Security Samurais Carve Up the Competition With Marketing Tactics

Learn marketing tips from some of the electronic security industy’s top companies.

A standing-room-only assemblage of industry luminaries and members of installing security contractors from across North America helped SSI celebrate the 20th Annual Sales & Marketing (SAMMY) Awards. Held each year on the eve of ISC West, the program remains the industry’s leading venue to recognize the industry’s top marketers for ingenuity and excellence.

The following mini profiles highlight the winners of the 11 marketing categories from the 20th SAMMY Awards. The underlying intent of the program is to spotlight best practices so that other installing security contractors may learn and benefit from successful techniques used by industry peers.

This year’s program attracted nearly 200 entries, including those from mom ‘n’ pop shops, super-regionals and security providers with a national footprint. Stanley Security and Bates Security captured the most overall awards, each taking home a pair of SAMMY trophies. Stanley garnered six nominations all told while Bates attracted four nominations.

SSIgives special thanks to program sponsors ADI, Campus Safety Magazine, Electronic Security Association (ESA), Fire-Lite by Honeywell, Honeywell, ISC Expo and PSA Security Network for helping make the 2015 SAMMY Awards possible. Acknowledgement is also due to the esteemed panel of judges: Tom Brigham, principal, Brigham Scully Communications; Jon Daum, partner, Daum Weigle Public Relations; Jerry Lenander, executive director, California Alarm Association (CAA); Lucette Nicoll, founder, Nicoll Public Relations; and Sue Toscano, vice president, Nicoll Public Relations.

RELATED: Check Out New Opportunities on the SSI Job Board

Best Overall Integrated Marketing Campaign: Protection 1

Perennial Powerhouse Proves Marketing Dominance Is in the Details

Protection 1 pays special attention to details such as color, white space and market-specific photography in its materials.

The word “integrated” has become synonymous with the seamlessness by which technology systems are designed and work together. When properly integrated, the individual subsystems and features combine to provide an all-encompassing bigger picture that offers greater benefits to both end user and systems installer.

Integrated marketing works much the same, in that the payoff comes from painting a stronger, more cohesive and more effective branding image than just an ad campaign here, a promotional giveaway there. Putting together a truly integrated marketing campaign is something for which Chicago-based Protection 1 has proven its perennial excellence, having now earned the SAMMY Award in this category every year since 2012.

“We are fanatics when it comes to applying consistent brand messaging across the traditional and nontraditional marketing channels we use to reach our business customers,” says Jamie Haenggi, Protection 1’s chief marketing and customer experience officer.

P1 employs its Web site, online case studies, Internet videos, brochures, white-papers, print, radio and television ads, social media, tradeshow presence and more to spread its message and educate consumers. The company also utilized customer interviews to come up with a central, company-wide marketing theme of “A Better Choice for You” that helps drive decisions based on three core ideals – “we are better, we represent a choice and we take the shape of your needs,” according to Haenggi.

But it’s not simply making use of the myriad marketing outlets, it’s how P1 delves into the details and tries to think like a consumer. For instance, the company implements its brand colors of red, blue and white and blue, but pays particular attention to the latter as in the white space it purposefully uses for visual relief with its materials. Making things easy to read and digest also leads the company to rely on charts, infographics and bulleted copy wherever applicable to punctuate its message.

Customer feedback has guided P1 to approaching marketing materials in a targeted fashion, something other integrators could look to as a model. “Photography is key; customer interviews continue to tell us that it is important for bankers to see bankers in our communications, for retailers to see retailers, and for industrial applications to reflect the real-world situation where they are applied,” says Haenggi. “Our approach allows customers to relate to us by their specific industry, the size of their company or need for a specific solution.”

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