & Kirk went an extra step to meet the demand by offering ready-to-use packages of lumber, concrete piers, nails and materials for a variety of different sized and shaped redwood decks. "By making the building process a little simpler," Yaeger claims, "we make the customer a lot happier."

This emphasis on customer satisfaction plays an important role in their grass roots marketing effort. Yaeger makes sure his staff can do more than just ring up an order. Store personnel learn about the different grades of redwood, as well as deck and fence design and building techniques. CRA literature and other handbooks are available, too.

"Redwood is a draw for us." Yaeger says. "lt's beautiful. lt looks and feels great. lt creates an atmosphere of quality for the whole store. But it doesn't do us a bit of good if someonehomeowner or professional contractorcomes to us for decking supplies and can't get a few questions answered. When we establish a customer's confidence, we establish a long-term relationship that

Story at a Glance

How redwood can attract contractor and consumer trade .why a traveling deck display, pre-packaged deck kits, innovative displays, strong customer service pay off radio, tv, catalog and print advertising reach wide market.

can generate repeat business for redwood and non-redwood products alike. "

Yaeger & Kirk's innovative product displays and aggressive customer service have yielded excellent results and a strong word-of-mouth reputation for quality.

The company publishes a monthly sales catalog. lt is sent to all customers as well as to other homes in targeted neighborhoods. Television and radio advertisements are runprinrarily during the spring and summer months - to complenrent mailings. Both are oriented toward specific sale items and feature a company jingle. They also run print ads in the real estate and honre sections oflocal newspapers.

"This is a growing region and we have responded to the demographic changes by going to some of these more sophisticated techniques, " Yaeger explains. "But even so, the grass-roots approach is still the heart of our marketing effort. We still hold our Contractors Appreciation Night dinner twice a year to thank our biggest customers face to face. We still sponsor local youth athletic programs. We still contribute to charities and service organizations in Sonoma (iounty."

"lt's a blend of tradition and innovation," he concludes. "This company has been in business since the I 870s and you can't survive over a century without responding to change. At the sanre time, we haven't lost sight of what Yaeger & Kirk is. We offer quality products and services. We've found effective ways of presenting the company to its nrarket, and we're growing, so it all seems to be working for us."