SMART Global Q2 Newsletter

DEEP DEEP CUTS SMART NEW ZEALAND

SMART NZ LAUNCHES NEW PACKS AND PRODUCTS SMART UK

SMART UK EXPANDS THE TEAM SMART EUROPE

SMART BENELUX SOCIAL MEDIA GROWTH SMART SCANDINAVIA

NEW DISTRIBUTOR FOR SMART SCANDINAVIA

SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

SMART GLOBAL

SMART

DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

GLOBAL SMART GLOBAL

Hello and welcome SMART employees, clients, and partners.

Happy Spring! I am pleased to have you back for another edition of DEEP CUTS, the SMART Tool Group Global Newsletter. I hope you had a good first quarter and are looking forward to what the rest of the year has to offer. As usual, we have some brief news to share with you all from the four major regions of SMART. Curious what SMART NZ has been up to? Go to page 2 to read more on their newly released value packs and the fantastic TR32 multi-tool.

Over in Scandinavia, we are doing a trial run with Bygma, a popular chain of hardware stores. We also have great news to share with our Scandinavian partners about our Swedish warehouse. Curious? Read it on page 10.

The UK team is in a full celebratory mood this quarter: welcoming new team members, making viral videos, and launching the updated SMART websites! Learn more and celebrate with them on page 4.

The keyword for SMART EU this quarter is growth, so if you are interested in reading about SMART Benelux’s social media growth as well as the growing list of European countries that stock our products, head on over to page 8.

Thank you for reading and being a part of the third edition of DEEP CUTS. See you in the next one!

Sincerely, Katya Soedigwan EU Marketing Coordinator On behalf of SMART Tool Group Global

A big thank you to the following people on making this edition of DEEP CUTS possible: Robert Mallory, Global Marketing Manager UK Simon Suckling, International Sales Manager EU James Carlen, Sales Manager SC David Suckling, Director NZ Stephanie Eastlake, Senior Graphic Designer UK

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NEW SMART NEW ZEALAND

SMART NZ LAUNCHES NEW PACKS AND PRODUCTS GREAT SUCCESS FOLLOWING B-SERIES PACKS AND TR32

Greetings from New Zealand – the home of 5,000,000 people and 40 million sheep!

It has been an interesting 2 years and we have missed the annual visit to our partners in UK, Europe and Scandinavia. As I write this, our government is slowly opening the lid of the box that has kept us in isolation for so long.

We are only a small team down under, but this is where SMART was born and started its world domination of the Multi Tool 2

accessory market. Today, with SMART sold widely in New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Scandinavia, UK and Canada, the sun never sets on the SMART global empire!

One of our most recent successes has been release of our new B series kits. The series is a part of our Professional Blue range based on the H (Green Trade) series kits platform.

Here in New Zealand we enjoy significant market share, but we can’t rest on our laurels. We are continually looking at new products, new ways to market and present our great range of products.

So far we have released the B4MAK, B8MAK, and B20MAK blade sets, as well as providing the Electrician’s and Plumber’s Kits in the B series range.

We have been able to demonstrate to our customers, how they can secure

DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

ZEALAND SMART NEW ZEALAND

incremental growth, by introducing the B series kits to their market segment.

In addition, success for our customers is also reached with the introduction of the VALUE PACKS. We aim to bring these to market 4 times a year at very special pricing. End-users have had access to this since February and March, where they saw the first WWW.SMART-TOOLGROUP.COM

promotion of the 032BM3+1 and 044BMT3+2.

The TR32 is being presented to the market complete with an in-store FSDU that will hold 12 units.

Furthermore, we are about to release the TR32 32-piece Multi-tool Kit. Based on the TR30 platform, NZ has just landed 1000 TR32 units, with initial signs showing success. They are attractively packed in a carry case and marketed with an informative outside sleeve.

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SMART UK

GEORGIA RUST

Junior Graphic Designer

DAVID ALLSOPP

Key Account Manager

STUART ATKINS R & D Manager

SMART UK EXPANDS THE TEAM GET TO KNOW THE THREE NEW TEAM MEMBERS With the success of SMART in the UK growing steadily every year, we now need more hands on deck. We have recently appointed three new starters to strengthen the team, skills, and capacity for local and global support. Read on to get to know Georgia, David, and Stuart.

GEORGIA RUST Coming on board as a Junior Graphic Designer, Georgia Rust is the latest addition to the UK marketing team who will be utilising her skills to support our design capabilities. Look out for more of Georgia and the highquality marketing material she will be working on.

