ith all the innovations in design, production and attitudes, the aboveground-pool shopper of yesterday would hardly recognize today’s models.

No longer the plunk-them-down-and-jump-in ugly stepsister, today’s aboveground pools — and their owners — can feel proud.

Aboveground-pool dealers know it, but what about their potential customers? The answer says a lot about where aboveground-pool sales and marketing should be headed.

“A lot of [our customers] are surprised at how much more attractive [the pools] are,” says Pat Walsh, president of The Above Ground Pool & Spa Co. in San Antonio. “They have childhood memories of helping their neighbor put one up and remember they fell down a lot. ‘They’ve come a long way’ is a comment that people will make.”

In some respects, though, the industry still has its work cut out for it, say some retailers. They believe the industry, including retailers themselves, needs to do a better job of elevating the product’s reputation.

For starters, dealers need to take the marketing and sales emphasis away from price and focus it more on value and enjoyment. And if the aboveground-pool sector really wants to compete with other industries such as travel, they say it must begin reaching the public on an emotional or lifestyle level, as other industry segments have done for years.

The bottom line
But right now, some say, too many retailers use price as a major selling point for their products.

“It’s the same old ad: ‘50 percent off aboveground pools,’” says Alan Burnett, president of Burnett Pools and Spas in Cortland, Ohio.

This tactic may help get some people into the store. But it also reinforces any notions consumers might have that abovegrounds are a second-class product, says Walsh. “We do that to ourselves. They advertise price as opposed to quality,” he says.

Walsh says marketing quality is much more effective. “I have found over the years that if you offer them a more quality and expensive product, they’re more interested in it,” he says.

Like other sectors of the pool and spa industry, these veteran retailers have discovered that price doesn’t top most consumers’ lists of reasons to purchase an aboveground pool. “I think [the order is] family enjoyment, fun, entertainment, then maybe exercise,” says John Mosher, owner of Central Iowa Pool & Spa in Des Moines, Iowa. “They do care about warranties. But price is low on the list.”

It may be slow going, but more retailers than before market and sell the quality of their products and services. The aboveground-pool sections of many Web sites, for instance, will list dimensions and run descriptions of frames, coatings and warranties. Ron Fronheiser, president of Fronheiser Pools in Bally, Pa., lets his prospects know that he keeps construction in-house.

Show and tell
These retailers use several other tactics to show potential customers what’s possible with aboveground pools. At the very least, retailers always should have a picture book on hand to demonstrate all the customizing options, say some.

Not only does this kind of sales tool show which features can come with aboveground pools, but it also shows how they can fit into the backyard. “Backyards are different,” Walsh says. “With a picture book, we can show them all these projects we’ve done and give them ideas of what they could do in the backyard. It has to be visual; they want to see what pools look like completed in other backyards. So photographs of completed projects are very important.”

To help bring more photos into his store, Mosher sponsors yearly photo contests for his customers. “You bring in a picture of your pool and you get a free something,” he says.

Walsh uses his Web site for the same purpose. Whereas other retailers may simply include links to the manufacturers’ Web site or list spec’s, he says, “On our Web site, we have 20 or 30 photographs of different projects. And there isn’t a price on the Web site.”

Some retailers erect “pool parks” containing display pools to give a firsthand impression of aboveground-pool possibilities. “It’s very important to display complete pools with landscaping, brick walkways, walk-around decks and fences [to show] what a pool can look like in the backyard,” Burnett says, “and not just try to sell them the tub, which is just a pool and an A-frame ladder.”

Fronheiser displays abovegrounds next to ingrounds so they complement each other. “We [explain] that what people enjoy on the inground pools they can enjoy on the aboveground pools as well,” he says.

These displays are on the rise, says Mosher. “I make it a habit to go to pool stores if I’m in a different town, and I see a lot more nice aboveground pool displays in these stores than I ever did,” he says. “They have nice displays with decks around their pools.”

To truly give his clients a firsthand look at abovegrounds in backyard settings, Mosher provides prospects with names and contact information of former customers who would be willing to show their own pools.

All about image
Through such marketing and sales tactics, consumers get the message that abovegrounds have come a long way in appearance and convenience and can integrate more closely than ever with the home and backyard.

But some retailers say that’s not enough. These retailers are coming to the same realization as their inground counterparts: What’s even more important than showing how an aboveground pool fits into a client’s backyard is showing how it fits into their lives.

For this reason, they say, the aboveground-pool sector should put more resources toward lifestyle marketing. “We’re selling the lifestyle, not the vessel that contains the gallons,” says Dave McKibben, manager of Patio Pools & Spas in Tucson, Ariz.

His company advertises abovegrounds the same way it does ingrounds. “We show pictures of families splashing around and having fun,” McKibben says. “Moms are sitting on lounge chairs with an ice-cold lemonade in their hands and volleyball games in the pools, rather than just a cold picture of a plain old, 15-foot steel wall pool just sitting there.”

Burnett’s company airs commercials depicting typical families and how swimming would fit into their lives. “The scripts in our radio advertisements contain children talking to their parents about the baseball team that was over for the weekend swimming in the pool and how much fun they had,” he says. “In our TV commercials, we show a baby floating in a life preserver…and Dad pulling them around. We have kids jumping in the pool, and show pictures of them swimming underwater with big smiles on their faces.”

While some retailers already use this type of advertising, Fronheiser doesn’t think the aboveground-pool sector as a whole has evolved in that direction. The current stay-at-home mood of the nation makes lifestyle advertising an even smarter way to go, he says.

“With the concerns about traveling,” Fronheiser says, “I think more people want to stay home…bring friends together and have a great time.”