How to Market Your Home Improvement Products to Contractors in 2025

Pro­mo­tions are a core prod­uct mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for busi­ness­es across indus­tries, includ­ing with­in the home improve­ment prod­ucts mar­ket­place. Pro­mo­tions are seen as a way to moti­vate indi­vid­u­als to try a new brand or prod­uct, increas­ing their aware­ness of what’s avail­able, moti­vat­ing a will­ing­ness to switch brand, or build­ing their loy­al­ty to a par­tic­u­lar brand, and over­all mak­ing them feel empow­ered as customers.

This holds true for pro­fes­sion­al con­trac­tors, who fre­quent home improve­ment cen­ters, man­u­fac­tur­er web­sites, and oth­er sup­pli­er chan­nels to pur­chase build­ing prod­ucts and mate­ri­als for their projects.

What we see, how­ev­er, is that the effec­tive­ness of var­i­ous pro­mo­tion types dif­fers among major seg­ments of pro­fes­sion­als, by trade, as well as by the rev­enue of the com­pa­ny and the deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er of the pro doing the purchasing.

What are the Main Segments of Home Improvement Contractors?

When talk­ing about con­trac­tors and installers as cus­tomers, it’s help­ful to orga­nize them into a few dis­tinct cat­e­gories, or seg­ments. These include:

• Remod­el­ers (Remod­el­ers, Kitchen and Bath Specialists)
• Exte­ri­or Replace­ment Con­trac­tors (Roofers, Siding/​Window/​Door Contractors)
• Mechan­i­cal Con­trac­tors (HVAC, Plumbers, Electricians)
• Fin­ish Con­trac­tors (Painters, Car­pen­ters, Dry­wall Con­trac­tors, Floor­ing Contractors)
• Land­scape Con­trac­tors (Land­scap­ers, Fencing/​Deck Contractors)

Data from our 2024 Con­trac­tor Pro­mo­tion Effec­tive­ness study shows that pro­mo­tions — whether that be dis­counts, loy­al­ty pro­grams, bulk pur­chase dis­counts, or offer­ing free ship­ping—increase loy­al­ty and per­ceived val­ue for near­ly two-thirds of home improve­ment pros.

Addi­tion­al­ly, these types of offers encour­age more than half of con­trac­tors to keep pur­chas­ing prod­ucts from the same brand, even after pro­mo­tion ends.

They are incred­i­bly effec­tive in influ­enc­ing how pro cus­tomers think about a brand, with near­ly half stat­ing that pro­mo­tions either ​“some­what improve” or ​“sig­nif­i­cant­ly improve” their per­cep­tion of a brand’s quality.

Tips for Marketing to Contractors in 2025

While HIR­I’s research high­lights the impor­tance and effec­tive­ness of pro­mo­tions, there’s more to it than that. As home improve­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers and retail­ers, you have to be thought­ful and strate­gic about which types of pro­mo­tions you imple­ment, based on your spe­cif­ic cus­tomer base.

Here are a few insights to help you dig deep­er into how to mar­ket to contractors:

1. Prioritize Discounts for Pros

Dis­counts are the most influ­en­tial pro­mo­tion type when it comes to influ­enc­ing sales, accord­ing to HIRI’s research. This is espe­cial­ly true for remod­el­ing professionals.

Mean­while, dis­counts are the sec­ond-best type of pro­mo­tion for con­struc­tion con­trac­tors, or those whose work­load is more than 50% new con­struc­tion work. For that group, the most influ­en­tial pro­mo­tion type was vol­ume or bulk pur­chase discounts.

In terms of auton­o­my, pro­mo­tions are also prefer­able, whether the con­trac­tor is the sole or joint deci­sion maker.

The only two con­trac­tor types who demon­strate a high­er unwill­ing­ness to try new pro­mot­ed prod­ucts, even with a dis­count, are exte­ri­or and mechan­i­cal con­trac­tors. Since dis­counts are gen­er­al­ly the most influ­en­tial pro­mo­tion type, it’s impor­tant you ensure they are acces­si­ble to a vari­ety of indus­try pro­fes­sion­als and also that the terms of the dis­count are very clear and straight­for­ward, mak­ing the dis­count eas­i­er to use.

2. Make Your Discounts Worthwhile

In order for cus­tomers to be will­ing to try a new prod­uct based on a dis­count, you need to make it worth their while. The val­ue of an offer is impor­tant to about two-thirds of con­trac­tors who are shop­ping for home improve­ment prod­ucts, and that’s true regard­less of gen­der and oth­er characteristics.

For exam­ple, anoth­er HIRI study, about Con­trac­tor Brand and Sup­pli­er Loy­al­ty, revealed that a 30% off dis­count is the min­i­mum dis­count required for con­trac­tors to be will­ing to try a new brand (or sup­pli­er). Also, it’s worth not­ing that in light of past delays in acquir­ing build­ing mate­ri­als, con­trac­tors are a more will­ing to try new brands and prod­ucts than they used to be, all in order to keep their projects on track.

