Sauder's new Web campaign a hit
Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2003
Archbold, Ohio — Looking to catapult its brand to the top of Internet shopping lists, Sauder Woodworking has launched a three-pronged Web marketing campaign.
"We've had tremendous response," said Susan Dountas, vice president of merchandising.
"We track everybody going through our site, and our sessions have increased by significant double digits. We've also seen a big jump in the number of dealer locator searches. For us, that is what it's all about, and we're hearing from all kinds of dealers who are receiving referrals from our Web sites."
The market leader among flat-pack furniture producers, Sauder has developed three content-rich sites focusing on core categories such as home office and home entertainment. This will help browsers find Sauder when they search a specific furniture category.
The company also has bought sponsor links with the search engines Google and Overture, which will push the Sauder name higher up the list when consumers search for specific key words, such as desks or office furniture. With the MSN and Yahoo search sites, Sauder bought skyscraper and banner ads that will appear when cued by certain search words.
The Internet campaign is in the early stages of a three-month test.
Internet marketing is a trial-and-error process that can be refined based on the amount of Web traffic each ad or link generates.
"We want to learn from this," Dountas said. "We're doing multiple versions of ads, and we want to see which ones work best. Most important, we want to see how we can make it to the top of the list when someone is searching for one of our product categories."
