Most B2B distributors hear "loyalty program" and think DTC. SupplyHouse.com built one anyway — and it's been running for over a decade. Kyler Nixon sits down with Nick Haertel, Director of Growth Marketing at SupplyHouse.com, to break down the TradeMaster Program: what it is, who it's for, and how it powers retention across every owned channel the company has.

ㅤ

The conversation covers TradeMaster's core benefits — free shipping, free returns, SKU-level discounts, and a dedicated customer service line — and then goes deep on the multi-channel strategy SupplyHouse runs to keep TradeMasters active: email, SMS, direct mail, surprise-and-delight gifting, and a brand-new inside sales team. The big idea: when a customer gets 10x as many touchpoints as they'd get from a competitor, there's really no contest for who wins the repeat order.

ㅤ

👤 Guest Bio

Nick Haertel is Director of Growth Marketing at SupplyHouse.com, a pure-play e-commerce distributor of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical supplies serving over 7 million customers across the U.S. Before joining SupplyHouse, Nick spent several years at Uline as Director of Digital Marketing — one of the most sophisticated catalog and direct mail operations in the country. He holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

ㅤ

📌 What We Cover

• What the TradeMaster Program actually is — and why it's built for trades pros, not typical B2B buyers
• How SupplyHouse uses first-party loyalty data to show TradeMaster-specific pricing in Google Ads — and why paying to retain existing customers is a calculated call, not a mistake
• The two-track email strategy: a longer welcome journey for new members who haven't purchased yet, and a faster re-engagement sequence for customers showing drop-off behavior
• Why SupplyHouse measures TradeMaster success as a rolling one-year unique buyer file — not just opens or clicks
• How Nick thinks about SMS in B2B: start with transactional texts, let customers opt into what they want, and accept that the timing and cadence rules from email don't apply
• The direct mail playbook: predicting lifetime value from a customer's first order (SKU type, order size, cross-category behavior) to decide who gets a TradeMaster invitation piece
• Why SupplyHouse launched both a dedicated loyalty team and an inside sales team in the same year — and why those two functions are designed to work together
• Kyler's synthesis of the full strategy: retention is about touchpoints, and distributors sitting on large house files are already holding the advantage

ㅤ

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• SupplyHouse.com TradeMaster Program
• Darn Good Distributors Episode 11 - Kristen Dean, Universal Companies (SMS in B2B — referenced in conversation)