RSI continues copper push

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn.--Building on its recently developed Web site that helps dealers address copper theft as a business opportunity, RSI Alarm has announced a Copper Theft Marketing Program In a Box, which provides dealers of its Videofied product with brochures, postcards and a custom Web site with the dealer’s name in the URL. “Copper theft is everywhere,” said Keith Jentoft, RSI president. “You can’t watch the news anymore without seeing something about it. So we came up with the marketing campaign and started with the dealers who were already working with us. The brochure alone has been getting an over 10 percent response rate when we mail it out. Now, a dealer coming in cold, all they have to do is submit their logo, and we’ll print their logo and contact information on the brochures, the postcard, and give them their own URL. It’s pretty much everything you need in a box.” Securitas is the largest dealer to use the materials, and HSM/Stanley is developing its own campaign based on what RSI provided. Patty Ragan, president of Alarm and Access Control Technologies, based in Portland, Ore., said the materials “have been very beneficial. Us security dealers are so busy, because there’s so much work out there--our business is thriving--the time and resources to create our own materials, it’s just not there. I did a flyer recently and it took me three days to put together, between interruptions, doing a survey, getting a bid out. We really appreciate what Keith and his team have put together.” Ragan said AACT does a lot of work with contractors and builders, who’ve been hit hard by copper theft, and the quick installation provided by Videofied’s wireless motion-triggered cameras “is a natural fit. It’s one of those products that’s working, where others aren’t. It’s not a full-blown video system that’s going to give you after-the-fact, but it’s not an alarm system that’s blind. It’s right in the middle. We rent them and we sell them. We’ve done some very good things with that product.” Jentoft said the target market for this “isn’t the big guys,” like Securitas. Rather, it’s smaller independents like AACT. “Most dealers know how to run wire, bid jobs, and put in installations,” Jentoft said. “That’s what they’re good at. But most of them don’t have a marketing staff that can identify a market, put photos together, and get a nice marketing product out there.”