How to Define Market Share for Your Building Products Strategy

“Double our market share.”

It’s a common objective and on the surface, a compelling one. It signals ambition, confidence, and a desire to lead. For mid-market building products manufacturers, it’s also often the headline target that anchors strategic planning cycles.

But there’s a problem:
Market share is the scoreboard, not the strategy.

‍
It’s an outcome. It only grows when deliberate choices and well-executed actions make customers choose you over the competition. And when you pursue an outcome without aligning on the levers that produce it, the result is typically misallocated effort, misaligned teams, and a diluted go-to-market engine.

At C&C, we help building materials firms get clear on the actual drivers of commercial growth—so bold ambitions become executable plans.

Here’s how we unpack “market share” into a framework that supports focus, alignment, and results.

‍

Market Share Is an Umbrella Term. You Need Precision Beneath It.

Market share is too broad a concept to operate on. Different teams interpret it in different ways:

• To the CEO, it often signals scale or category dominance.
• To sales, it sounds like competitive wins.
• To marketing, it may trigger a brand awareness campaign.
• To channel partners, it might not resonate at all.

This disconnect creates drift. Strategic initiatives stack up, but don’t converge. Sales asks for one thing. Marketing builds another. Product develops for the wrong buyer.

The fix isn’t to abandon the goal—it’s to define the path.

‍

Four Distinct Growth Levers That Drive Market Share

In our work with building products clients, we use a simple diagnostic model to clarify the nature of the growth opportunity. There are four distinct strategic paths that can lead to increased market share. Each requires a different set of capabilities, GTM motions, and metrics.

1. Market Penetration

Gain deeper traction within the market you already serve.

This is often the lowest-friction lever. You’re not entering new territory—you’re optimizing access and relevance within your current customer base.

Typical use cases:

• A well-known brand is underrepresented at branch level.
• Your product is specified but not stocked or vice versa.
• Awareness is high, but conversion remains flat.

Execution priorities:

• Increase stocking rates and product availability.
• Improve spec-in velocity through better tools and rep enablement.
• Reactivate dormant accounts or win first-time buyers within existing verticals.

This is blocking and tackling. But it’s often neglected in favor of more exciting strategic leaps.

Simpson Strong-Tie
Strategy: Deepened engagement with existing customers through field support, training, and stocking programs.

What they did:
Simpson didn’t chase market share through aggressive expansion. Instead, they invested in field reps, contractor education, and stocking incentives, ensuring their core structural connectors were both preferred and available on every job site. By making it easier for dealers and framers to specify and stock their SKUs, they increased share of wallet within their existing customer base.

Result:
High brand loyalty in the pro segment, with market penetration that outpaces competitors despite pricing pressure. The brand has become default in its category.

‍

2. Market Share Shift

Outperform competitors in the categories you already compete in.

This lever is about relative performance, not reach. It’s where competitive strategy meets sales execution.

Typical use cases:

• You're consistently in the bid set but not closing.
• Competitors are beating you on perceived value, not actual performance.
• Win/loss rates are flat or declining in core SKUs.

Execution priorities:

• Refine positioning and messaging to highlight your real edge.
• Equip reps with objection handling and competitor comparison tools.
• Align sales, marketing, and product on a unified differentiation narrative.

Share shift is not a brand awareness problem. It’s a sales precision problem.

LP Building Solutions
Strategy: Converted competitive share in siding through focused repositioning and installer conversion.

What they did:
LP rebranded its SmartSide product line to go directly after fiber cement competitors, particularly James Hardie. They trained contractors on installation speed advantages, equipped channel partners with side-by-side comparison tools, and sharpened messaging around durability and workability.

Result:
LP gained significant share in the siding category—not by expanding the market, but by winning head-to-head in the consideration set where Hardie previously dominated.

‍

3. Market Expansion

Reach new revenue by entering untapped regions, segments, or channels.

