KITCHEN FACELIFT RETAILER COMPLETES ITS OWN ONLINE MAKEOVER

Dream Doors, the UK's largest kitchen facelift retailer, launched its new website this week. The Gosport-based company, which now has 50 franchise-owned showrooms nationwide, specialises in time and money-saving kitchen makeovers. The new website takes its design cues from Dream Doors' own iPad App, released in the autumn, and builds on the brand's significant digital developments this year.

According to Dream Doors' online marketing manager, Jon O'Connell, creating a site that adapts easily to smaller screened tablets and phones was the first item on his brief.

“At the beginning of 2012, just 10 percent of our site visitors were using mobile devices,” he says. “In less than two years that number has increased fourfold. But that's no surprise, considering mobile devices are outselling PCs these days.

“The previous site had been designed in a different age, though, albeit just five years ago,” adds Jon. “It wasn't responsive and was becoming increasingly difficult to navigate on a smaller screen. Now, all images, text and buttons readjust automatically to work with whatever sized screen is being used.”

While building in better functionality, Jon and the development team introduced a new layout, incorporating graphics tested out on the iPad App. The site also features the ubiquitous social media icons and a company blog, as well as links to Checkatrade, the independent consumer monitoring service that provides up-to-date customer testomonials on all 50 Dream Doors franchisees.

With most of its customers in their 60s or older, Dream Doors could have been excused for focusing its energies – and budget – on more traditional marketing channels. But, says company founder, Troy Tappenden, their own statistics tell a different story.

“When I started out 15 years ago, half our sales came from the Yellow Pages; the other half came from a mix of local newspapers and word-of-mouth. And the vast majority of our customers were retired,” says Troy. “These days half our sales come from internet enquiries, the other half from a mix of word-of-mouth and just a few local papers.

“The age of our customers hasn't changed, but their reading and purchasing habits have,” he adds. “And that's why we've invested so much into digital marketing. Our online strategy has helped us double our franchisees' sales in three years. This new website is just one more phase in that development, and it will help convert even more visitors into more customers.”