The Varatys Virtual Designer had 23,000+ total user sessions that clocked an average of 10 minutes that was spent engaging in our client’s products. Over 250 Tweets, Facebook Shares, and Pinterest Pins were created spreading a social buzz! Pinterest is by far the most used social feature on the Varatys Virtual Designer. Our clients had over 1,100 projects saved and 350+ projects emailed by their users.
With the Varatys Virtual Designer, your shoppers will have access our most advanced designer tool. They can remodel their homes inside and out. With our eCommerce and Direct Linking options your shoppers can link from your website to your virtual designer and/or from inside your virtual designer to your website. They can see products listed on your website instantaneously in a room scene and/or they can purchase samples from inside your virtual designer. You’ll give them everything they need so they won’t have to look elsewhere to find inspiration and a great product.
We offer an ever growing set of tools for you and your shoppers. Our newest addition is “Use Your Own Photo”. Your shoppers can upload/prepare their own photos and apply your products. If your shoppers are on an iPad/tablet, they can take a photo while in your virtual designer and use it immediately. We give your shoppers instant gratification. What could be better than that?!
To find out more about the Varatys Virtual Designer, the analytic reports that we provide, and/or to schedule a personal tour contact our team!
Before and after photos are essential to anyone in the building industry. They shatter the glass ceiling of what is possible to anyone looking ahead at doing a remodel. Seeing proof that other homeowners took on similar challenges and overcame obstacles to make their design dreams come to life are inspirational.
Major publications such as Country Living, Better Homes & Gardens, and Southern Living showcase before and after photos on a regular basis. Not only does it appeal to homeowners but it also markets interior designers, the products used, installers, and in some cases architects.
Having a before and after section on your website is essential. It not only showcases your products but also your loyal customers and anyone who worked on the project. It gives them an opportunity to show off their hard work and generate some social media buzz for your company. Soon all of their friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter and Pinterest, and email contacts will know your brand and have a link to your website. It is quite amazing to think how fast and how far social media sharing can take your company and build some quality inbound links.
Just as before and after photos from a past project can be an inspiration to homeowners; so can the before and after room/home scenes in a virtual designer. With our Platinum Package, your website users can upload a photo of their home, prepare it, and instantly apply your products to give their room/house a fresh new look. They can transition their carpets to hardwood or vice versa. Thus, instant inspiration is achieved.
Your website users can email, print, and share their after photo with their followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. It is a pretty handy tool to have on your website in addition to the before and after photos submitted by your customers.
Do you currently have a before and after section on your website? We’d love to hear from you on how much website traffic it generates!
It’s a new year and Formica Flooring is starting it with a brand new virtual designer!
Formica Flooring provides beautiful laminate flooring that fits every lifestyle. They offer over 50 unique collections of hardwood, tile, and stone looks that are durable and easy to clean. Formica Flooring is fade, wear, stain, and work resistant that leaves you loving your floors rather than obsessing over them.
Formica Flooring makes laminate flooring with the environment in mind. They are GREENGUARD certified, which ensures that Formica’s product has met some of the world’s most rigorous and comprehensive standards for low emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Formica Flooring is a natural product. Only fresh pine from ecological forest thinning operations is used to produce the high-density fiber core of the planks. All production is conducted under the strictest supervision and controls.
With the new Varatys Virtual Designer embedded in their website shoppers can browse through Formica’s extensive product catalog to design a custom room online at their pace. Adding a virtual designer to your website can help eliminate buyer’s remorse, builds shopper confidence, and provides an in-depth purchase experience. Formica Flooring’s Virtual Room Designer can be used on home computers, iPads, and Android tablets. Their shoppers can share their newly designed rooms on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest.
Click here to try it out for yourself!
Check out Formica Flooring’s website! Having a virtual designer on your website helps your consumers take their ideas and turn them into a reality. For more information on our virtual designer please visit our website, try out our demo, and/or contact our team!
We are excited to announce that Pratt & Lambert Paints launched the Varatys Virtual Designer 2.1!
Since 1849, Pratt & Lambert has been offering quality paints to dealers, architects, designers, contractors, and consumers. They stand for quality, leadership, and innovation in the paint industry. In 2010, they received the J.D. Power and Associates award for “Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Interior Paints”.
