SSQ Managing Director Ahmed El-Helw discusses his philosophy on marketing, and how it helps his customers sell.
From the very beginning, SSQ was a business built on quality, integrity — and marketing. Now, for a lot of people, I know that marketing will be the odd one out and there are still some in our industry, and certainly in society as a whole, who see ‘marketing’ as a dirty word.
Their first thoughts when they hear it are of spin, over-exaggeration, dishonesty — but marketing doesn’t have to be like that. For us, it’s simply been a way of communicating that natural materials exist, that they perform extremely well in roofing contexts — and that we, at SSQ, are able to supply them.
Tackling myths
When I first saw Spanish slate, I immediately fell in love with it — but I had the benefit of seeing it up close. Our marketing activity is designed to help us — and our customers — show the millions of people who haven’t yet seen it in person how exceptional it is.
It’s also been a vital way of tackling myths and misconceptions about slate.
One early lesson in the power of marketing came when I first began bringing Spanish slate into the UK market for the first time. Certain indigenous slate suppliers felt threatened by that — a reaction I understood to some extent. But they responded with marketing campaigns that sought to present me and SSQ more generally as foreign invaders. They literally ran press adverts with the Spanish armada on it!
Building brands
What that taught me was the importance of shaping the narrative — of telling a story about who you are, what you do, and what makes your products worth buying. Because otherwise, others will shape that narrative for you.
That’s why, over the last forty years, we’ve invested so much time, energy and passion into building brands — firstly for SSQ itself, but then also for its two flagship products, Del Carmen natural slate and Riverstone phyllite.
One of the biggest benefits you get from supplying an SSQ product is the power of those brands. All around the world, roofers, architects, specifiers and more hear the names of our products and immediately associate them with quality, longevity, reliability and integrity.
Helping you sell
We also offer a range of more practical support to the customers we work with. The first is training — we’ve immersed ourselves in the world of natural slate and phyllite over the past forty years, and through our branch training days, we’re able to teach you the best way to communicate the benefits.
The second is leads. Because of the strength of our brands, and the thousands of fantastic SSQ roofs you can find across England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, America, Australia and beyond, we’re often contacted by homeowners and others interested in getting one for themselves.
In these instances, we obviously pass the leads on to our valued customers.
To truly appreciate the beauty of natural materials like Del Carmen and Riverstone, you have to see them up close — and that’s why our display boards for roofing, cladding and flooring are such powerful selling tools.
Finally, we offer a whole range of branded SSQ merchandise like T-shirts, mugs, beanie hats, pens, rulers, notepads and more. On the surface, these sound very trivial but these are the kind of things that stick around, and it’s always surprising when you receive a lead because a potential customer was reminded of you after seeing a logo on a hat or pen!
Click here for more information on SSQ’s range of products and support services for merchants.
A version of this article appeared in the October edition on PBM. Click here to read the full digital issue via the PBM website.
