platinum Supporters
We are honored to have you as part of the Home Technology Association community of industry-leading brands that advance HTA’s mission of home technology excellence and exceptional client experiences.
Below are recommended practices to help you maximize your investment in the HTA Supporting Brands program. Whether your goal is to attract more dealers, specifiers such as architects, interior designers, and builders, or homeowners, the following guidance will help you get the most value from your partnership.
If you are looking to add new dealers, give them an incentive to try your product or service and let us help you promote it to HTA Certified dealers. This is a great way to get a dealer’s attention. Especially now with dealers so busy, it often takes something special to make them invest in a new brand, product category, or service.
Likewise, if you are looking to drive additional engagement from existing dealers, create a program that incentivizes dealers to sell into additional categories, to go deeper with your product line, add new services, or sell in larger quantities.
See current programs for newly certified dealers here and existing dealers here. Create your own unique dealer incentive program and email Josh Christian at jc@htacertified.org with the details and we will promote it.
HTA staff is happy to send a list of all certified integrators in a spreadsheet (you can instantly view our column-sortable dealer list at this link). Have your staff or rep firms reach out and introduce your brand to HTA Certified integrators via phone introductions. Leverage the fact that you are part of the HTA family as they are. It will make a cold call much warmer.
If you have created an incentive program for them, your call is a perfect opportunity to draw special attention to it.
If you are a Platinum tier sponsor, we recommend giving us your dealer-facing article first (see tips below to create an effective article) so you can reference the article during the call or email them the article link after the call.
Platinum-tier supporters, you have a unique opportunity to share your brand story directly with HTA Certified dealers through an article written specifically for them. This is your chance to explain what makes your company unique and how working with you can help dealers become more profitable, differentiated, efficient, or design-focused.
Integrators benefit most from clear examples of how your brand solves real problems they face, or problems faced by homeowners and the design and build trades. Dealers are also eager for practical sales tips and strategies that help them develop lasting relationships with the design and build trades.
One effective article approach is to interview an HTA Certified integrator who uses your product or service and have them explain why. You can find a sortable list of HTA Certified dealers here. You may review existing dealer articles at this private URL to see what others are doing: https://htacertified.org/app/resources/.
We recommend submitting your dealer-facing article as soon as possible, ideally within a few weeks of becoming a supporting brand. If you would like help creating an article, email Jeff Bassetti at jeff.bassetti@htacertified.org, he can connect you with professional writing resources who can develop the article for you.
The HTA has compiled a list of top integrators, but we’re not yet connected with all of them. We’d like your help reaching the best dealers in your network who aren’t HTA Certified yet.
As an HTA supporter, you can offer HTA application fee waivers ($400 value) at no cost to you: ten for Silver supporters, twenty for Gold, and thirty for Platinum. You can check our column-sortable list of HTA Certified dealers here to see who’s already certified. If you prefer, we can email you a spreadsheet of all HTA Certified dealers.
When your best dealers become HTA Certified, everyone benefits: they improve their close rate, you get more business from them, your partnership becomes more profitable, the clients gets a great technology experience, and HTA gains another high-quality integrator.
For a ready-to-send introduction email, contact Josh at jc@htacertified.org.
Webinars are an effective way to promote your company. We recommend hosting a webinar that highlights your brand’s unique benefits, using the dealer-facing article ideas referenced above.
Once your webinar is scheduled, please provide at least one month’s notice. Platinum tier supporters may use HTA’s Zoom Webinar account, and HTA will manage registration logistics and provide a complete list of registrants.
We continually work to expand our social reach to top integrators, architects, builders, interior designers, and the public. Please follow the HTA on our social media channels, all linked in the footer of this website. We also encourage you to share or repost HTA content with your audience. Working together helps spread the message of industry excellence to the right companies and individuals.
As a supporter of the Home Technology Association, you are investing in an organization that stands for quality and consumer satisfaction. We encourage you to show that commitment proudly.
HTA has created Supporting Brand logos for your use. Please display the HTA Supporting Brand logo on your website and link it to your company’s HTA microsite page or to this dedicated page explaining WHY you support HTA (a headerless/footerless version of this page is at this link).
Two logo versions are available: a general logo and a tier-specific logo. All logos can be downloaded here.
