Erin Dyer - Current
Chris LaFay: Claude hit a wall this weekend and so we're gonna.
Dawn Audano: Human Claude or not human Claude?
Chris LaFay: A very great question. The human.
Dawn Audano: Okay, sorry. I was like, I didn't know it went down this weekend. Because that could affect your productivity. Like, I totally was on board with it being like AI Claude.
Chris LaFay: Of course, logically, here we are. I have a really good understanding of where Aaron's coming from for the like general tone of the website, which is what she outlaid in that document pretty well and imagery and aesthetic and all that jazz, like, that's all pretty locked in. But now I don't really know. Claude hit a wall where it's like he was like, I don't know where. I don't know what to do with the home. Like the layout, the wireframe of the homepage. He's like, I'm down to. He was down to design other elements and things like that. But he's like, when thinking about it from like a homepage standpoint, it's like, what, what actions are we driving people to go to? Do people know what type of product line they're looking for? Are they. Is the call to action to get a quote? Is it to find a contractor? Like, what is the. Where are we. Where are we trying to actually like drive? Like, what's the pathway, basically?
Dawn Audano: So have you talked this through with AI, cloud and design?
Chris LaFay: No, I have not yet. And so I'm hoping to get information from Aaron today I'm looking at both the two of their competitors, Trex and Timber Tech, and they both really lean into like dad, not data, but like very like simple like phrasings of like. Oh, like difference making details and innovative technology. Decades of enjoyment. Like it's all very generic phrasings that they use and the user, like the experience is not that great. And I want to try to figure out like, I want to hear from them like what their customers are looking for when they go to the site. Are they knowing that this is what they want?
Dawn Audano: Okay, let's bring them in and ask them.
Erin Dyer: Okay.
Dawn Audano: Sorry not to cut you off.
Chris LaFay: No, no, you're fine, you're fine.
Dawn Audano: They're just all waiting. Good morning.
Erin Dyer: Good morning.
Chris LaFay: Good morning.
Matt Nelson: Good morning.
Erin Dyer: How are you guys?
Dawn Audano: Good, how are you?
Erin Dyer: It's Monday morning. I'm great. Hey, ready to take on the week?
Chris LaFay: Yes.
Erin Dyer: That's my boss. So, you know, did y' all do.
Chris LaFay: Anything exciting over the weekend?
Erin Dyer: You know, it's funny, I was just thinking I worked out a lot. I'm like, I work out so much for an old lady. I Work out like all the time. It's crazy. Yeah. Yes. I guess my dog and I ran four and a half miles yesterday. That was one. And I went to, I was telling my daughter this charity event I went to that was actually pretty fun. It was like a casino night for this special needs organization. And I am the worst gambler. I'm so bad. My sister and I, we were terrible. We just lost everything.
Dawn Audano: But you lost it for a good cause.
Erin Dyer: We lost it for a good cause. They gave you like a thousand dollars to gamble with for. It was like not real money, right?
Chris LaFay: Totally.
Erin Dyer: Yeah. But at the end we had to just throw it all down because, like, we were the top winner. Won $88,000 in like real money. No, no, no, no. He got a nine thousand dollar diamond necklace, though.
Chris LaFay: Yeah, okay.
Erin Dyer: I know, right? So. Yeah.
Chris LaFay: What's the organization called?
Erin Dyer: It's the first fun club, actually.
Chris LaFay: Okay. I know a couple of people that are in like, like special needs and stuff like that that do, like, organizations. And I know there's a million of them. Not a million, but there's a lot of them. And so I'm just curious if it's one that I recognized.
Erin Dyer: So it's. It's actually funny. There are two, like, continuing education, like, special needs programs in, like around my hometown that were started because of my brother. And he goes to both of them. He was like. He was like the king of his school. He's. He's 32 now and he has down syndrome. And like, both of these were started because of him because he just is like. He's just like. I don't know, he's very cheery and he's very like, everybody knows him. And he was like the star of the show on Saturday. So me and my mom and my sister went, yeah, it was really fun.
Chris LaFay: That is awesome. Very nice.
Dawn Audano: Before we dive in, are we waiting for the other Matt or is he.
Matt Nelson: He's out.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, sorry. He's out. Jamaica. So we're very happy for him.
Dawn Audano: Yeah, we're very happy for him. We're just here on a Monday. Just living our Monday.
Chris LaFay: Wait, what is he doing? I missed that. Something broke.
Dawn Audano: He's in Jamaica. He's on vacation.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, he's had sandals in Jamaica. Matt needs a break. We love him. He needs a break. He.
Dawn Audano: Good. Good for him. All right, well, I'm going to quickly just run over the agenda. I know Chris wants to dive into stuff. I saw you sent over some documents over the weekend and this morning and likely Friday. So I think we are Good on everything. Except for maybe the Google Drive Dropbox of photos. I think I'm still missing if you have any photos for us, but I can double check on that.
Erin Dyer: So I did start one on Friday. I'm pretty sure I shared it with you guys then. Okay. Box folder. And I sorted it. I sorted it by segment.
Dawn Audano: Right.
Erin Dyer: I was making some more.