Here, you’re growing the pie by adding to it geographically or strategically. Expansion often comes with the highest revenue ceiling, but also the most operational complexity.

Typical use cases:

• Your product is dominant in one region but unknown elsewhere.
• You’re concentrated in one segment and vulnerable to downturns.
• A new channel could 2x your reach but requires a different sales motion.

Execution priorities:

• Validate product-channel fit before scaling.
• Develop territory plans and new partner programs.
• Adjust pricing, packaging, and messaging for the new audience.

Expansion creates options but only if it’s sequenced correctly.

Trex‍

Strategy: Expanded from core decking into railings, lighting, and cladding.

What they did:
Trex dominated composite decking and then systematically expanded its product offering into adjacent outdoor categories, rails, lighting, fencing, and façade products, while building out channel presence through big box and pro dealer networks.

Result:
Trex increased revenue per project and diversified its exposure across categories, driving growth by entering new product lines and customer budgets—without diluting the brand’s outdoor living leadership.

‍

4. TAM Growth (Total Addressable Market)

Redefine the boundaries of the category itself.

This is the long game. It requires vision, voice-of-customer insight, and often regulatory or standards influence. It’s not for every firm, but those who pursue it methodically can shape the future of the market and gain significantly.

Typical use cases:

• You’ve developed a product for an unmet or unrecognized need.
• You see whitespace in retrofit, code shifts, or ESG-driven design trends.
• You’re already a category leader looking to stretch the ceiling.

Execution priorities:

• Drive thought leadership and buyer education.
• Collaborate with specifiers, architects, and trade associations.
• Invest in R&D, pilot programs, and category reframing.

TAM growth creates defensibility, but it requires patience and conviction.

Andersen Windows
Strategy: Reframed its product value beyond energy efficiency into smart home integration and indoor air quality.

What they did:
Andersen invested in R&D and marketing to shift the narrative around windows from a commodity building envelope product to an element of well-being, sustainability, and intelligent control. This included acquisitions (like Fenetres MQ) and new offerings (like smart sensors and fresh air solutions).

Result:
Andersen helped expand category relevance with architects, homeowners, and specifiers—positioning windows as a performance feature rather than a passive element. That opened new conversations (and budgets) for premium SKUs.

‍

These Levers Aren’t Mutually Exclusive. But They Can’t Be Pursued All at Once.

In most cases, a growth strategy will sequence these levers over time.

For example:

• Start with penetration to extract more value from your current footprint.
• Then pursue market share shift once you’ve solidified your presence.
• Use that momentum to fuel expansion into adjacent markets.
• And long term, invest in TAM growth to build the next act of your business.

The most common mistake we see? Trying to run all four levers in parallel without the infrastructure to support them. Growth must be focused to be repeatable.

‍

Execution Is the Multiplier

Each growth path implies different priorities for your go-to-market engine. Here's how to think about it:

Your team doesn’t need more initiatives. It needs a shared understanding of which growth lever you’re pulling and why.

‍

Closing Thought: Market Share Is Earned on the Ground

Market share is earned—daily, account by account, region by region.
It’s not something you set out to grab in the abstract. It’s the outcome of choosing the right lever, at the right time, and executing against it with discipline.

If you’re not clear on what kind of growth you’re actually built for right now, you’ll end up spreading resources across disconnected initiatives—each one sounding important, but none of them sticking.

The better question—the one high-performing teams ask—is: “Given our current strengths, constraints, and opportunities… where do we have the right to win right now?”

That’s how market share is gained:

• Not in planning sessions, but in daily motion.
• Not through vague goals, but through specific plays.
• Not all at once, but one deliberate stage at a time.

At C&C, we specialize in making that clarity actionable.
We help building products firms move from ambition to advantage—by identifying the right growth lever and aligning their teams around it.

If your leadership team is wrestling with that clarity, let’s talk.
Because market share isn’t something you chase.
It’s something you build.