When designing a room or adding some curb appeal, color is one of the strongest inspirations. Pratt & Lambert offers a wide range to tools to help their consumers. By adding the Varatys Virtual Designer to their website they have now customized their toolbox to the individual. Their consumers can browse their paint catalog, design a room or exterior, share their inspiration with Facebook, Twitter, and/or Pinterest, and locate a store. Whether you are a homeowner or professional, you can use a virtual designer to showcase your color concepts and experiment with new ideas.
Try out the Pratt & Lambert Color Visualizer for yourself!
For more information on the Varatys Virtual Designer, or to schedule a personal tour, contact our team.
Big companies such as, Benjamin Moore & Co., Better Homes & Gardens, Target, etc… are all on Pinterest driving traffic to their websites. Social media plays a huge role in product awareness, branding, business development, and lead gathering. As part of this large family, Pinterest has been moving up the social media ladder at record speeds. Not only can Pinterest generate traffic and product awareness but it also helps with SEO.
Why Should My Company Market on Pinterest?
Currently Pinterest has an estimated user base of 56 million users in the United States per month. That is a lot of traffic that is seeking great ideas and products. Companies are diving in just to get a sliver of it.
Pinterest has had a great impact on website referrals. “"Pinterest is a huge source from a referral standpoint, even beating out referrals from Facebook in the month of October," said Shannon King, GM of digital for Real Simple magazine.”
Pinterest is a visual social media platform. If you are a visual company your impact on the Pinterest market is going to be an easier transition versus a non-visual company. For non-visual companies, you might have to get creative with your content to make it more visual. For example, if you are blogging about your non-visual service or event, what images come to mind? Try to include images that would best represent your brand/product/service.
Below is a chart showing what types of businesses are on Pinterest:
Pinterest in a sense becomes a visual blog. In the example below from Benjamin Moore & Co., their Pinterest board on Color Chalkboard Paint gives a user a variety of ideas on how to use their product.
How Does Pinterest Work?
Pinterest has the unique ability to allow users to create theme based idea boards. Users can create specific boards for individual projects (i.e. re-doing the façade of their house, redecorating their child’s room, and/or remodeling their kitchen). Pinterest boards are shared with other users to foster a community of idea sharing. Users can “re-pin” images that lead back to the original link or they can “like” images and leave comments.
How Do I Add Pinterest to my Website?
Adding Pinterest to your website is easy.
Step 1: Create a Pinterest account. You can do this via Facebook, Twitter, or email address.
Step 2: Verify your company web address. This step will help you with SEO. HubSpot has a great blog detailing the process. Click here to check it out.
Step 3: Add the Pinterest buttons to your website. Pinterest gives you four buttons to choose from. All you have to do is embed the HTML code into your website. Click here for a direct link to their website.
Three easy steps and you’re done! You can customize your account with a logo, company description, location, and social media sites.
What Tips on Using Pinterest Would Benefit My Company?
Tip 1: Always use images on your website. You want to make sure that you are benefiting from the links. It is important to track your referrals on your website to see how much traffic you are gaining by using Pinterest.
Tip 2: Just like you customer base, you want to monitor who your audience is. Find out what your followers are interested in. You can create content tailored to them.
Tip 3: Launch a new product line on Pinterest.
Tip 4: Use Pinterest as an online catalog to showcase your products.
As with any social media site, interaction and engagement is essential to creating a worthwhile Pinterest experience. There are plenty of ways that your company can use Pinterest. It is, much like everything else, about the relationship between brand and consumer.
What Are You Waiting For?
Pinterest just keeps growing and growing and expanding its usefulness on many levels. Whether you are looking at it for brand awareness, SEO, market research, etc… there is something for everyone.
Is your company on Pinterest? What kind of results have you seen? Don’t forget to check us out on Pinterest!
Floor Covering Weekly hit mailboxes this week with our Varatys Virtual Designer ad on page 6. Check it out online if you haven’t already done so!
