Empire Today, the leading flooring company in the USA, is an institution deeply rooted in tradition. Known for its catchy jingle, which has seen modern-day remixes on platforms like TikTok and even a nod from Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show, Empire Today has maintained a significant presence in homes across the country.

Despite its strong brand recognition, the company wanted to continue driving more awareness in the digital era. A lean marketing team, brimming with ideas but without the resources available to consistently bring them to life, couldn’t kickstart that new chapter of growth. The company's legacy approach, characterised by “old-school sales” (such as going door-to-door) started to hinder Empire Today’s ability to reach their demanding growth goals. They were ready to try something new… 

Challenges

When you’re a business with almost 60 years of history, your organisation is likely more complex than most…  

Empire Today's marketing challenges were multifaceted, involving both external market dynamics and internal operational improvements to be made:

1. Secular Shifts: Gen X and millennials are living at their parents’ home or renting at a higher rate than ever before, and as such their needs for new flooring are less frequent to the baby boomer era. Due to inflation and cost of living, even when they do buy a house - new flooring is a high ticket expense.
   
   
2. Outdated Sales Model: Most businesses founded in the 20th century succeeded on traditional sales reps as their core go-to-market motion. We’re now entering an era of “pull not push” sales and a digital funnel, replete with an always-on CRM system, as a must for lead generation and customer retention.
   
   
3. Operational Strains: Coming out of COVID, most marketing teams are feeling lean relative to the amount of work that is needed to be done. Empire Today was no different. Even working flat out, they lacked capacity to experiment with innovative paid marketing channels (e.g. TikTok or Reddit Ads) or execute the high volume of organic content needed to compete effectively on social media.
   
   
4. Revolving Door of Agencies & Contractors: working with agencies in the past had produced mixed results for Empire Today. As the business operates within a niche industry, expecting agencies and contractors to bring their expertise and understanding for the diverse channels required, often leading to mounting headaches and more work for the in-house team. Locating the depth of expertise required to understand the nuances of an industry, and specific channel constraints, highlights a common difficulty for brands in today’s fragmented media landscape.

Solutions

Whilst addressing these challenges could sound daunting to most, Empire Today dived straight in with a comprehensive strategy overhaul. By engaging specialised freelancers through a flexible model, they have injected new skills and capabilities:

1. Technical Optimization: how do you make sure everything is in working order? Enter Annie, a GTM specialist. Annie focused on cleaning up the website's backend, improving UTM tracking, fine-tuning technical SEO aspects, all to enhance online visibility and efficiency for Empire Today.
   
2. CRM and Email Marketing: as a D2C company emails are a huge element of brand awareness and customer conversion. Empire Today hired Mory, a CRM email design specialist, to scale the creation of promotional landing pages and emails, helping the in-house team significantly increase output and quality.
   
3. Design and Creative Output: in a creatively competitive world there is a continual challenge to keep your design fresh and innovative, whilst maintaining the spirit of a classic brand. Matt and Reem, two specialist designers, were hired to execute on the strategy and drive outputs. This freed up the internal team to focus on strategic projects and experimentation. This approach included a "design credit system" for flexible specialist engagement based on immediate needs.

Results

Passionfruit’s incorporation of specialist freelancers across Empire Today’s full marketing mix-up yielded immediate results. Most notably:

1. Increased Digital Presence: by initiating technical SEO and CRM capabilities, Empire Today drove bettering online visibility and stickiness.
2. Scale of Operations: the ability to produce a higher volume of promotional content directly contributed to a wider reach and sales.
3. Strategic Focus: With routine tasks now offloaded to freelancers, the internal team could explore new marketing channels and strategic initiatives. 

Executed across a broad strategy. Not just ideas but drove value and fast.

Key Learnings

Flexibility: Working with Passionfruit to plug gaps within their marketing team quickly and efficiently, meant Empire Today’s internal team were able to transition quickly into new activations and tactics.

Expertise: Whilst ET are a nationwide loved business, they typically had general marketers as opposed to domain specific expertise. Bringing in freelance knowledge that had prior experience in big brand flooring solutions, allowed them the room to make a noise in modern marketing.

Strategic Changes: Shifting their team model from FTE only to a hybrid freelance approach meant they were able to focus on more strategic growth levers, as opposed to reactive campaigns.

Adapting to Market Needs: The initiative highlighted the need for an evolution in marketing strategy for businesses who historically had used more traditional tactics, in response to changing consumer behaviours and market conditions.

Conclusion

Empire Today's journey from a traditional flooring company to a modern, digitally savvy brand underscores the power of dragging and dropping outside experts into a lean marketing team to provide fresh perspectives.

By embracing a flexible approach to talent management, and focusing on bolstering revenue critical digital capabilities, Empire Today is successfully navigating choppy waters within its industry and positioning itself for sustained growth in a market increasingly challenged by regional competitors.