We offer two highly valuable resources you can share on your website: the HTA Technology Budget Estimator and the Project Technology Assessment forms. These two tools help raise the bar for the entire CI industry.
1 – The HTA’s Technology Budget Estimator
You may embed HTA’s Technology Budget Estimator directly on your website and receive the calculated data from it.
This tool benefits your dealers, end users, and design and build pros by educating potential clients about realistic technology budgets from the very beginning. It shifts sticker shock away from the dealer and toward HTA’s brand-neutral, industry-standard calculator. Feedback shows that clients who use this tool are less likely to shop around, helping steer homeowners away from low-ball providers that harm the industry’s reputation.
Contact Jeff Bassetti here to learn how to link or embed it.
2 – Project Technology Assessment forms
If your product mix serves the design and build communities, we recommend sharing the HTA Project Technology Assessment forms on your site.*
These forms are targeted to architects, interior designers, and builders. They highlight the full scope of systems integrators provide and encourage design and build pros to plan for technology needs EARLY in their process. They also direct design and build pros to your most qualified dealers.
You may share either the links or the PDFs using the two versions below. The forms are identical, though the lead in verbiage is targeted to different audiences.
Design team link (for architects and interior designers)
Build team link (for builders and remodelers)
Baker International Group provides a strong example of how to feature these resources; click here to see.
* If your team or your rep firms call on the design and build trades, we have a special version that we can brand for you (or your rep firm)
Your dealer finder already helps users locate integrators. Adding HTA Certified and HTA Design Partner to your dealer finder designations gives homeowners and the design and build trades immediate clarity on which firms are proven, design-aware, and collaborative. These markers significantly reduce the risk of poor installations, service issues, and damaged brand perception. When projects go well, your products look better, perform better, and get specified again. Ask us for specialized HTA logos for dealer finder use.
Platinum supporters can choose either a dealer-facing or public-facing article. If you choose to provide a public-facing article, it should inform specifiers, including architects, interior designers, and builders, as well as luxury homeowners, about your product or service. We recommend an advertorial format that begins with broad education about the category and naturally positions your product or service as the logical solution.
An effective approach is to interview an architect, interior designer, builder, homeowner, or HTA Certified integrator who uses your product or service and have them explain why they chose it. You may also embed videos in the article.
We recommend submitting your public-facing article as soon as possible, ideally within a few weeks of becoming a supporting brand. If you need assistance creating the article, email Jeff Bassetti at jeff.bassetti@htacertified.org. He can connect you with professional writing resources to help develop the content.
If your product mix serves the design and build communities, we recommend sharing the HTA Project Technology Assessment forms on your site.*
These forms are targeted to architects, interior designers, and builders. They highlight the full scope of systems integrators provide and encourage design and build pros to plan for technology needs EARLY in their process. They also direct design and build pros to your most qualified dealers.
You may share either the links or the PDFs using the two versions below. The forms are identical, though the lead in verbiage is targeted to different audiences.
Design team link (for architects and interior designers)
Build team link (for builders and remodelers)
* If your team or your rep firms call on the design and build trades, we have a special version that we can brand for you (or your rep firm)
Architects, interior designers, and other key specifiers need CEUs (Continuing Education Units) to maintain certain industry credentials. Many brands in the CI space offer one-hour CEU courses that educate specifiers on aspects of home technology related to their products. Do you?
If your goal is to build brand awareness and thought leadership with specifiers, a CEU course is an effective way to do both. Courses can be delivered by your staff, rep firms, or dealers. HTA lists each company’s CEU courses on the brand’s HTA category page. See the Lutron page as an example. Note the two classes listed in the right-hand margin.
For guidance on creating a CEU, visit this AIA page, and this IDCEC page.
Architects, interior designers, builders, remodelers, etc. each have their own industry trade associations. If you want to create more awareness with specifiers, investigate becoming a member or sponsor of one or more of these related trade associations. We have a resource page here to all the major trade associations.
Each association has a way to get your brand in front of their members. From the outreach we have done, these associations realize that technology is an increasingly vital aspect of their member’s projects. Most of these associations have their own trade shows you can exhibit at.
In your dealer newsletter, encourage your dealers to join and be active with their local trade association chapters. Each association’s local chapter finder is at the above link.
gold Supporters
