In this unusual yet special year 2020, direct contacts were limited. Many of our activities moved to digital. It was a great opportunity to leverage the past acquisitions’ expertise and to develop our internal competencies.
Social Media and Digital Communication Expertise of Revear in Argentina
Nowadays, the best way to reach out to homeowners and end-users is to use social media. With more than 105,000 followers on Facebook and more than 41,000 followers on Instagram, Revear is one of the Sika brands with the highest activity on social media – more than 41 million people were reached in 2020. To ensure the new way of communicating, an online assistant chatbot was launched, which has already helped more than 8,000 people to get answers to their questions quickly. The expertise of the Revear team in digital communication has been a competitive advantage during the COVID crisis.
The Sika team in Argentina as well is very active on social media and has also developed communications targeting homeowners, launching the campaign “The Sika Minute” with short videos explaining in less than one minute how to solve common issues with Sika products. This campaign was a huge success, with close to 20,000 hours of views on YouTube. The exchange of good practices between Sika and Revear allows both brands to be dynamic on social media and to increase the brand awareness among the customer group homeowners.
Broad Range of Digital Activities of Sika Everbuild in the UK
Back in 2013, Sika acquired Everbuild Building Products Ltd, UK’s largest independent manufacturer of sealants, adhesives and construction chemicals, with a strong position in professional distribution and DIY channels.
Sika Everbuild is very active on digital activities. For instance, Sika Everbuild is partnering with “On the tools”, the largest social media page specializing in producing content for the trade and construction industry with over 4.2 million followers. The Sika Everbuild product related information on there has been viewed 1.1 million times and reached over 3.6 million people in 2020.
Sika Everbuild is also in the process of building greater relationships with YouTube influencers who produce content for the construction and DIY industry.
Finally, social media and Google advertising campaigns support the launch of new products.
Digital learnings that are leveraged in Sika:
- Customers engage with multiple types and formats of content and it is much easier to incorporate this digital activity.
- Digital activities, especially social media, let us communicate directly with the end user customers, especially through social media.
- Monitoring of initiative performance to improve future campaigns.
Strong Website and SEO Strategy of Emseal in the USA
Sika Emseal realized very early how important it is to have a strong digital presence. That is why Emseal focuses on a strong, continuous SEO strategy and website buildup.
The Emseal website usually is the first to appear in response to a generic search term on Google and the website delivers a complete solution. In this way, the brand becomes linked to success in the mind of the user. The website appears on the first page, ideally in the top half of organic Google search results for many generic search terms and often occupies multiple of the top ten results and types of results.
Architects, owners and contractors regularly complement the Emseal website for completely depicting products in their real-life applications and for providing every tool needed to specify and detail the solutions in their construction documents. A recently added “Frequently Used Together” feature emerges from the bottom of product pages and links to other Emseal products and also to Sika products on the Sika USA website.
Strengthening Tilers' Loyalty during COVID-19 with Online Tiler Competitions
Despite COVID restrictions, Sika China and Sika Argentina have increased their tilers’ loyalty through training sessions and tiler competitions. This year’s circumstances required a move to online formats which were extremely successful.
In China, the Davco brand showed agility by holding several online tiler competitions with more than 3,700 tilers taking part. In total 3,200 videos were posted which were viewed over 120 million times in the first three months. In December, Sika BFM China was finally able to hold its final competition in Chengdu, and to gather the best regional tilers for this big event. Like every year, it was a great brand building event which strongly strengthens the tilers’ loyalty.
Latin America
Sika Argentina under the Klaukol brand organized a series of four 30-minute Facebook live trainings sessions which were viewed on average by nearly 200,000 people each time. At the end of each session, Sika Argentina organized a summary test to preselect the best tilers of each section for the final of the online tiler contest, which was held in December.
Sika Retail Management Tool in the Region Asia/Pacific
Digital activities can take many forms: direct interactions with end users thanks to social media, efficiency in the supply chain, and lead generation, among others. But digital tools can also help Sika to better understand its distribution network, and the interactions between shops (retailers) and distributors to better drive our business.
As such, Sika Asia/Pacific developed Sika Retail Management (SRM), inspired by the tool used by Davco in China, which is being implemented across the region.
Thanks to the Sika Retail Management application, Sika sales persons and distributors’ sales representatives are able to enroll the shops that are selling Sika products, identify which product are being offered, spotting opportunities to increase market penetration, in each shop and in each area. SRM also helps both distributors and Sika salesforce to monitor their daily activities, and to define efficient promotional activities. This tool supports as well the synergy creation between the different acquired brands and Sika. Knowing the distribution network of one brand or the other better helps to identify cross-selling potential.
As of today, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia are using the tool, and more countries are set to follow. This tool is a great example of good practices inspired by acquisition and further developed by Sika!