For several years Minneapolis-based Caldrea used the Web solely as an information resource to support the retail sales of its luxury home-cleaning products, according to founder and president Monica Nassif. The biodegradable cleaning products, which are sold under the Mrs. Meyers and Caldrea brands, are available at Whole Foods, Fred Meyers and other supermarket chains.
Nassif said Caldrea's website was managed from 2000 to 2005 by an outside organization that had restrictive policies limiting design, which prevented her from optimizing the content for search engines. To enhance the company's online marketing and sales, she hired Andrew Janis as e-commerce manager and brought management of the website in-house in January of this year.
Caldrea is participating in search marketing with several search engines, and Janis says Google provides the best return for green companies. "We get the majority of traffic from Google," he says. Keyword purchases that focus on "environmental" or green tend to outperform more generic terms, according to Janis.
Caldrea sells its products and advertises through several shopping search engines, and Janis says Froogle "outclasses everything out there." The clickthrough and conversion rates are terrible on other shopping sites, he says.
Janis says the company recently made small advertising buys of banner ads on environmental websites, and Caldrea has contacted a few bloggers and lifestyle publishers to spread the word. The company has not joined any affiliate networks as yet, but Janis may pursue a relationship in the near future.
Communicating with customers through email marketing is part of Caldrea's strategy, as the company prominently displays a form to sign up for special offers on the home page. The company does not have a corporate blog, according to Janis.
My previous life as a neuroscientist (no kidding): NINDS (check the authors section two thirds down).
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