Rockwell Builds Brand Awareness
Rockwell (www.rockwelltools.com) has a long history of successfully selling its power tools through direct response television ads and home shopping networks. However, traditional video marketing methods present limitations. In an industry where nothing beats a product demonstration, Rockwell needed a new way to address customer questions in real time and craft its messages based on what customers wanted to learn.“We liked the idea of a two-way street with customers,” says Lauren Gomez, marketing manager for Rockwell. “What features did they want to see up close? What specifications were most important to them?”
Early in 2013, Gomez discovered Your Brandlive (www.yourbrandlive.com), a live video social commerce platform that online retailers are embracing as a new way to sell products. She decided to give it a try with Rockwell’s Sonicrafter X2 with Universal Fit System, the first oscillating tool on the market that accepts any brand of blades. Conversely, Sonicrafter blades fit every brand of oscillating tool on the market.
“Since this sounds like a bold claim, many customers wanted to see it for themselves,” says Gomez. “We wanted to show the customers how these blades and tools fit and then demonstrate them in a real-world application. We also wanted to provide customers with a discount. We could do all this through Your Brandlive.”
Rockwell leveraged social media and its existing customer database to draw an audience for two scheduled broadcast events. Gomez and her team expected a few dozen people to sign up. They were very wrong. Prospective customers flooded the comments on the page before the first event even started.
“We answered as many as we could and used the questions to dictate which demonstrations to perform,” says Gomez. “We had so many requests to see the Sonicrafter cut carpet that a co-worker slipped us a piece of carpet on the set during the broadcast for us to cut — a great example of something we didn’t anticipate, but luckily we were able to react to during the event!”
The two broadcasts garnered an audience of more than 1,110 unique viewers, which submitted more than 1,000 comments or questions, and placed 120 unique orders via web and phone, with most people ordering multiple products.
“Your Brandlive is a fresh new way to sell products and a great forum to interact with customers. Customers are saturated with traditional online shopping, videos and reviews. This is something new they haven’t seen," says Gomez.
Since the initial campaign, Rockwell partnered with Your Brandlive for two more events.
“We continue to tweak our broadcasts and build our audience. It is very clear by the steady engagement we have during these events that consumers have an appetite for this type of interaction with brands,” closes Gomez.
FAST FACTS
Company at a Glance
The Rockwell brand has offered the performance-minded do-it-yourselfer and the price-conscious tradesman with innovative, quality tools for generations.
One Stop Shop
Using a live video social commerce platform, Rockwell presented customers of the Sonicrafter X2 with Universal Fit System, with everything they could possibly need in one spot: video demonstrations, product information, live chat and even a shopping cart.
Live & Unscripted
While Rockwell prepared an outline, it was the viewers who took the lead and dictated the direction of the initial broadcast. The company even had the Product Manager and Vice President of Marketing jumping in to answer questions and comments.