By Louis Iannaco
Dalton—The Shaw Spring Flooring sale launches April 9 with special consumer credit incentives, promotional pricing and eye-catching marketing materials to dealers nationwide. The sale, which ends May 31, is further supported by a thorough communications plan for dealers and consumers.
“Our customers have responded very positively to our 2007 product and marketing initiatives,” said Scott Sandlin, Shaw’s vice president of residential marketing. “This national sale is an opportunity to springboard these new products in the marketplace and will give consumers the motivation to buy now.” He added a unique component of the spring sale is Shaw’s communication directly to consumers who are in the home improvement process and are ready to buy flooring. “We hope to bring them to our dealers actively participating in the sale.”
Expanding on this “unique component,” Sandlin noted it will be the first time Shaw directly communicates to consumers via e-mail about a sale event. “These are literally thousands of consumers nationwide that ‘opted in’ during our fall/winter sweepstakes via shawfloors.com. Most have projects on the go.”
The dealers get to pick select styles and will receive promotional pricing for these during the sale. Retail sales associates get added Shaw Rewards incentives. Both hard and soft surface products qualify—primarily new introductions—and discounts are based on account-specific decisions made by field management.
Dealers may log on to shawad-source.com to access a variety of marketing materials, such as print advertisements, radio scripts, direct mailers and price tags. POP kits are also available. E-mail blasts and direct mail will be distributed by Shaw to registered consumers. Also, a banner advertisement will be posted on shaw-floors.com throughout the sale.
“We are focused on announcing the sale event through our Web site and other key Web portals that we have been partnering with, primarily Scripts,” Sandlin said. “The key here is that we have over 5,000 packets being delivered to accounts, and they will announce this at the local level. That will be the key.”
