How Your Fellow Marketers Do It Right

Winning sales & marketing best practices developed and deployed by installing security contractors across North America highlight the 17th Annual SAMMY Awards. Which companies took home the trophy hardware and what set them apart is detailed here. Takeaway tips and advice abound.

June 03, 2012 SSI Staff

<p>With numerous operations throughout North America, Stanley CSS relies on feedback from its branch offices to understand and meet the security needs of local customers. The company modifies marketing materials, such as sales brochures, based on the responses it receives.</p> Stanley CSS
Best Sales Brochure
Sponsored by Visonic

Brochure Serves as Effective Tool for Sales Team

Featured on the cover of the Stanley Convergent Security Solutions (CSS) small business brochure, left, is a woman with a warm, friendly smile holding a sign that reads, “Open.” Directly below the image, is the tagline: “Security to help your small business GROW.”

“We created the brochure to support our newly launched small business initiative,” Director of Marketing Beth Tarnoff says. “The visuals and verbiage communicates up front that Stanley understands the needs of a small business to the customer.”

Each page of the tri-fold brochure features a topic that supports how Stanley services will help a small business grow. The page reading “Online eServices to help your business save TIME,” lists the company’s eServices offerings and briefs readers on online account management. Under the “Intrusion protection to keep your business SAFE” headline, Stanley encourages customers to contact a sales representative to learn more about intrusion packages. The last page states, “Video surveillance to keep your business in VIEW,” highlighting the camera system packages specifically designed for small businesses.

The marketing tool also provides customers with detailed pricing packages along with visual graphics of each item. In the field, the brochure has proven beneficial for the Stanley sales team.

“Our easy-to-follow format allow sales representatives to present information to small business customers and point out substantial benefits,” Tarnoff says. “It has been a key tool in helping us expand into the small business market and experience success in this initiative.”

<p>After revamping its logo, Devcon Security hopes to boost its social media presence. “It’s a great opportunity to tell a story, especially for a new company,” says Devcon Vice President of Marketing Kristin Clark.</p> Devcon Security
Best Company Logo
Sponsored by ISC Expo

Simple Design Evokes Product Offerings

When the marketing department of Irving, Texas-based Devcon Security began redesigning the company’s antiquated logo, it took on a huge undertaking. Because Devcon had originally started out in the construction business, the new logo needed to reflect the security industry.

“We wanted our logo to exhibit the brand attributes that Devcon has in place,” says Devcon Vice President of Marketing Kristin Clark.

An outside graphics design agency helped Devcon produce a logo that not only appealed to customers, but also impressed SAMMY judges for its effective simplicity.

The logo, right, features the text “Devcon Security” in gray on the left side of the logo. The company chose to use gray instead of a classic black color to be more approachable to customers. On the right side of the design is a “D”-like image in blue to help distinguish the Devcon brand.

“Customers can view the emblem in many different ways,” Clark explains. “You can see that it’s a ‘D’ in the blank space. But it can also be many of the products that we sell. It can emulate video, smoke detectors or even GSM.”

Focused on direct response marketing, Devcon puts its logo on anything that has the potential of reaching the customers’ hands. An 800 number accompanies the logo to help the firm gauge which marketing initiatives are the most successful.

“Doing that gives us the ability to do a lot of testing to see what works best,” Clark says. “It might be that we need to change out the color of a button from blue to red on a direct-mail piece.”

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