Darci Kunard Shares Her Experience Marketing in the Building Materials Industry

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter. 

Listen to this podcast for strong marketing tips on how to grow a brand in construction and expert insight on the DuraMaster launch. 

In an episode of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth, RoofersCoffeeShop® partner, visits with Darci Kunard, an experienced marketer with a demonstrated success working in the building materials industry. Heidi and Darci discuss the importance of successful new product launches and branding and how they correlate into using the right products for a roofing business.   

Darci Kunard, the senior product manager for DuraMaster and sales and business development with Titebond at Franklin International talk about achieving success with new product launches. She gives her insight into marketing them successfully. 

 “For roofing contractors who are out there, as you're marketing your business, it really is about working with the professionals who are themselves marketing  the products in the systems you're selling.” 

Darci talks about her process of launching a new product, like DuraMaster. “I really delve into the research on the field side, figure out what kind of products that they're using now, see if there are there any issues. Would their lives be better if they had a new solution,” says Darci. “My kind of philosophy has always been, ‘What does the user need, or what does the customer need that would make their work easier? Are there problems they're having now?’" 

In the case of Duramaster, “The removable nozzle, which is great for pros, helps you just fly through your job. You don't have to cut each nozzle, which we learned was a pain point with a lot of pros.  They said, ‘We hate this. We hate having to cut the nozzle.’ Which I know sounds very trivial, but if it could make their job easier, we want to do that for them,” says Darci. 

She also discusses with Heidi the extensive testing that is done once they improve a product and the opportunities for improvement that come out of that. She notes, “We did 18 months of field testing with DuraMaster, throughout the United States and Canada, and just got feedback. What did people like about it? What did they not like? What were they saying about it that we could use to market it?’” 

Darci talks about how DuraMaster testing helped highlight huge selling points, sharing, “What they like about it, of course, is the water cleanup; it is a water-based product, so it cleans up really quickly. It tools very easily, so you just need a very light touch, and you get a really clean bead when you're applying it. People really liked that.” Darci continues, “We also heard a lot about areas where the siding was moving quite a bit against a window or a door joint, and they were having trouble getting a sealant that could withstand movement like that.” That became a focus for further developing the product. 

Darci says, “Your average homeowner probably does not care as much about the products;  they really care about how the product benefits them. So, you want to explain to them, here is a sealant that can withstand that amount of joint movement.” 

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about Franklin International, Durabond and for more insight into marketing and growing a construction brand.