Detailed Marketing Strategy of Sherwin Williams with Company Overview & STP Analysis

Updated on: Aug 30, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of Sherwin Williams - Featured Image

  Hey there!

My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

Practical assignments, case studies & simulations from Harvard Business Review helped the students from this course present this analysis.

Building on this practical approach, we are now introducing a new dimension for our online digital marketing course learners - the Campus Immersion Experience.

If you find this case study helpful, consider leaving a comment below.

In a recent article, we learned about the SWOT analysis of Sherwin-Williams. In this blog, we’ll examine the marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams to understand more about the company in-depth.

The goal is to provide you with a behind-the-scenes glimpse at Sherwin Williams’ development from a $2,000 partnership with Ohio’s Truman Dunham Firm to the second-largest paint company in the world and the biggest in the US.

Every business needs marketing, and as the world has become more digital, marketing has evolved as well. Check out Karan Shah, the CEO and founder of IIDE Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing 101, if you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing.

We will have a complete understanding of Sherwin Williams’ marketing strategy by the end of this article. We’ll start with the company’s history, target market, and online presence, Sherwin Williams.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

About Sherwin Williams – Company Overview

Marketing Strategy of Sherwin Williams - The 2 Founders of Sherwin-Williams
The 2 Founders of Sherwin-Williams

In 1866, Cleveland bookkeeper Henry Sherwin made a financial commitment to painting distributor Truman Dunham & Co. After his partnership with Truman Dunham came to an end in 1870, he established Sherwin, Williams & Co. The Sherwin-Williams Company offers the best paint and coatings products on the market and has spent the last 155 years creating a heritage of growth, creativity, and innovation to satisfy the needs of our devoted workers and expand global clientele.

The mission of Sherwin-Williams is to lead the paint business globally by providing superior products, outstanding customer service, and a workforce that is both highly qualified and knowledgeable.

One of the most prestigious product portfolios of ingrained and private-mark products belongs to Sherwin- Williams. Simply through a network of more than 4,438 company-operated stores and installations in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America, the Company’s Sherwin- Williams ingrained products are distributed.

Leading mass merchandisers, home centres, independent makeup dealers, tackle shops, car retailers, and artificial distributors are used to market new products throughout North America as well as in a corridor that includes Europe, China, Australia, and New Zealand. For the building, artificial, packaging, and transportation needs in more than 120 countries across the world, Sherwin Williams also offers a wide range of largely engineered outcomes.

Quick Stats on Sherwin Williams
CEO John G. Morikis
CMO N/A
Area Served Worldwide
Industry Paint and coating manufacturing
Market Share/ Revenue 18.36 billion USD (2020)
Vision To be the world leader in the paint industry, dedicated to meeting the demands of customers through high-quality products, great service, and a highly trained and professional team.
Tagline Cover the Earth
For A Better Finish. Ask Sherwin-Williams.

 


Marketing Strategy of Sherwin Williams

Let’s look at the company’s marketing efforts as well as Sherwin Williams’ implementation of the marketing plan, among other things.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning 

Segmentation: It operates using three segments. To produce, distribute, and advertise products to the company’s target market, The Americas Group, Consumer Brands Group, and Performance Coatings Group are utilized.

Targeting: Hispanics, DIY enthusiasts, and homeowners were the three target demographics that Sherwin-Williams sought to target. DIYers (do-it-yourselfers) are those who prefer to complete tasks on their own. In an effort to reach these demographics via mobile in a way that had never been done before, the paint manufacturer teamed up with Deutsch.

Positioning: The second-largest paint manufacturer in the world and the biggest in the US is Sherwin Williams.

The business keeps providing the best paint and coatings products on the market to satisfy consumer requests. Leading the way in paint and coatings on a global scale is Sherwin Williams.

