Lowes introducing new interactive consumer Internet tools

There was an interesting article on Forbes yesterday about How Lowe's Plans To Revolutionize Its Customer Experience. The article talks about how Lowe's is trying to use technology to help engage their customers and improve customer service.

Lowes is introducing a new online tool, called “myLowes”, that will enable consumers to access information and advice via the Internet about their home improvement preferences. It sounds like a personalized digital workbook with various home decorating tools and helpful articles. Along with this Lowe's has supposedly given 42,000 employes iPhones for in-store use to search products and make sales.

"It allows customers to build room-by-room profiles of their homes and to experiment with different styles virtually."

This sounds like it could be a win-win for web-savvy, home improvement shoppers and Lowe's. There is no doubt Lowe's is definitely pushing ahead of the curve trying to find new, innovative ways to engage customers through technology. In my August blog post Lowes Launches A Slick iPhone Shopping App I talked about Lowe's iPhone shopping application. Now they are taking another step further by connecting Lowe's sales people directly with homeowners and giving homeowners additional online tools.

For retailers, Lowes is definitely a company to watch.

Note: flooring retailers Lowes free install for STAINMASTER® Carpet.Offer ends 11/18/2011

2011 WFCA Consumer Buying Flooring Study

The WFCA and Clear Seas did a flooring consumer study in August 2011. Most of the research focused on flooring buyers use of various online websites and social media channels.

There were 494 email responses from consumers who had previously purchased flooring in the past 6 months and had remodeled or updated one or more rooms. 75% said they were either post graduate or a college graduate and 69% said their annual income was $65,000 or more. 59% said they were full-time employed, 21% said they were retired, only 3% were unemployed or a student, and the remainder were either employed part-time or were home makers.

From the 494 consumers who responded Tile was the most popular flooring type installed for their most recent project, followed by Laminate flooring, Hardwood flooring and Carpet. Most of the laminate floors were do-it-yourself remodel projects, not professionally installed. No real surprise there. (It should be noted that the 494 responses were about a 50-50 split between DIY and professionally installed.)

Here are a few highlights of the results that I found most interesting...

• Three-out-of-four consumers surveyed used online resources when shopping for their most recent flooring product purchase. Big box retailer websites (such as Lowe’s and Home Depot) are the most used online resources, followed by flooring manufacturer websites and search engines. Just over one-in-three consumers used a specialty flooring website.
• Among those who used an online resource only about one-in-three actually researched and selected a specific brand online to purchase before visiting a store who did use.
• Seven-out-of-ten also rate special offers/coupons, benefits of products carried, brands carried and customer reviews of retailers as important or very important. Consumers reported the least important content to include on the website is, by far, links to social media.
• Most also stated they used previous experience or personal recommendations when selecting a store, followed by search engines, retailer's website and then manufacturer's websites.
• While 80% of consumers report participating on social media (mainly Facebook), they are unlikely to use it to find a specialty flooring retailer and do not find it important that specialty flooring retailers are involved in social media. Social media involvement does appear to positively influence consumers’ perceptions of specialty flooring retailers.

Social media has become a large part of society today, but despite the high involvement, consumers buying flooring are less inclined to use it when purchasing new flooring. From my personal conversations with various retailers I find most feel they have to be on Facebook but don't find it a big traffic generator. Of course consumers who post great things about the flooring they recently purchased on their own personal Facebook page would be a great word-of-mouth testimonial for that store.

This brings me back to what I posted last week about Creating an Effective Local Web Marketing Business Strategy. I am seeing more traffic being generated to the store's websites from Google Places and in some cases other Internet Yellow Page type directories than from any social media channel. Google Places and their other business directories also contain all the essential things needed for a consumer to find a local store, including directions, map, store hours, address, phone number and in some cases are really a mini-web page with customer reviews as well. That doesn't mean this holds true for all types businesses, some other types of businesses are doing very well with Facebook and other social media channels. If you have any questions feel free to email me at: john@webstreamdynamics.com.