Dawn Audano: Could you drop the share link in to the chat so that I can put it on the task for us? So we have it?
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Dawn Audano: Cool.
Erin Dyer: It's in. It is in here.
Dawn Audano: Okay.
Erin Dyer: But I'll pull up.
Dawn Audano: It's in here. In Asana Sauna.
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Dawn Audano: Where.
Erin Dyer: I think I created my own task folder sets. Sorry.
Dawn Audano: Oh, okay. Under project management.
Erin Dyer: All right.
Dawn Audano: I'll just move that down under receivables so that I.
Erin Dyer: Sorry. Oh, I put. I didn't. I didn't see it in there. So I. Oh, Google. Maybe I was just looking in the wrong spot.
Dawn Audano: It's cool. I'm just gonna merge the tasks and we're gonna be good.
Erin Dyer: Good. Thanks.
Dawn Audano: All right, cool. Thanks for finding that. All right, then I think we're good. And then we'll just. Chris wants to go over design today. Is there anything else that you guys wanted to discuss?
Erin Dyer: No. I did update. So I shared, like, the brand story on Friday, and I had updated a little bit because it's evolved a bit since we did the website. So, you know, I am. I tried to really encompass what it is, which is kind of like, no matter what you need, we do have a board that fits your lifestyle. I think that we discussed last week that this is very lifestyle based. Right. That's kind of the differentiator in our marketing is we want to be there for the backyard adventurer and, you know, for the people who love living on the ocean and, you know, for people who kind of, you know, live life out in the mountains. Like, no matter what, we have a board that is specifically made to meet those needs. So I try to really kind of lean into that a lot.
Chris LaFay: So on that note, actually, what I want to do today because I work with my designer, Claude the human. He has a. He has an actual human over on a little bit of Friday and a little bit over the weekend. And I want to. I want to zoom out a little bit and talk. My. My through line of today's conversation is going to be about the story that we want to tell on the homepage right now. The story that you sent over is fantastic for tone and in general, like, kind of the why behind things. So I want to dive into the weeds of a little bit of. I have some questions around, like, looking at some of the competitors like Trex and Timber Tech, and I want to dive into kind of some like customer thought processes here today. So my goal is just to kind of get you guys talking about customers and things like that, because that's going to help us understand the story and the chapters, if you will, of like how we actually want to lay the homepage out, which will then give us a good structure for what other blocks do we need to design and things like that.
Erin Dyer: So I think that is a critical first part. Right. Because one thing that we have found is we've had a lot more conversion with this website than we had previously. But we are doing really well in getting people to the homepage with ads but lacking conversion from there. So we definitely want to make sure that however we're laying it out is we're finding, we're capturing that next part of it.
Chris LaFay: Yes. And I think so if you're running ads right now and you're pushing a lot of them to Homepage, like, that's actually something I would love to switch. When this new site goes live. I'd rather your ads go to specific pages that are tied to that ad and have calls actions with that ad, which I think just doing that in general will also improve conversion rate, simply put. But that's, that's how I say.
Erin Dyer: I just want to like, just for clarity, we're not doing a ton of ads right now that we're pushing to the website. We have done because we know that we're changing it. Right. And so we've done some tests. But yes, absolutely. We want to make those pages strong enough that they can go to those individual pages based on the Personas and then take action.
Chris LaFay: Yes. Okay. So thinking about, so looking at Trex, Timber Tech Moisture Shield just has a very. More like very active kind of viewpoint on what they do, like mainly within their Hero section. What I see a lot on these competitor sites is they're, they're diving into kind of like the, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna call it the generic specifics, which sounds stupid, but like Trek says things like decades of enjoyment, smarter in the sun. Like all these, like they're about the product features, they last a long time, they do well in the sun, they don't warp. Like it's implied by these like short phrases. Timber Tech does something very similar. They're not, they're not as focused on the lines of what products that they have. And I know that you guys, you have specific lines for specific lifestyles. So my, my starting point question to jump off of here is when a customer comes to the site, what information do they already have in their head that they're using to make judgments from does that question make sense?
Erin Dyer: So like what information is available out there or what ads that they've seen that they're coming?
Chris LaFay: So like I know like, so let me put myself in like the, the shoes of a consumer. Not necessarily because this the product that you're selling, something that I would not personally be interested in. I have a standard home. I'm not looking to redo my deck and things like that. Let's say that I was potentially thinking about redoing my deck. I know that I. This product isn't what I'm necessarily looking for. I'm looking for simply somebody that has experience building a deck that has an overhang and can build some stairs. So I'm looking for a construction company. Obviously I'm not looking for a decking company like that. I kind of had the eye as a consumer had this predisposition towards. I probably don't want to work with the largest construction company out there. I don't have 20, 30, $40,000. I as a person, as a consumer am looking for my standard construction company, probably local to my city that has been around for five or 10 years. Those are the things that are probably most important to me for redoing my own deck in my backyard. Now I realize I'm comparing apples and oranges a little bit here, but that's the predisposition that I'm coming to multiple construction company sites with to then better gauge can this company actually solve my problem, which is I don't want a man in a truck. I don't want my, you know, my brother's cousin's uncle doing the job. But I also don't want a company of 5, 000 people because I'm probably gonna have to pay for all that overhead and I don't want to. I'm looking for something kind of in the middle and that's the decision.