Marketing Campaigns 

Colour collecting campaign

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - colour collecting campaign 

The coordinated colour collections of HGTV HOME by Sherwin-Williams were showcased in the May 12, 2014, launch of the Colour Collecting campaign. Throughout the advertisement, items that were inspired by particular colour palettes are put together in striking, geometric ways. This pictorial organising is known as knolling, a phrase that was established in the 1980s to describe an art form that is currently making its way to Madison Avenue. Sherwin-Williams is the first paint business to adopt and animate this technology, therefore it was successful.

Krylon yard sale campaign

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - Krylon yard sale campaign

Sherwin and Deutsch Williams promoted Krylon paint by sponsoring the World’s Longest Yard Sale event, using social media and digital channels to increase sales, how-to videos, and 15- and 30-second pre-roll advertisements. Another Facebook promotional tactic was the usage of stop-motion GIFs. After that, things were sold through the Pinterest feature known as buyable Pins. The profit margin for Krylon was 100%.

Purdy campaign

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - purdy campaign 

How-to videos on YouTube were selected as one of the most successful communication strategies for promoting the Purdy brushes product. With interactive calls to action to read more about a certain topic, like how to improve painting results, a digital hub centred on these tutorials was created. Because the campaign concentrated on short films and other branded content, people responded well to it.


Social Media Marketing 

Sherwin Williams is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tiktok, and YouTube, among other social media networks. They use promotional content to sell their products.

Facebook: 15k
Instagram: 393k
LinkedIn: 393,449
Twitter: 141k

Sherwin Williams is quite active and updates three to four times per week on LinkedIn and Instagram, where it is particularly well followed.

The majority of the company’s posts are promotional, informative, or product announcements.


SEO Strategies 

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - SEO rankings

When it comes to SEO ranking, the number of keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good, and 10,000+ is amazing. As can be seen, Sherwin Williams’ SEO strategy is top-notch, as seen by the fact that the company has 1,003,288 organic keywords.

Furthermore, the traffic is 3,949,732 which is excellent, and the website traffic graph shows that the traffic was at its peak in January and February 2022. Sherwin Williams has gotten the most out of its SEO strategy. The company has worked hard to be at the top of the SERPs.

Influencer Marketing

Sherwin Williams has worked with a variety of bloggers, YouTubers, DIY experts, and influencers for marketing objectives. They have a lot of influencers, including Kylie Mawdsley, who have between 29.6k and 455k followers across different social media platforms. Influencers raise brand awareness through their social media following, which boosts revenue for the company.

Ecommerce Strategies 

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - Ecom

Sherwin Williams has an online website where you can buy their paints and other stuff, and the products will be available for curbside pickup. The company’s products are also available on Amazon, AliExpress, Clare, and other online sites, as well as most home improvement stores, such as Lowe’s.

Mobile Apps

marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams - Mobile App

A cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) feature called Instant Paint is part of the ColorSnap Sherwin Williams app. With this feature, you can instantly see any of the 1,700 colours offered by the company on walls. This makes it simple to make your own palettes, save colours, experiment with different colour combinations, and share the results in various ways.


Content Marketing Strategies

Sherwin Williams is very active on social media, posting content about their various paint colours and products as well as awareness and educational messages. They also write informative blogs about new paint colours and related products. The majority of the company’s social media platforms are used for content sharing, however, Instagram and LinkedIn are used more regularly. The corporation also provides press releases on its sustainability report, investor relations news, and other topics through the stock house, black enterprise, water world, and other channels.

This ends with the elaborative marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

Conclusion – What’s Unique in Sherwin Williams’s Marketing? 

Without a doubt, Sherwin Williams is well-known around the world. The company is unique in that it is the second-biggest paint company in the world and the largest in the United States, which has made it well-known throughout the world. Excellent marketing and SEO tactics are used by the business, and it is well-represented on several social media platforms.

The company had remained relevant for 155 years because of its marketing initiatives to promote the brand to its clients. It is impossible to overstate the importance of digital marketing, especially in this day and age.

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Sherwin Williams in the comments section below.

Share post via

Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts