Independent flooring retailers want three things: to drive traffic to their stores, increased profitability and help with business operations. On the eve of Mohawk’s Edge Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, a conference for retailers that participate in the manufacturer’s loyalty strategy, Mohawk executives shared a candid vision of where the business is headed—and how insights from retailers are reshaping where the company is investing in innovation digitally and in-store.

“Retail is entering a new era,” said Kelli Widdifield, Mohawk’s senior vice president of marketing. “We did lots of surveys and got feedback from the broad base of Edge dealers and our council members to determine how our Edge partnership strategy is going to help them with their business—the things they haven't had time to think through and worry about over the past two years.”

The consumer is changing, and Edge retailers are relying on Mohawk to help navigate the new landscape. For example, Widdifield said the first-time homeowners over-index at two ages within the millennial age range: the upper millennial is around 35 years of age, and there’s another group around 27 years of age.

“I thought that was pretty crazy, but it doesn’t mean they’re buying a single-family home—they may be buying a condo,” Widdifield said. “If you dig into adjacencies and the research that's been done in those spaces, you start to see some really interesting statistics around their desire to do home improvements, whether those are DIY or otherwise. They see it as a way to build equity in their investment. They see it as a way, whether they own or rent, as a customization, personalization—it's a reflection of who I am as a brand.”

The Mohawk marketing team has been testing various types of creative to determine what messaging is resonating among consumers at every point of the sales funnel.

“We've been finding, at least in display and social, that the inspirational creative has been outperforming dramatically the sort of promotional offers that are more tactical,” said Todd Skidmore, senior director of digital marketing, ecommerce and analytics, Mohawk. “We want relevant messages to reach us wherever we are in our purchasing journey. If you're just in discovery or inspiration, you don’t want to be asked to get married on the first date. We don't want to hit them hard. We want them to envision this could be your home and these could be your floors."

Mohawk is also investigating paid TikTok campaigns, over-the-top (OTT) media and connected TV.

“The headline is a lot of different platforms, but everything is very trackable,” said Nicole Priem, senior director of brand strategy, Mohawk. “Before, it was heavy on search, but we're doing display and native and social. We are searching out those consumers that are in the space and then with all of this, we can retarget, so we can follow them through that journey in a lot of different places. Data doesn’t lie. It helps you sleep at night to know you made decisions based on data and facts.”

Mohawk aims to help Edge retailers with content marketing, helping with education and thought leadership. Today’s Edge strategy, which incorporates the previous Floorscapes, Color Center and Five Star strategies, offers in-store support and digital marketing.

A new virtual showroom will be an experimental lab that not only connects the online and in-store experience but offers an opportunity to learn and test ideas. This new virtual environment can be used for product training, to test merchandising and to help consumers visualize floors in their home.

“It's going be realistic, like a hands-on experience of understanding products and innovations,” Widdifield said. "Retailers will be able to walk their virtual showroom in an Avatar-like environment and see which ones they want to replicate in their brick-and-mortar store.

“If you think about the consumer journey, there's external online drivers that are about appeal and attraction, but once they walk in, if that store is laid out in a way that is easy for those quickly find it and navigate it, that's going to make the RSA shop way easier,” Widdifield added.