Our SKU'D View

If you've been in the home furnishings industry long enough, you’ll know the biggest revenue shifts happen between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Well, Nate Smathers joins Emily and Chris to instruct that to make the biggest impact, planning and strategy needs to start long before. Nate walks through the MicroD process, from planning to execution, that takes place to create great campaigns for the summer sales cycle and the pivotal holiday sales season beyond.

This episode is an incredible lesson in digital marketing strategy and a look at the role MicroD plays between furniture manufacturers and retailers to make high-performing campaigns. Make sure to let us know if you’d like to hear more of these types of episodes, and please be sure to share this podcast with other people you know who would enjoy it.

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Coming up with new sales promotions or new campaign ideas can be difficult at times. In this episode, Emily and Chris discuss some ways to keep your marketing teams energized and innovating. Discussion points include:

* Moving away from the "big campaign" idea

* The danger of sticking with the status quo

* Using Agile Marketing techniques

* Data-driven decision making

* Social Media engagement

You can read more about this topic in the original blog post.

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You asked and we listened. Join Emily as she brings in two Talent and Recruitment experts, Tracy Barber and Carly Kincaid to talk about how to make the right hiring choices. We’ll talk about places you can find good talent for your business, how culture plays a role in employee engagement, and the red flags you should watch out for in your staff. It’s hard to find good people and harder to keep them. That’s why we brought this special episode to the home furnishings listeners – but it really does help you no matter your industry!

Emily and Ken zip through the last 15 months of digital marketing at MicroD. Since the new digital marketing division was created, what were the lessons we learned and what changes happened in the furniture retail industry related to marketing. Plus, get an exclusive inside look at the upcoming Vegas Market seminar about planning digital marketing budgets.

In this episode, Chris whines about missing High Point Market, while Emily gives a great wrap-up of some of the topics of interest that came up repeatedly from both the retailers and manufacturers we spoke to.

We briefly go over:

* Logistics, EDI, and simplifying systems

* Hiring and retaining the right kind of people

* Connecting retailers and manufacturers for mutual benefit

* Going to Market for reasons other than buying

Please be sure to share this episode with your friends, family, coworkers and anyone else you think might be interested in Our SKU'D View. Thank you so much for leaving ratings and reviews – they help get the word out! Check out more great content on our blog.

Richard Sexton, Chief Product Officer at MicroD, has a secret for retailers when it comes to budget. In this episode, listen as Emily asks Richard the big questions about budget, financials, and the ways furniture retailers should be managing cash flow in the store. We’ll go over expenses you can get rid of, family member employees you can’t, and looking at how big ecommerce players spend advertising budgets. Richard will finally answer the question you’ve been asking: How much of my budget should I spend on advertising? This is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Nate Smathers works with a lot of retailers who are asking a lot of questions about the future. With so many questions and uncertainty about the future of brick and mortar retail, Nate wrote a love letter to retailers. Join Emily Stalvey in this episode as she asks Nate about his letter to retailers. We’ll talk about all the reasons brick and mortar retailers are doing better than you think. Plus, Emily talks about the death of brick and mortar – but only one piece of it.

Remarketing. It's that phrase you've heard over and over again from marketing teams. But what is remarketing? If you're looking for answers and want to learn how to get started with remarketing, this is the episode for you.

Join Chris Lamb as he talks with special guest Rich Baker about the world of remarketing with Google. Chris and Rich will cover remarketing topics such as:

* What is remarketing?

* How does remarketing work so effectively?

* What are some the type of remarketing?

* Discussion on cost, strategy and more…

This is a great beginner's guide to getting started with remarketing. Take an even deeper dive into remarketing on our original blog post.

You’re a retail store owner who needs to increase sales. If that sounds like you, this episode should be on your most-played list. Join Emily Stalvey and Chris Lamb as they take apart the online and in-store improvements you can do right now to increase sales. We’ll cover some of the topics you care most about like:

* Product reviews

* Product descriptions

* Millennial shoppers

* ...and so much more

If Millennial shoppers aren’t buying your furniture and the search engines aren’t seeing your products, take one or two notes from this week’s episode and apply it to your retail store advertising strategy. Learn more in our original blog post.

Join Chris Lamb as he talks with Ken Widger about Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). We’ll explain what is conversion rate optimization and five steps you can take to make your website convert more customers. We'll cover some hot takes on web design for retail websites.

This is a beginner’s guide to website design for website owners that want to make a more successful online presence. Ken’s decades of experience in marketing and website conversion expertise is widely sought in the home furnishings and other industries. If you missed Ken Widger’s High Point Market or Las Vegas Market seminar, you’ll get a one-on-one look at Ken’s website design best practices.

You’ll learn Ken's guide to the best websites including tips like:

* Homepage design best practice

* How to handle your site navigation

* Website Personalization

* Website tools to help you do CRO