National Apartment Flooring – “Rock Solid”
A provider of flooring services and solutions for the residential multi-unit property sector, National Apartment Flooring (“NAF”) sought a change in voice & tone for their client-facing sales materials. The sales packets the client sent were performing poorly and did not garner a desirable number of total conversions. We began by analyzing the messaging of the materials and comparing this to the needs of its targeted audience. The sales packets were sent to existing commercial property owners, many of whom owned residential buildings with aging carpet flooring. This precise “buyer persona” allowed us to evaluate and understand the individual perspectives of the client’s targeted leads. From there, we would be able to develop a messaging architecture that would best address and respond to their individual needs.
National Apartment Flooring
Industry:Building Materials & Equipment
Client Type:B2B
Project:Sales Copywriting
Buyer Persona Analysis
These large commercial buildings required sizable investments and after such immense cost, the focus shifted to recouping the investment. This made for a rather “risk-averse” audience with a hesitancy to invest any further in something which should be in a phase of “paying off” the investment, not continuing to accumulate potential value.
To these buyers, a sizable investment in a large-scale re-flooring of building-wide common areas would be highly undesirable, if not properly framed by responsive messaging.
Psychological Insights
In short, their focus was more on “avoiding loss,” rather than “maximizing gain;” very similar to the differences between the psychological concepts of a “growth” and a “fixed” mindset. We sought to subtly “nudge” this perspective towards considering the value in a “growth perspective,” while also addressing the concerns of their “fixed perspective” at the same time.
After an evaluation, it became clear that existing copy and sales materials were insufficient not simply in execution, but in messaging architecture. They did not address buyer concerns in their framing and would do little to convince an adoption that runs contrary to the psychological underpinnings of a reader’s perspective.
“People with a fixed mindset are more likely to seek products and brands in line with their goals to burnish their self-image and demonstrate their positive qualities … we also suggest that brands and companies can project a fixed or growth mindset”
Journal of Consumer Psychology
Sales Campaign: “Rock-Solid.”
With our “buyer persona” in mind, we set out to generate new client-facing materials that reflected a deep understanding of their perspective and a strong advocacy for the purchase within their own contextual framing.
To accomplish this, we emphasized two key pillars that responded to the “avoiding loss” perspective: focusing on the security and certainty of their investment over time.
With aging carpet floors both accumulating increased upkeep costs and reducing perceived buyer value (as consumers strongly prefer hardwood), the “avoiding loss” component became evident within this “fixed” perspective.
Sales Collateral
The final pillar was our advocacy component, which served to reinforce the validity of this decision within a “fixed” frame, by likening it to a “rock-solid foundation,” while also subtly introducing components of a “growth mindset” in the buyer’s mind by encouraging them to consider the upside of an increase in overall building value.
Further, we attempted to add visceral and tangible context with copy that conjured intimate imagery, encouraging the buyer to see the application of this decision in their own actual circumstances, rather than as a theoretical abstract decision.
The result was our sales campaign, “Rock-Solid.”