3. Don’t Promote Low-Quality Products

Brand rep­u­ta­tion and prod­uct qual­i­ty are high­ly impor­tant to home improve­ment pros, with more than half list­ing it as one of the most impor­tant fac­tors when con­sid­er­ing pro­mo­tions. They don’t want to buy and use a low-qual­i­ty prod­uct and risk jeop­ar­diz­ing their own work — even if that item can be pur­chased at a dis­count­ed price.

Sat­is­fac­tion with cur­rent prod­ucts also weighs heav­i­ly into a will­ing­ness to try new prod­ucts through pro­mo­tions for female con­trac­tors, where­as male con­trac­tors are notably more influ­enced by lack of infor­ma­tion and brand unfamiliarity.

Over­all, and depend­ing on the trade, between 2 in 3 and 3 in 4 pros avoid new pro­mo­tion­al prod­ucts, because of their con­cern about prod­uct qual­i­ty or their sat­is­fac­tion with their cur­rent prod­ucts. You can use tes­ti­mo­ni­als, case stud­ies, and oth­er research tools to ensure poten­tial cus­tomers can per­ceive prod­uct qual­i­ty and reli­a­bil­i­ty before pro­mot­ing build­ing prod­ucts and mate­ri­als to your customers.

4. Take a Targeted Approach to Promotions

Use data to your advan­tage. There are numer­ous resources avail­able today that can help you col­lect and apply indi­vid­ual cus­tomer data to devel­op tar­get­ed and cus­tomized pro­mo­tion­al strate­gies. Even if you can’t nar­row it down to indi­vid­ual cus­tomers, you can apply aggre­gate data about his­tor­i­cal engage­ment and past pur­chas­ing behav­ior to tai­lor your pro­mo­tions to spe­cif­ic cus­tomer segments.

Track­ing and ana­lyz­ing data on a reg­u­lar basis can also help you mon­i­tor trends to refine your future pro­mo­tions. Our research shows that while cus­tomiza­tion is fair­ly low on the list of fac­tors that pro cus­tomers con­sid­er most impor­tant, those who do val­ue cus­tomized offers are more like­ly to try a new brand based on that factor.

5. Promote Your Brand’s Products Through Retailers

When run­ning pro­mo­tions, you also have to con­sid­er your opti­mal mar­ket­ing chan­nels, or those that most effec­tive­ly encour­age con­trac­tors to pur­chase products.

Accord­ing to our Con­trac­tor Pro­mo­tion Effec­tive­ness study, pros pre­fer that pro­mo­tions come through retailer/​supplier chan­nels than all oth­er mar­ket­ing channels.

Often, they have a more per­son­al and con­sis­tent rela­tion­ship with indi­vid­ual retail­ers. They know the employ­ees and where to find what they’re look­ing for. As a man­u­fac­tur­ing brand, you should pri­or­i­tize local home improve­ment stores and supplier/​retailer web­sites as your pri­ma­ry mar­ket­ing chan­nels to effec­tive­ly con­nect with con­trac­tors. Email is the third most-effec­tive mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for reach­ing home improve­ment pros with your pro­mo­tion­al offers.

6. Be Intentional with Timing Promotions

Sim­i­lar to how you reach con­trac­tors, when you reach them is crit­i­cal to think through. You have to time your pro­mo­tions correctly. 

Half of pro­fes­sion­als are more like­ly to pur­chase when the offer tim­ing is right, and of that group, three-quar­ters of them pre­fer ​“just-in-time” pro­mo­tions. Using cus­tom mar­ket research and feed­back from your part­ners, aim to time any pro­mo­tions around project cycles and sea­son­al demands. This is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant for cap­tur­ing share of wal­let from sole deci­sion-mak­ers, who make more fre­quent pro­mo­tion­al purchases.

7. Use Relationship-Based Promotions Selectively

Rela­tion­ship-based pro­mo­tions and cumu­la­tive ben­e­fits — such as loy­al­ty pro­grams, bulk pur­chas­ing dis­counts, and points that add up over time — appeal to cer­tain demo­graph­ics more than others. 

For exam­ple, high-rev­enue com­pa­nies who make high-vol­ume pur­chas­es more reg­u­lar­ly will get more val­ue out of a loy­al­ty or points pro­gram.

Female con­trac­tors also tend to place a high­er val­ue on rela­tion­ship fac­tors than their male coun­ter­parts. Addi­tion­al­ly, 40% of female con­trac­tors, com­pared to 29% of male con­trac­tors, cit­ed flex­i­bil­i­ty of use (such as no min­i­mum pur­chase required) as one of the most impor­tant fac­tors to them.

Using Promotions to Encourage Contractors to Purchase New Products

Under­stand­ing the pref­er­ences of con­trac­tors regard­ing prod­uct pro­mo­tion strate­gies will help you tai­lor your future pro­mo­tion­al efforts to be even more effective. 

Our Con­trac­tor Pro­mo­tion Effec­tive­ness study is just one source of data that you can use to make smart busi­ness and mar­ket­ing deci­sions. With your orga­ni­za­tion’s mem­ber­ship to HIRI, you’ll have access to a wide range of stud­ies and research about home improve­ment indus­try trends, as well as cus­tomer needs, behav­iors, and pref­er­ences. Sim­ply sched­ule a con­sul­ta­tion to learn more about the val­ue of HIRI membership.