Sixty-five years passed by before Carter Lumber Co. executives realized how little consumers knew about the business and how seriously that was affecting the bottom line.
As one of the largest home-improvement chains in the country (250 stores employing about 4,000 people across the United States), the privately owned company had remained just that – private. Carter Lumber strives to serve two major markets: professional contractors and “do-it-yourselfers.” The problem was that those groups didn’t know that.
Neil Sackett, Carter Lumber president, says he quickly realized advertising alone wouldn’t boost sales, so he encouraged the development of an image-building campaign.
Carter executives called on Hitchcock Fleming and Associates Inc., an Akron-based advertising and public-relations firm, for help.
“The folks at Carter told us they knew who they were, but didn’t know what consumers thought,” says David McCafferty, director of account management for Hitchcock Fleming.
The research
To find out, the agency distributed questionnaires to randomly selected individuals and organized focus groups made up of contractors.
“After some research, we found that first and foremost, the contractors said they considered Carter Lumber a store of do-it-yourselfers. Consumers thought of Carter as a store for contractors,” McCafferty says.
Carter was losing novice consumers to the “big boxes,” where individuals sometimes pay higher prices for lower-quality goods and where “the help” isn’t always helpful or knowledgeable, according to Sackett.
“Carter used to do a Sunday flyer once a month in the paper, but if [individual] consumers aren’t familiar with the company, they’ll probably just toss it,” McCafferty says.
Sackett says anything a person could want for their home, Carter can get it.
“We can even provide the whole home,” Sackett says referring to the company’s latest venture into home kits and construction. “But we needed to get the message out about what we have to offer.”
Carter discovered many contractors were using smaller lumberyards, which the builders saw as specialists in their respective fields.
The plan
Carter created, “Plane & Simple,” a newsletter designed to pique the interest of professional contractors. The first issue was distributed this summer. The publication’s front page features a letter from Sackett headlined, “We’ll Come to You.”
Carter’s message is abundantly clear, “You’ve spoken. We’ve listened. Now we’re acting.”
In the letter, Sackett details plans to provide a contractor sales representative for each of Carter’s stores by year-end. The representatives will travel to a contractor’s job site to provide complete lists of materials needed for jobs, take orders and give advice.
“You no longer will need to drop what you are doing to pick up additional materials,” Sackett says in the letter.
The company’s newly designed computer system will track inventory for builders, provide product lists with prices and enable sales reps to access orders immediately.
Carter also invested in a “shingle elevator” that mounts on a delivery truck to move shingles directly to the roof.
Kenneth Azar, CFO and senior vice president for Carter, says what contractors and do-it-yourselfers don’t know, could hurt them.
“We stay up-to-date on building products but also we look at the building codes in the [regions] we serve and bring products in to fit the codes in that area,” Azar says.
Promotion
Although Warren E. Carter, the company’s founder, has practiced conservation and recycling since the early days-he began with a single store on Case Avenue in Akron in 1932-when such topics were rarely discussed or understood. No one knew about it.
The company has sponsored community-recycling projects for years. It manages well over 50,000 acres of timberland through “selective cutting techniques” in Arkansas and plants 350,000 seedlings per year.
The stores concentrate on offering “environmentally responsible products” as well as energy-conserving items like engineered wood products, fiberglass and cellulose insulation.
Despite all of the effort the company invested in being a good corporate citizen, no one knew because the company kept those things to itself.
“We had always been very private as a corporate entity,” Sackett says. “Now we’re in television ads, on the radio saying, ‘Here’s who we are. We’re one of a few lumberyards left, and we have what you need.'”
Azar says the thrust of Carter’s campaign is image-building.
“We really had to challenge ourselves,” Azar says. “It has been a coordinated effort and a major change for us to be so open.
“We’re seeing name-recognition efforts incorporated throughout the business. It’s the appropriate way for us to go.”
What distinguishes Carter is the difference in consumer ease, according to Azar.
“We have all the products consumers will find in one of the “big box” stores … from trusses and beams to lighting fixtures,” Azar says. “The difference is in the level of service we provide. Our challenge is now to inform potential customers of that.”
How to reach: Carter Lumber (330) 673-6100; Hitchcock Fleming and Associates (330) 376-2111