Creating An Effective Local Web Marketing Business Strategy

There is a lot of store owners confused today when it comes to creating a smart, effective online marketing strategy. So often I see the shotgun approach - do a little of everything and see what sticks. A large part of that is due to lack of understanding and hearing all the hype about what is the latest online rage. So many local businesses try to do to much and in the process do nothing extremely well.

Deal of the day websites like Groupon are a prime example of hype we have all heard for a while. Now there is a saturation of too many of these type websites and they are starting to loose their effectiveness with many local consumers. A lot small businesses jumped on offering deals without thinking through to the end result - will this really be profitable for my business (ROI).

Many stores are beginning to post on Facebook and some are Twittering, or have some company twitter for them. But few have a real content strategy and even fewer are measuring their results to see if it is worth their precious time. Also, few analyze if their tweets and Facebook posts are really engaging their targeted local  consumers. For example: go to your Twitter and Facebook page and pull out all your friends, relatives, competitors and employees and count how many are left.

So here is what I recommend store owners to start with for their online local business strategy:

1.  Establish your online marketing goals
1. For example:  drive online, local targeted buyers to your storefront
2. Keep the goal(s) in focus with everything you do online
2. Get your website in order first
1. Local SEO optimized
2. Compelling content for driving targeted buyers to your storefronts
3. Highly visible "Call-To-Actions"
4. Google Analytics & WebMaster Tools to measure website results
3. Claim, or add, to all major Yellow-Page type business directories
1. Google Places a must!
2. There are about 15 others to add all locations too
3. include description, website address, categories, upload photos and video if possible
4. Get other local listings where possible to improve your visibility
1. Local Chamber of Commerce website
2. Local newspaper business listings, if available online
3. Supplier's website store listings
4. Association member listings (for example: www.WFCA.org)
5. BBB online (if you can tolerate all their BS)
6. exchange links with other local businesses
5. Create a Facebook store page that is public
1. Keep content interesting to targeted buyers
2. Try posting promotions and drive to website, create special landing page
3. Make sure website is update to date with sales, etc.
4. Measure the results
6. Set up a pay-per-click advertising campaign
1. Establish a monthly dollar budget
2. Bid on local geo-keywords +  major product groups you don't do well with in natural search
3. Create compelling text ads and tweak as need
4. Create special geo-targeted, relevant landing pages with "Call-To-Action"
5. Measure the results weekly
7. Re-examine all the above after 3-6 months to see what is working and what is not

If you need more explanation or help understanding any of the above feel free to email me at john@webstreamdynamics.com

Monitor What Others Say About Your Business Online With Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free search tool that can help manage what others online are saying about your business, or about your competitors. This is not a full-blown reputation management tool, but as a freebie, it ain't bad to start with.

It only takes a free Google Account to save your alerts and have new alerts emailed to you every time Google Alerts finds something online that matches the keywords you selected. For example:

1. I logged into my Google Account and then went to: http://www.google.com/alerts

Click image to enlarge

2. Type in the Google alerts text box the desired keywords, such as your business name. For this example I used my business name "webstream dynamics" (highlighted in yellow above).
3.For Type: I selected on wanted "Everything" that Google crawls.
4. For How Often: I selected "As it happens" (So I only get an email alert as it is found by Google.
5. For Volume: I selected "All results". I want it totally unfiltered.
6. For Deliver to: I left it go to my Google Account email address.
7. You should notice a sampling of results on the right side of your screen based on the keywords you typed in the Google alerts text box. You can also click the blue-colored Preview results button located to the right of the alert text box.
8. Last, if satisfied, click the red-colored Save Alert button.

Now when ever Google finds something new said online that contains the keyword phrase you will be notified. Later on if you want to remove any Google Alerts you just log in and delete the ones you don't want to receive emails for any more.

TIP: If you want to create an alert and fiilter out some results you can append "negative keywords" after your keyword phrase.
For example: carpet -red -cleaning -cleaners