Marketing Mastermind Takeaways:
1) Right now (off-season) is the perfect time to set yourself up for success before the next busy season.
Members felt like the quieter period leading up to the busy season was the perfect opportunity to plan ahead. Use this time to get organized, prepare your campaigns, and ensure all your content and approvals are ready to roll out smoothly when the busy season hits and things get hectic. Most of our innovators knew they should follow an established content strategy, but they didn’t quite realize how much time and stress this could save them in the long run! The biggest value proposition was because you have an annual plan set up, you are now able to stay consistent with marketing in the busier months because you’ve done a majority of the work in the slower months.
2) Do you really need to follow a content calendar? Yes, unless you want last-minute stress!
One innovator felt that using a content calendar is the backbone of a stress-free marketing strategy. After you get a plan in place for 2025 content, you can schedule “content days” to capture content in batches every few months (or only once or twice a year if you nail down your planning stage).
Start by creating a detailed shot list and sending a small team—typically two people—to gather photos and videos. With this approach, you’ll have the bulk of your content ready to go, leaving only time-sensitive updates to handle as they come. This also helps to get your wisest department leads to weigh in on the blog writing with what customers are talking about RIGHT NOW!
The group agreed that you should always aim to stay at least a month ahead of schedule on tasks like writing blogs, scheduling social media, and preparing newsletters. This foresight ensures consistency while reducing last-minute stress during busy times.
Scroll down to our resource section for content calendar and shot list templates!
3) Focus blogs on products & services you aren’t currently ranking for.
If your store offers products or services that don’t show up in search results (or are non-Ace related), it’s time to optimize. Members like to craft blog posts and product pages with strategic keywords that target these gaps. Not sure where to start? Check out a few of our favorite keyword research tools in the resource section below!
For inspiration, check out examples like this blog from Country Ace Hardware, which incorporates product-focused content to boost visibility.
4) Roughly half of your marketing budget should be spent on brand awareness!
Members mentioned spending roughly 2% of their gross revenue on marketing but were stuck debating how much of that budget goes to staying top of mind vs. actually driving customers into the store for shopping and events. Brand awareness is a critical component of your marketing strategy, especially in competitive markets where standing out requires significant effort. The consensus was that about 50-60% of your marketing budget should go toward brand awareness activities.
The more competition you face in your market, the more you’ll need to invest in brand awareness to distinguish yourself from local competitors and stay top of mind. This includes maintaining a strong online presence, building trust with your audience, nurturing relationships with your contractors and B2B customers, and ensuring your business is the first choice for your customers.
5) Are you nurturing partnerships with local businesses?
There was not a clear consensus on how much time you should put into your B2B team-building relationships in town, but there was a consensus that it’s a non-negotiable. Building relationships with local businesses is an excellent way to expand your reach and connect with the community. Highlighting local partnerships not only fosters goodwill but also drives traffic and builds trust with your audience.
One innovator shared their strategy of regularly highlighting different contractors they partner with. This approach showcases the contractors’ expertise and positions the store’s products as essential tools for completing those projects.
Building on this idea, members have seen success in creating a local contractor directory (like this example from Valley Ace Hardware). This could be an online resource where you highlight your contractor partners, feature their projects, and simultaneously promote the products they use from your store. This strategy strengthens relationships with contractors, provides value to your customers, and fosters a sense of community while driving additional traffic to your store.
Remember to put a clause on your directory page that says your store isn’t recommending these contractors; it is just providing a list of locals!
Helpful Resources for Marketers
- How to Build an Effective Marketing & Sales Budget for 2025
- Keyword research tools:
- Content Calendar & Shot List Templates:
General Managers Mastermind Takeaways:
1) To cut hours of important employees who need them or not to cut hours and maintain trust. This is the question for winter.
For our hardware store GMs, winter can be a challenging time due to slower foot traffic and reduced sales. Many owners and GMs are facing the tough decision of whether to reduce staff hours or to continue paying employees through the season. A more important question to consider is whether you want to save your money or invest it for long-term gain.
One of our innovators shared their commitment to keeping employees on through the winter despite the financial strain. For hardware stores, cutting hours might seem like an easy way to save money, but it can also lead to employee dissatisfaction, reduced morale, and increased turnover. This can be especially costly when you have to train new staff for the busy spring season.
Generally, the cost to train a new employee is significantly higher than paying an existing employee extra during slow times, as training involves not only direct training costs but also the hidden costs of lost productivity while the new employee learns, recruitment fees, and onboarding expenses, which can often amount to a substantial portion of their annual salary.
Keeping employees on during the winter, even at a financial strain, can have significant long-term benefits for both employee morale and retention. When you choose to invest in your employees during the winter, you help to maintain a sense of security, which can improve loyalty and reduce turnover.
We all know that when employees feel valued, they’re more likely to stay engaged and deliver great customer service, which directly impacts your store’s overall success. Plus, you can count on maintaining a skilled workforce ready to hit the ground running when business picks up again.
2) Get creative with how you put people to work in the winter with these ideas!
Some creative ways to keep employees productive during this slower season include:
Store Cleaning and Organization:
Take advantage of the winter lull to deep clean and organize the store. Reassess inventory, clean shelves, and ensure that products are well-stocked and easy to find. This can help streamline operations and create a better shopping experience for customers when foot traffic picks up.
Refining Product Displays:
Refresh your in-store displays to highlight seasonal items or prepare for spring inventory. A well-curated display can attract attention and make shopping more enjoyable for customers.
Content Planning:
Remember the content calendar and shot list we mentioned above in the Marketing takeaways section? Pull in your employees to help out with marketing efforts!
Seasonal Product Training:
Winter is an ideal time to train your team on upcoming seasonal products. Educating them about new tools, hardware, or home improvement trends ensures they’re prepared to assist customers more effectively when the demand increases.
B2B Planning:
Well, if you are fortunate enough to have a full-time B2B champion, you can use them in the winter to strengthen relationships with suppliers and other businesses. Your staff can focus on improving inventory management, negotiating deals, or exploring new supplier options to keep your stock fresh and cost-effective. And if you have a great prospector, now’s the time to get them to start list-building. They can use local chamber directories and your town’s Economic Development department to get contact information for their 2025 monthly prospecting tasks.
We plan to talk more about B2B strategy in an upcoming mastermind!
Join us on January 15th for Our Next Mastermind
For January, we’ll have two groups that meet: Marketers and GMs.
Both Marketers and GMs will discuss the genius moves and miserable mistakes we made in 2024.
Need help signing up? Send us an email: hello@hardwareinnovators.com
Are You On Board?
Does the idea of a monthly meet-up with other retail hardware stores sound valuable to you? Would you like to share resources, ask questions, and participate with your peers on-demand through an exclusive Slack channel?
Email us at hello@hardwareinnovators.com to get access to the Slack Channel! The best part? It’s 100% free and puts you in touch with hardware store general managers and marketers to ask questions and get immediate feedback from what worked at other hardware stores!