Office Max Talks Marketing to Moms, Elf Yourself

We recently spoke to Julie Krueger, the senior vice president of e-commerce and direct marketing at OfficeMax, about the company’s efforts to build relationships with busy working moms through chic merchandising, lifestyle presentations, social media, mobile, and more. Here’s a snippet from the full case study:

Ms. Krueger: In an industry that is rather utilitarian, we wanted to position the company differently, but not with “fu-fu” stuff. I’m talking about using a little color—besides manila—to decorate your office. While a few high-end niche companies offer fashion, traditional office supply vendors do not.

We approached many vendor partners and asked them to help us. There was not a lot of interest. So we started designing and sourcing the products ourselves. We created a proprietary brand that includes new designs of everyday items such as file folders and binders—and, as in apparel, we introduce new designs twice a year.

People often think that if they want something with personality, they have to pay a lot. We do large production runs, which keeps costs down. This allows customers to freshen up at affordable prices.

eMarketer: What other online tools are you using to engage customers?

Ms. Krueger: From a service perspective, we want to provide tips and ideas. We started working on this 18 months ago, and brought in organizational expert Peter Walsh as a partner. For back-to-school 2009, he did a blogcast that offered tips for parents and kids on organizing school supplies. While he used a lot of our products, this wasn’t a QVC-style broadcast. This made the content new and unique.

eMarketer: How do moms find your Website?

Ms. Krueger: Search is a huge part of our campaigns. We are on affiliate sites. A lot of people know us through our stores. We have a network of 32 well-known mom bloggers. They came aboard gradually, starting with the August back-to-school season. They provide product feedback and let us know if something isn’t working.

eMarketer: How have the mom bloggers helped your search functions?

Ms. Krueger: A lot of people wrote about the Peter Walsh video on their blogs. Having those links come back to the site helps the SEO value of building our site. For us, there are more ways to measure something than just product sales. This was more about sharing information.

eMarketer: Since 2006, you have featured ElfYourself, an interactive holiday feature that lets people insert their own headshots into holiday elf graphics. What role does this play? Have you been able to track the relationships between Elf visitors and purchasers?

Ms. Krueger: The idea behind ElfYourself is that it’s a gift from OfficeMax to the consumer. It is very much a branding campaign that has become our holiday theme. We can track who makes [a] purchase and last year we introduced the opportunity to buy products from the ElfYourself site. That was a huge success.

eMarketer: How are you using social media?

Ms. Krueger: We did things over past two years but they were on more of an event basis. We are going after social media in earnest this year and working with an agency to map out a strategy. We want to create a real cohesive plan and more continuity.

eMarketer: How do you integrate the bricks/clicks parts of your business?

Ms. Krueger: Philosophically, I understand and embrace the interaction between Website and stores. At some companies, the Web store is seen as a different entity. I’m also not always looking to convert the marketing we do online into online sales. Somebody may be prompted to research something online and buy it in a store. I look at our planning physically and across the virtual store, but it is more difficult to measure the results.

The full version of this interview is available here, to eMarketer Total Access subscribers only. Every day they have access to new interviews with digital marketing leaders and trendsetting entrepreneurs.