Problem.
An RV Accessories vendor was generating
just enough sales volume to barely remain profitable.
They advertised in national RV periodicals and a local newspaper, had a listing in the local phone book, and paid a route salesman to promote their products.
They had also hired a small, local company to build a Web Site.
The owner contacted T-21 to see if we could help boost
sales.
Action.
Initially, his T-21 Team Manager (TM) suspected that
there was a problem with promotion. He proposed that a T-21 Promotion
Team do preliminary research to assess the
roots of the problem, by first performing a
comparison of the
company's current advertising, offerings, and efforts with those
of competing firms.
With the owner's approval, his TM assembled the Team
that quickly identified several problems:
-
The company's
Web Site was not optimized for relevant search
terms, so it
rarely appeared in major Search
Engines. Therefore, few people would know of their
products from the Internet.
-
The
Web Site had design
problems, including poor product descriptions,
"price-hiding," and difficulty in navigation,
possibly driving away prospective customers.
-
Company
advertising appeared in magazines that may not appeal to their
Target Audience: Serious and Full-Time
RV'ers.
-
Few
brick-and-mortar RV
stores carried their products in stock. Orders from the
route salesman accounted for less than 5% of total
sales.
-
The
company was less aggressive than their competitors
- failing to offer specials and promotions for products.
After this initial review,
the owner asked
about more in-depth help to detect and correct problems, but noted that
the company's cash flow would
not support an immediate, large-scale program. He said, sadly, "We're so far down, I don't know if we can afford to pick
ourselves up."
His TM worked out a progressive program, extending over nine months, to help spread out costs.
First, the T-21 Team completed the Problem Detection and
Documentation phase.
Next, they worked with him to trim costs of
unproductive promotion and advance new strategies to more closely target and motivate potential
buyers. This included bringing in other T-21 members,
who specialized in Web Site Design and Search Engine
Optimization to
improve the company's Web Site and optimize it for the Search Engines, so
more people would see it.
Results.
Over the first seven months,
the company's sales stabilized, then started to gradually turn
upwards. After one-year, monthly sales volumes were up
seven percent and
Internet Sales almost doubled, paying for T-21's work many times
over. Their products were starting to
appear in RV stores and in the RV sections of large volume discount stores. The
owner was pleased, saying, "Awhile back, I thought we were goners. I really
appreciate what you did for us here. We're going to
make it."
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