DAVID ALLSOPP We are very pleased to welcome David Allsopp to the sales team.

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David will be joining as the new Key Account Manager for our ‘Central North’ region in the UK. Customer care and support has always been a big part of the service our sales team offer distributors and we are sure this will only increase as David joins the team with many years of experience and industry knowledge.

We look forward to David getting out to all the new and existing distributors in his region and making acquaintances soon.

STUART ATKINS Another new starter in the UK team, Stuart joins the team as our new Research and Development manager. With a rich background in engineering, design, and manufacturing, we look forward to him bringing in a wealth of knowledge to the company and helping us to continue improving and developing market leading products.

DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

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SMART UK

SMART UK GOES VIRAL THE SMART UK SOCIAL MEDIA HAS HAD SUCCESSFUL VIRAL VIDEOS Content marketing involves the promotion of products and services on social media platforms through a variety of content types, such as photos and videos. The goal of content marketing is to achieve a high level of exposure and ultimately increase brand awareness, which can sometimes lead to achieving viral content. To this end, we are very pleased to have recently achieved viral videos on our SMART UK channel.

‘Going viral’ means a piece of content has become rapidly popular on social media platforms by end users reacting and sharing the content.

Though it’s easy technically, virality is nevertheless more challenging today due to the competition brands are up against. Consequently, going viral has allowed us to demonstrate product benefits to an extremely wide audience worldwide and has massively boosted our brand exposure which we continue to reap the benefits of.

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BOX CUTTER 12.5M REACH 8.1M VIEWS 7.4K ENGAGEMENT

PURPLE SERIES 9.6M REACH 6.8M VIEWS 3.6K ENGAGEMENT

INSULATION BUSTER 4.7M REACH 2.8M VIEWS 1.4K ENGAGEMENT

Over the last quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, we have been able to achieve an incredible level of virality. Here are three of our most viral videos, with each video getting a few million views!

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DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

UK

SMART UK

NEW SMART GLOBAL WEBSITES LAUNCHED FOR THE GLOBAL MARKET, BUILT AND MANAGED IN THE UK After quite some time, we are happy to say that the SMART Global websites are ready! There are two websites, one for B2C and the other is B2B. These have been developed and will continue to be managed by the UK team.

The main SMART website takes the baton from the previous build with all new branding and visual look. The site carries forward the popular ‘blade selector’ featuring allowing you to search by application and material to suggest the most suitable blade or accessory. Advanced filter options allow users to further define the criteria e.g. fitment, tool brand etc.

The website will be available in multiple languages to accommodate WWW.SMART-TOOLGROUP.COM

our international customers, but these are being fleshed out over the coming weeks and months.

There is also a section of the website where users can see the different ways our blades can be used. These include dedicated videos and 101 uses of a multi-tool pages.

This website serves as a central location for existing and potential SMART distributors in any region globally, offering resources, downloads, links and media as well as useful information and contacts.

If you are curious about the new look, head on over to smart-toolgroup.com and smarttoolglobal.com.

Secondly, the all-new SMART corporate website is aimed out our B2B customers across the globe.

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SMART EUROPE SMART BENELUX SOCIAL MEDIA GROWTH A QUICK RECAP OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA NUMBERS FROM THE LAST QUARTER OF 2021 AND THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2022 290,473

300K 243,989

250K

15K 223,383

200K 150K

12K 9K

152,744

7,320

6K

100K

3K

50K 0

13,419

Nov 21

Dec 21

Jan 22

Paid reach

Feb 22

0

4,600 2,469 Nov 21

Dec 21

Jan 22

Feb 21

Web referrals to our partners

SMART has been quickly growing in the region of Europe, and part of this expansion is due to the successful social media efforts and activities to reach new customers.

We would like to highlight a couple of fantastic numbers from the SMART Benelux (Belgium-NetherlandsLuxembourg) Facebook and Instagram pages, in particular the period between November 2021 and February 2022. Here, you can see the strong and consistent growth of our pages from the results of our paid reach for brand advertising, as well as the web referrals we create for our partners through their web shops. We have also been hard at work reaching out to new influencers, you can see one influencer’s positive experience with our Purple Series blades and the Box Cutter.

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DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

EUROPE SMART EUROPE

SMART EXPANDS THROUGHOUT EUROPE THE NEVER-ENDING GROWING LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT STOCK SMART PRODUCTS It has been a very good and interesting start to the year. All over the world, we are seeing the pandemic restrictions being eased and many businesses opening up again, and this is most definitely the case for Europe. With this SMART has been able to continue expanding throughout the region, namely in the Mediterranean countries of Turkey and Malta, as well as great progress within Belgium and the Netherlands.

