The construction market has tightened. And with it, the pressure on volumes. At many manufacturers in the industry, the same question keeps coming up in management meetings: "how do I activate my sell-out without depending solely on being listed with our distribution partners?"
The answer is not new, but it is becoming unavoidable: go directly to the professionals who install, specify and recommend. In other words, become a driver of your own sell-out: not against builders' merchants, but with them.
And that is where the real debate begins. Should you set up a club? Launch a programme? Combine the two? The intuitive answer ("a club is classier, a programme is more profitable") is almost always misleading. As a construction-specialist communication agency, we regularly see brands pick the "wrong" tool because they asked the "wrong" question.
This article offers a method for sparing yourself that mistake worth several thousand euros.
Why the subject is back on the table now
Three reasons, observed among construction and housing manufacturers over the past eighteen months.
- Pressure on volumes. When the market grows on its own, being well listed is enough. When it contracts, every project counts. And every project goes through a professional who chooses - sometimes between three technically equivalent brands.
- Changing professional behaviour. Today's tradesperson no longer researches the way they did ten years ago. They read up online, exchange in communities, follow content. A brand that only exists on the merchant's shelf hardly exists at all any more.
- And the reason most debated internally: despite significant turnover, distributors have structured themselves to engage the professional. Member clubs, service programmes, digital schemes. Builders' merchants are not waiting around. If the manufacturer acts alone, it becomes a supplier - no longer a partner in the professional relationship.
We knew it already, but it always bears repeating: the manufacturer + distributor pairing is no longer a communication option but a genuine condition of commercial performance.
Club and programme: two logics, not synonyms
First trap: using "club" and "programme" as two aesthetic variants of the same tool. They are in fact two distinct logics, carrying different promises and different running costs.
A club follows a logic of attachment. You join by invitation, by filter, by eligibility. You are a member. There is a status, a community, privileged moments, exclusive content. The member is valued for who they are, not just for what they buy.
A programme follows a logic of stimulation. You join through open enrolment. You accumulate, you win. There is a mechanic, tiers, rewards. The participant is incentivised on what they do, not on who they are.
Many manufacturers set up a "club" that is really a programme in disguise: they call it a club because it sounds more upmarket, but it offers neither genuine selectivity nor genuine recognition. The result: a scheme that delivers neither the promise of the one nor the effectiveness of the other. The choice of label is a commitment. It deserves to be made consciously.
The triptych that never lies: relational, transactional, service-based
Once the club/programme question is settled comes the deeper one: what do we really bring to the professional? Three dimensions structure the answer, with the professional at the centre.
- The relational pillar
Recognition, direct connection, events, content, human contact. This is what creates attachment, what turns a buyer into an ambassador. The most powerful in terms of memory, but the most demanding in running costs. - The transactional pillar
Rewards, points, cashback, prizes, bonuses. The most measurable, the most scalable, the one management accounting understands first. Its flaw: it does not build emotional loyalty. Switch off the mechanic and the participant will go and look at the neighbour's programme. But properly dosed, it accelerates. - The service pillar
Training, trade tools, configurators, expert hotline, sales support materials, technical content, digital services. This is the pillar that sets the winning schemes apart in 2026. The one that turns the brand into a partner in the professional's working life, no longer just a supplier. It is expensive to design, but pays for itself over time.
None of these pillars is enough on its own. And no high-performing scheme weights them equally.
Four criteria for deciding
1. Your audience's purchase frequency. A professional who buys your products every week will respond to the transactional (accumulation, bonus, prize). A professional who installs them once a month or once per project will never get into the habit of scanning their invoice: for them, it is the service-based or relational dimension that creates preference.
2. The audience profile. A hands-on tradesperson, who installs and buys, wants transactional + service-based. A more structured company (5 to 10 employees at least) wants relational + service-based. Pure transactional bothers them more than it motivates them: it is not how they buy.
3. Your brand's maturity. An emerging or repositioning brand should recruit (open programme, attractive mechanic, broad visibility). An established brand should deepen (selective club, status, community). The two logics can coexist - they must not be mixed.
4. Strategic ambition. Reach 10,000 professionals to generate volume, or 500 professionals to generate high-value preference? Both are legitimate. Not with the same tool.
These four questions, asked upfront, are enough to avoid nine out of ten wobbly decisions.
Two demonstrations from the field
NICOLL Cocorico Days: the manufacturer acting with its channel.
For several years now, Nicoll has been running its Cocorico Days, a brand-preference operation aimed at tradespeople and rooted in "Made in France". A mechanic that combines all three pillars: transactional (sales activation with prizes and bonuses), relational (the "Cocorico" badge of belonging and the French identity), service-based (associated materials and support). Above all, the operation is relayed by and with builders' merchants: it is the distributors who embody it in the regions, and it is in their points of sale that professionals encounter it (technical morning sessions, demonstrations, etc.). A textbook example of the manufacturer + distributor pairing that works.
SOCODA Le Cercle: the distributor that is not waiting around.
On the distribution side, the SOCODA group has structured Le Cercle, its member engagement scheme: services, pooling of resources, training, events, sharing of best practices. Professionals find there a value promise that does not depend on any particular manufacturer brand. The signal is crystal clear: if the manufacturer does not design its own scheme in coherence with what distributors already offer, it becomes invisible in the professional relationship. And its role shrinks to supplying listed products. That is no longer enough.
If the perfect scheme doesn't exist, the right dosage does.
Becoming a driver of your own sell-out does not mean pitting club against programme. Nor does it mean copying the competitor. It means designing a scheme that gets the dosage of relational, transactional and service-based just right, that works in concert with your distribution channel rather than pretending to bypass it, and that puts the professional at the centre.
Sell-out performance is no longer decided by point-of-sale displays. It is decided by the quality of that articulation, and by the place you choose to give the professional. It is the subject on which we currently support more brands in the industry than any other.