Video showroom tours open

Hosted online at CasualLiving.com

-- Casual Living, 8/8/2009 2:17:00 PM

Casual Living magazine once again is hosting video tours of seven distinctive showrooms at www.casualliving.com. The videos were filmed during the International Casual Furnishings Association’s Preview Show in July at the Chicago Merchandise Mart.

Each tour features new product introductions for the 2010 season along with descriptions and demonstrations. Several manufacturers, such as Agio, Gloster, O.W. Lee and Telescope Casual, participated in 2008 when the video showroom program was launched. Gensun, Ratana, and Treasure Garden are participating for the first time.

Besides being hosted on Casual Living’s Web site, which receives more than 48,000 unique visitors each month, the companies receive a copy of the tour to be utilized with their own marketing efforts. Each company’s logo featured on the site links directly to the participating company’s Web site. This has proven to be an excellent way to drive traffic to their sites.

Many of the companies share a copy of the tour with their sales force so they can show it to retailers and customers. It serves as a refresher for those who attend either the Preview Show or the Chicago International Casual Furniture and Accessories Market in September, while providing product information for those who do not attend. Several of the companies host the tours on their own Web sites.

In addition, the tours are posted on the popular You Tube Web site, which delivers even more viewers to the showroom tours. Through these combined online efforts last year, several of the companies had more than 800 views of their showroom and new products. Telescope Casual posted their tour to the home page of its Web site. Combining that with a consumer research project involving HGTV and Casual Living that drove consumer traffic to the site, Telescope Casual received more than 3,500 views of last year’s tour.

In renewing the program this year, a company spokesperson for Agio said the company saw retailers in their showroom last September market who had never shopped there before. When asked what brought them into the showroom, buyers highlighted the video tour because it showed them Agio had collections that fit the retailer’s customer base.

For more information on video showroom opportunities, contact Publisher Norman Hamilton at norman.hamilton@reedbusiness.com or National Sales Manager Katina Monroe at katina.monroe@reedbusiness.com for details.