Looking Ahead: Creative Ways Retailers Engage With the Next Generation

Earlier in this issue, we met this year’s first Top Guns Awards honoree, David Enmark, who shared how important it is to empower the next generation in the independent home improvement channel to become those next leaders.

Engaging with the next generation at the store level is crucial for the success and future growth of an operation, but it is also important to connect with your next generation customers, as they will eventually become your largest group of consumers.

“Understanding the next generation more fully is almost a science, and as leaders we need to educate ourselves in what that means and what is important to the next generation,” says Rodney Bullion, northwest regional manager for Lumbermens Merchandising Corporation.

Many retailers in the independent home improvement channel are already embracing next gen engagement with employees and customers. They share their best practices below and why the next generation is crucial to the success and future of their operation.

Mentor the Future

Connecting with the next generation comes in the form of mentoring for Megan Menzer, owner of Newton’s True Value in Cherryvale, Kansas. The program started after Menzer realized that she was losing excellent employees to other pursuits.

“So many people see the hardware store as an afterthought, not a career,” Menzer says. “I wanted a way to help people think of the hardware store as a viable career option and the mentorship program was a great solution.”

The mentorship program covers basic soft skills like making eye contact, answering a phone, talking to customers and properly sending an email. Employees in the mentorship program also write thank you cards and other notes to customers.

“If we find out a customer’s child won an award or they are going through a major milestone, our mentorship employees will write cards to learn how to correspond with people,” Menzer says.

The mentorship program also includes completing Dave Ramsay’s Financial Peace University to learn how to save money and budget for purchases. Menzer also takes time to teach general life skills on top of training to work in a hardware store.

“Our mentorship program has led to several employees staying after high school,” Menzer says. “It’s getting a younger generation seeing us as a career path and seeing the growth that can continue their entire lives.”

Meet Next Gen Where They Are

Making better connections with next gen customers meant meeting them where they were—online—so Porters Ace Hardware Building Centers partnered with DoorDash. Putting each of the operation’s five stores on DoorDash has resulted in a boost in not only sales but also engagement, says Natalie Porter Thompson, vice president of marketing & merchandising for Porters Ace Hardware Building Centers in Missouri.

Not only does DoorDash introduce new customers to the stores, it also exposes each of the Dashers to what each store offers.

“That dasher may have never visited my store before, but now he knows where I am and received excellent customer service from us while in the store,” Thompson says. “DoorDash has been a really cool opportunity for us.”

Look Outside the Box

At Randy’s Do it Best Hardware, which has four locations in Virginia, connecting with next gen led to the creation of a YouTube mini-series.

The fully produced videos take a fun and lighthearted inside look at the hardware world and resonate with customers in the younger generations, but they also provide a way for Randy’s Hardware CEO Christian Herrick and director of retail operations Austin Diehl to engage with next gen employees.

“We realized we didn’t need to become the next YouTube sensation to stand out, but we did need something different from everyone else,” Diehl says. “We took a chance, tried something new and showed our brand in a genuine, authentic way. This method is not one-size-fits-all, as we all serve communities with different wants and needs.”

Herrick and Diehl understand that developing brand awareness with that next generation is crucial to growth, especially as these younger demographics want to believe in and align with the businesses that they choose to shop.

“The age demographic that will carry your store through the next 30 years is probably younger than the demographic carrying you now,” Diehl says. “By integrating your people and highlighting what makes them unique into your marketing plans, you can start to build those relationships and attract customers to shop at your store and website for years to come.”

Be an Influence

Taylor’s Do it Center, which has 21 locations across Virginia and North Carolina, has been focused on relationship building with the next generations online since Meg Taylor Walbridge started leading company communications in 2017.

“Over 60% of our customers’ journeys start online,” Walbridge says. “And probably a good deal more of the younger generation’s shopping starts online with the addition of social channels.”

When Walbridge’s team wasn’t getting the traction they wanted, they started a partnership with a local company, Mix+Shine Marketing, which led to investments in influencer marketing and Instagram reels.

“We began working with micro-influencers, or influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers, who weren’t working with bigger brands or big-box stores,” Walbridge says. “The goal is to find local influencers who are tailored to the areas we serve.”

While Walbridge has found some of the influencers on her own, the marketing company the business teamed up with has been able to help identify people who are a good fit, she says.

The operation is now at a point where it utilizes influencer marketing fairly consistently and creates content a month in advance so it is ready to go when sales or other promotions are available.

Using influencer marketing also allows the operation to better measure how successful the efforts are and how many people are being reached, along with what influencers their customers connect with the most.

“Being able to pinpoint influencers who we know connect well with our customers is instrumental to building trust, which is a big part of building that relationship with the next generation of shoppers,” Walbridge says.