Adding the Varatys Virtual Designer to your website is an innovative way to showcase your product catalog. Today’s shoppers want to virtually explore your products, share them on Facebook, and pin them on their Pinterest boards, all from their home computers/iPads. Whether you have a large selection of products or just a few, it is fully customizable and we offer several default sets of products to round out your selections.
Contact our team today to find out how easy it is for your company to add a virtual designer to your website!
Did you know that the Varatys Virtual Designer allows for social media integration? Consumers can post to Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
An estimated 498 million people use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn every month. Is your company doing everything it can to reach this potential audience?
In this ebook you will learn:
- What are some guidelines for social media
- Which social media site is right for your company
- What are the advantages in social media for B2C vs. B2B companies
- The Varatys Virtual Designer increases social media interaction
- Social media is calling, but will you answer
To find out more on how you can increase the size of your social reach, download our free eBook, “Socializing Your Business” today!
Before even stepping in a store, many consumers visit a company's website. How people use the internet has changed so much and will continue to change. They want to research your company, virtually explore your products, share them on Facebook, and pin them on their Pinterest boards, all from their home computers. Adding the Varatys Virtual Designer to your website can give you an advantage over your competition. We take your static information and turn it into an interactive showcase for your products.
Here is an excerpt from our free eBook on how your company can design a whole new web experience: “We’ve become a society that depends on technology to run, market, and drive our business. Gone are the days when all you needed was a storefront, a product line, and a business card. Today’s consumers are flocking to the web before they ever step foot inside a store.”
To find out more on how the face of technology is changing, download our free eBook, “Designing a whole new web experience” today!
The Varatys Virtual Designer is an innovative way for you to showcase your product catalog on your website.
Today's consumer doesn't just rely on one in-store visit before making a huge purchase. With so much competition in the marketplace, consumers are more driven than ever to shop around and compare products and prices. Having the Varatys Virtual Designer embedded on your website helps bridge the gap between their design dreams and your product. We offer a variety of tools to help assist you in closing the deal.
iPad/Tablet Compatible:
We have created our version 2.0 in HTML so that it is fully compatible with iPads and Tablets.
This is a huge advantage to your customers and sales staff. Not only are users able to access your virtual designer on the go but your sales staff can be out in the field, at a trade show, and/or on the sales floor giving demos of your product without the hassle of a bulky laptop.
Analytics:
We have been making tremendous updates to our analytic report. With a good set of analytics your company can measure trends, see how far your consumer reach is, and so much more.
Our report outputs data on the following:
Average Session Length
Email Statistics
Print Statistics
Number of Projects Saved
Number of Tweets
Number of Facebook Posts
Number of Pinterest Pins
Number of Sessions
Product Search:
Your customers can now search on the Product Catalog and Visualizer pages. Having search in the Varatys Virtual Designer makes it more user-friendly and consumer driven. Instead of browsing through each product you and your customers can now search by a specific property.
Our search feature browses the entire category and not just one collection. This is an added bonus because it exposes your customers to more options that they might not of looked for.
Social Media Integration:
Social media plays a huge role in product awareness, branding, business development and lead gathering. Having a virtual designer embedded on your website will allow your customers to contribute to your digital buzz by sharing their projects on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Try it for yourself today! Contact our team for more information on how the Varatys Virtual Designer can help promote your product catalog.
We have been making tremendous updates to our Varatys Virtual Designer since its spring release. One of our biggest improvements isn’t seen in the actual application but instead in the analytics report.
We have integrated social media analytics! Your company can now see how many people pinned images to Pinterest, shared your virtual designer on Facebook, and Tweeted about their experience. Social media plays a huge role in product awareness, branding, business development, and lead gathering. Having a virtual designer embedded on your website will allow your customers to undergo a more interactive product awareness experience. It will also allow your customers to create a digital buzz for your company. By sharing their projects they will give their friends and followers a link to your website that has the potential to gain more leads and traffic.
As new updates are added to the virtual designer we will continue to update your analytic reports. Currently our analytics report outputs data on the following:
Average Session Length
Products View
Email Statistics
Print Statistics
Number of Projects Saved
Number of Tweets
Number of Facebook Posts
Number of Pinterest Pins
Number of Sessions
Contact our team today to find out how your company can add a virtual designer to your website!