Armstrong.com Taking Online Efforts to New Level

Lancaster, PA, May 6--With a carefully planned website redesign, Armstrong says it is taking its award-winning Armstrong.com to a new level. The goal is to attract, inform and inspire more consumers – including an emphasis on Spanish-speaking consumers – and, ultimately, drive them to local retailers. After visiting the site, consumers also should be far more likely to find exactly what they want. Armstrong.com is already on track to reach nearly half of all hard-surface floor buyers in 2005, reports Jesse Engle, Armstrong general manager, eMarketing. “No other flooring manufacturer comes close,” he says. New Alexa rankings support the claim. Armstrong recently posted as the no. 1 floor manufacturing site in web traffic – nearly 50,000 points above the next best site on the list. Industry in Website Traffic 1. Armstrong 2. Pergo 3. Shaw Floors 4. Mannington Source: Alexa.com, 3/3/2005 Website traffic rankings. The more traffic a site receives, the closer it gets to No.1. Armstrong: 16,823; Pergo: 66,713; Shaw: 74,476; Mannington: 96,548 The Armstrong.com site creates leads for retailers with the only SKU-specific store locator in the industry – so once consumers select a retail location, they may browse only products carried by that individual store. Features with special appeal for retail accounts include an email link to stores from the improved Store Locator. Plus, beginning in May ’05 stores will be able to feature Armstrong web tools on their own store websites by simply including a link. They can offer the Floor Selector, a complete Armstrong floor product catalog and selection center, or Design a Room, a tool that lets customers see Armstrong floors in a variety of rooms. Installing these tools on a retailer’s site is easy and takes only a few minutes. Complete instructions will be available through the Armstrongconnect.com portal. Retailers that offer certified installation receive preferred listings on a new Store Locator page that also features more store information and links. “Armstrong certified installations greatly improve customer satisfaction and can reduce callbacks by a factor of four or more, so we are encouraging installers to become professionally trained through our widely respected certification program,” explains Armstrong’s General Manager, Distributor Channel - Residential Joe Guarino. The benefits of Armstrong certified installation is also highlighted for customers. The site is designed to appeal to both head and heart to help consumers learn, plan and decide. For inspiration, a new Shop by Room section lets consumers browse by room type to explore personal style, view beautifully decorated rooms organized by décor, and get design ideas from professional interior designers. Room views are from gorgeous show homes and some pages feature comments from the real room designers about how and why they designed the room they way they did, pointing out special touches, etc. to help stimulate the consumer’s thinking. Then there is the pioneering Design a Room viewer – long the hottest spot on Armstrong.com – that lets customers see what their new floor will look like in a variety of room settings with different paints and cabinets, and now ceilings. To educate consumers and get them ready to buy, a Floor Selector tool leads consumers through a step-by-step process and teaches about budget, performance and style features for different kinds of floors. In addition to seeing floors in different room settings, consumers also can compare features of different floors side-by-side using this tool. “The idea behind this redesign was to capture what we’ve learned about what consumers and our retailers want – and guide consumers so they can confidently narrow their selection. We believe no site is better at inspiring, educating, and guiding customers from idea to the retailer’s front door than Armstrong.com,” Engle says.

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