We are pleased to announce our new SMART partner in Turkey, Bağcı Tools. They will be working closely with us to distribute our great range of blades there. They are already representing several well-known European hand tools and construction equipment through their local distribution channels, and we are more than happy to be a part of the great list of brands that they offer. Bağcı Tools is based in Istanbul, a bustling capital city home to 15.4 million people, so the potential for growth there is astounding. We look forward to working with them in delivering our market-leading multi-tool blades and accessories to Turkish tradespeople and DIYers.

Over in the island country of Malta, we are now partnered with Tools & Hardware Distributors, or T&H for short. A great range of blades are now being sold there, such as our well-loved H4MAK and H8MAK

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blade sets and an assortment of the brand-new ‘Made in Britain’ Starlock line. T&H have an experienced team serving the industry, tradesmen, and DIY enthusiasts. On top of that, T&H are one of the foremost suppliers and importers of tools and hardware in Malta. They are known for being stocked with leading brands and top-quality customer service, and the reviews on Google prove their commitment. We would like to extend our thanks to Nick and his team for making this possible.

Back in Western Europe, we have made two great developments for SMART Benelux. We are now working together with Euro Shop to make our products more accessible for end-users in the country. Euro Shop is a well-known non-food retailer with 6 branches in Belgium. They are best known for its enormously extensive range of 160,000 products, ranging from household products to

school and office supplies, and even furniture, you can find everything under one roof, which coincidentally is their slogan. They have six locations throughout the country, and now each of the 6 locations have a SMART rotating tower with a good assortment of Trade range blades with the Open Back fitment as well as the Professional range blades with the Starlock fitment.

As for growth in the Netherlands, due to increased customer demand and enquiry, SMART is investing in dedicated production line for producing private label blades in the facility. This will enable us to provide very quick delivery times and a variety of packaging options which provides a solution for what is normally a time-consuming process.

This also gives us the capacity to provide blades for other companies who wish to include the quality SMART made blade in their program but with their brand.

With the latest technology purchased, it will also have a very positive effect on minimum order quantities.

If you are interested in your own brand of blades, feel free to contact Simon Suckling at simon.suckling@smart-toolgroup.com who can provide further information.

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SCAN SMART SCANDINAVIA

NEW DISTRIBUTOR FOR SMART SCANDINAVIA HARDWARE CHAIN BYGMA DOES A TRIAL RUN FOR SMART PRODUCTS Over in Scandinavia, after some great progress with Bygghemma, a Swedish online retailer of DIY products and building materials, back in the last quarter of 2021, SMART has been speaking to and working with Bygma, another popular construction and hardware store chain in the region.

Bygma’s roots start all the way in 1952 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

With Sweden and Denmark being neighbours, doing business with one another was a no-brainer. After a very successful run in Denmark, Bygma finally opened its first store in Sweden in 1998. In a span of 11 years, the chain expanded sharply in the country, establishing 11 facilities. As of now, they have nearly doubled that number, having 10

19 facilities across the country, from the north locality of Boden and all the way down to southern Stockholm.

Bygma has three different levels of stores, ranging from small, medium, to large, depending on volume of products that they can carry. To accommodate this, SMART will be providing Bygma with three different ranges of multi-tool blades

and accessories to be sold at their respective stores.

Our products will be launched at Bygma stores in April, so be sure to pop them a visit!

Did you know that Bygma is the parent organization of Húsasmiðjan, the Icelandic hardware chain we are also working with?

DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

NDINAVIA SMART SCANDINAVIA

SWEDISH WAREHOUSE NOW FULLY STOCKED A BIG WIN FOR OUR SMART SCANDINAVIAN PARTNERS AND END-USERS For our partners and end-users in Sweden and surrounding areas, we have some good news for you: The SMART Sweden warehouse will be fully stocked!

The first big shipment from our manufacturing partner will be coming in straight to the SMART Sweden warehouse in Ljungby, and this is expected to arrive sometime in April.

Ljungby is also a great location, very close to Copenhagen and has access to Stockholm and Oslo.

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This is fantastic as more and more distributors are coming on board and joining the SMART family, and with this, we can do more things independently without relying on other regions. This will also increase the speed of service we offer to our customers.

We are looking forward to having a complete SMART range locally in the region.

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DEEP CUTS | SMART GLOBAL NEWSLETTER | Q2 2022

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DEEP CUTS SMART Tool Group Global

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