Marketing Plan-Home Depot's Repair & Replacing Service

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To develop a strategic marketing plan for Home Depot's Repair and Repair Service I would suggest the following:

Home Depot's objective for the Repair and Replacing Service should be to establish the kind of reputation that Sear's Craftsman Tools had back in the '70s and '80's. The concept was that once a consumer buys their equipment, tools, appliances at Home Depot than the company will continue to take care of the consumer and their purchases. The basic strategy would be "If it is defective, we will replace it. If you break it, we will repair it." In addition, the service goes farther, helping consumers by repairing and replacing equipment, tools, and appliances that they have that are no longer working and in need of repair. This would be a way to drive more consumers into Home Depot and encourage a deeper connection and loyalty with consumers.

Home Depot currently advertises in newspaper circulars, through Direct Mail, television and direct mail. The chain could certainly add a starburst or banner to their current advertisements directing consumers to the new Home Depot Repair & Replacing service. In addition, however, there needs to be some explanation to the consumer to help them understand the service and its' parameters. This explanation would include the cost and extent of services. To help develop a program to do this, I would begin the program by educating the staff at each store. There needs to be a clear understanding among personnel to ensure that the program is understood well enough that they can then explain it to others. The training plan should be extensive so that consumers are able to get a clear idea of the program from sales staff. It seems that frequently corporate operations come up with programs that are not sufficiently explained and executed throughout operations so programs fail. By training employees and following up with follow up training and spot checks the chain will be better able to support the program.

Once a training program for employees has been instated, I would add colorful in-store sandwich boards to draw attention to the program. In this fashion, consumers could ask sales people further questions while they were in the store. Additional places to advertise the program would be outdoor media. This would be effective near Home Depot stores, as well as near urban locations where people are more likely to be pressed for time and less knowledgeable about home repair, however, this might not be as cost effective as other methods. It would ...