July 20/27; Retailer’s Guide to Digital Marketing
By Ken Ryan
Flooring retail executives wear many hats and fulfill numerous functions during the course of a business day—being a digital marketing guru shouldn’t necessarily be one of their skills sets.
Fortunately, there are digital marketing experts representing major mills, retail groups and industry associations with the common goal of providing the necessary training and tools to help retailers succeed in the digital marketing space.
For those dealers on the fence about if and how best to proceed, here are some steps and resources available.
Step one: Rely on industry partners
For those aligned dealers with Shaw or Mohawk, or who are part of a buying group, help and training is readily available. Shaw Industries is on the leading edge of digital marketing and helps its retailers with a variety of programs. Several retailers said a Shaw program called Share It Forward has proven to be particularly successful. Share It Forward is an online review platform that customers can visit to post reviews about their purchase experiences. They are asked to give a score from 1 to 5 (1 = poor; 5 = excellent) on different aspects of their experiences including salesperson, installers, value and product. Then the customer can post an explanation for the reason she gave each score. “We then have an opportunity to respond to the review posted,” said Eric Langan, president and owner of Carpetland USA, with nine locations in Iowa and Illinois. “We invite our customers to post reviews through gift bags we hand out at the time of purchase. Customers can also visit our website directly and post reviews. We just started this a couple of months ago and are looking to build our number of reviews.”
Shaw and Mohawk are among a select group of major U.S. companies that use Promoboxx, a brand-to-retail marketing platform that allows large entities to launch co-branded online campaigns with retailers.
The best thing about Promoboxx, according to dealers, is that it saves them the time and trouble of creating their own content. “It’s like the easy button—it does all the work for you,” said Dani Brock, director of retail marketing for Shaw Industries.
The company also offers RSAs a program called Social Studies through its Shaw Learning Academy in which professionals are brought in to host webinars on everything from website design to best digital practices. “This program gives dealers an educational base to advance their digital strategies,” said Todd Callaway, director of digital content at Shaw Industries.
Mohawk has partnered with best-in-class web services companies to provide its retailers with viable options to not only design and manage websites, but also to keep the sites operating with the latest online developments. “We engage companies with core expertise in digital because they are up to date on all the latest technologies, Google changes, SEO, social connectivity, banner advertising, lead generation and website design,” said Mollie Surratt, senior director of public relations, content and social media, Mohawk Industries. “In addition, Mohawk University offers a full suite of online programs around the subject of digital marketing.”
Mohawk University’s digital marketing resources are run by experts in their fields and are offered as part of its monthly webinar series, which is recorded for on-demand viewing or study-at-home, self-paced training programs.
Mohawk’s latest digital marketing series is called The Right Click. Dealers who sign up (at the Mohawk University section of mohawktoday.com) can take a closer look at how social media marketing benefits their businesses. “We’ll discuss best practices, [how to] create compelling content, social advertising, building a strategy and using social media to generate leads,” Surratt said.
Digital marketing programs also save dealers the expense of having to hire experts. Sam Chesher, owner of Carpet Wise in Longmont, Colo., said he would have to hire a full-time staffer to handle the work that Flooring America does for his store. “They do an excellent job with all of our digital and social marketing. [The group] automatically posts on all social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Houzz on our behalf. We also have access to these accounts as a business so we can post our own information. We receive regular training on the best way to utilize digital media and the current trends. We are given regular updates at our conventions and on Flooring America’s member [website]. This year they are offering a specialized two-day training and conference to train members in depth on how to use digital media.”
FloorExpo, a division of CCA Global Partners, helps its dealers stay connected with builder clientele through a system that sends a bi-monthly email newsletter to everyone in a retailer’s builder database. The trick is that the e-newsletter looks as though it came from the individual retailer rather than FloorExpo. Dealers who have taken advantage, such as Nick Freadreacea, owner of The Flooring Gallery in Louisville, Ky., say it is a “great device” to keep clients up to date on new product offerings, styles and color trends.
Step two: Take advantage of education
One of the greatest benefits of attending The International Surface Event (TISE) is the robust educational programs that are available for attendees. Informa Exhibitions, owner of the show, is revitalizing its education package for TISE 2016. Crafted into the new educational program, Ignite includes sessions aimed at helping retailers and other flooring professionals navigate through digital marketing growth areas. The curriculum will cover social media trends, how to power online marketing with Google Analytics and how to keep up with the rapidly advancing state of social media.
One educational module discusses the top social media trends for 2016 and what businesses can do to keep current. It is targeted to the company that may be on the fence about social networking and where to go with it.
“How to power your online marketing with Google Analytics” seeks to teach attendees about using their website traffic stats to better understand their audiences and make their websites more productive. A third seminar discusses how companies can harness the power of positive customer reviews, where to request reviews and how to handle the reality of negative online feedback.
Step three: Advice from pros
Digital marketers said one important piece of advice they give dealers is to know their audience. That’s because, unlike many consumer products, flooring is an infrequent purchase, and therefore a flooring dealer’s social media efforts do not need to continually promote sales events. Callaway said the content should engage the customer in conversation. “If the dealer is only talking about sales you are not going to be getting a lot of engagement. You want to invite exploration, conversation—maybe it is a topic about color trends or design trends. What we are trying to help our dealers with is create the ongoing relationship so that the next time customers have flooring needs, they have already created this [connection] with you.”
Saakait Mathur, director of digital marketing strategies for the Stainmaster brand of Invista, advises dealers that social media content needs to reflect the fact that flooring is as much an emotional purchase as it is a functional one. “People have an emotional tie to how their homes look and feel but it is also a functional purchase because the flooring has to be soft or has to resist scratches, depending on the surface; the content needs to strike a balance between social conversation and engaging content.”
Through SEO tools, Stainmaster.com directs consumers to area dealers that carry Stainmaster product. “If you are in the Phoenix area, Baker Bros. is going to come up in your search,” Mathur said. “Digital marketing is new enough that a lot of businesses and brands need to come up to speed as to how to use the medium. Flooring retailers are starting to pick up on knowing how to track traffic and use keywords that are getting traction. The pace of digital is so rapid, retailers are forced to react quickly to the changes that are going on.”