Erin Dyer: Yeah, I think that's a very interesting perspective. I think that's very good that you're sharing that about how you would feel if you were looking for this. I would say that the majority of our advertising what brings people to the site is people looking for a very specific thing. So marine grade decking. Marine grade decking is a tagline that we have really gotten behind and even Trex has copied that in different areas so the marine grade specifically. Okay, here's a better. Here's a better understanding of this. Our classic board is almost kind of on the way out. Our classic board is what this company bought lumber rock for because it's a good composite deck. But it needed a spin to be worth something because it not really. It's not the game changer for us. Our classic board just fills a need for people who have very durable. Who have the need for a very durable deck. Right. So if they are somewhere where, you know, rot and mold and mildew and all of that is a big part of it, that's great. The coastal board was invented by our company and is a big game changer. The coastal board is competing in spaces specifically with wear deck. But that I didn't give that to you because it's owned by Owens Corning and it doesn't have a lot of great information on their website. So we are kind of trying to get in front of customers who are disappointed with that. But marine grade at the end of the day is kind of our biggest differentiator. Which means it stands up to salt water. It stands up to all water. It won't melt do. It won't rot, it won't crack, it won't split. If you go anywhere coastal, I mean, like I was just in the outer Banks. Our coastal board would do great there because you can see everywhere you look, it's wood. It's all rotting, right? Bleached, it's sun, it's. It's destroyed. So that specifically, that's a big deal. Now Genesis kind of jumped in there. And what Genesis is, is it's like a true backyard deck. So like, for me, I have a gorgeous backyard. Like it goes down to a lake and there's like a little creek. And I never go out on my deck because there's a rotting board and it makes me nervous. And so that whole area is ruined to me because it's very moist back there. We get a lot of rain, there are a lot of trees, there are a lot of insects. So I need something durable on my deck or else I'm never going to be satisfied with it. Right. I know that in my head, I don't want to keep replacing deck boards or having to fix the same thing over and over again. So specifically, when people come to us, they're looking for a durable option that's going to last a lifetime. And that's where the Personas start to come in. But we didn't have the Genesis board when we made this website. And now also. And tell me if I'm going too fast with all of this.
Chris LaFay: No, you're. No, I'm. I'm trying. This is perfect. I want to hear you talk. This is great.
Erin Dyer: So also, there's veranda. And we didn't have Miranda either before we started this. And the reason that we created veranda is that it is the coastal board, but it is in the porch board shape. So it is different on the ends. I don't have any.
Chris LaFay: It's in the. It's in the what shape? The porch board shape.
Erin Dyer: Porch board, yes. Specifically, I got samples of this stuff all over my office. I don't think I have any porch board. But I can get you some porch board if you want to see it. And what it is, it's tongue and groove. And the reason that this became such a big deal is there is a huge market in Louisiana for historic porch board. And up north. So historic, this classic porch board. There's a company, and I think they sell like $10 million a year just in the porch board in Louisiana. So we. Yeah, decking is a multi billion dollar a year.
Chris LaFay: Absolutely.
Erin Dyer: And we're just trying to get like a little piece of that pie. But they've kind of gone through and they're like, okay, we have this mixture we made. They had to make this stuff. It's with recycled materials and no organic materials. And then they tried to like create the dyes in a way that it was filling a niche in the market. So the veranda board very much is like your southern porch board. Right. If you go to Savannah and you see all those beautiful own old homes, they're all made with this very specific looking porch and it has to be replaced with very specific porch board. So when we made this website, all we had was genesis. I'm sorry, all we had was classic and coastal. So it made sense to be like, oh, were you in the woods? Are you in the ocean? But now we're like, oh, but also, do you have a backyard? Oh, but also, do you have a beautiful porch? So it meets a lot of needs. But this is why we need to go back and kind of like revamp this and make it make sense. Because they've developed all these products in the past year. And if you're looking for it, you're not necessarily. You made a great point. Because we need to reach two very specific people. And Matt's brought this up before contractors who are going to be convincing consumers that this is the right board for them, because they're going to not Buy it a thousand times and it's a competitor of Trex and maybe it's more attractive than some of the boards they have to offer. And then co currently people who are looking to solve this problem of okay, I need composite deck boards because I don't want to keep replacing this wood that, you know, porch over and over again over the long term. This is extremely attractive for people who want to stay in their home for a long time or resell with a great porch or are in an environment where the porch is prone to rot or deteriorate because of the environment. Does that help fill in some gaps?
Chris LaFay: Yes, it does. Okay, so you can take this in one of two direct either two directions. You can take this from a marketing perspective and like where you want to see the business go versus this is where the business is now. The, the, the divide between contractors and consumers.
Erin Dyer: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: 50 57,525. Where's the leaning? And this is where you could either say, like right now, this is where the business is versus this where you want it to be. You can, it doesn't matter what, what's the most, like, what's the most important. Important here. I have my own opinions and I think that there's ways to thread that needle well. But I'm kind of curious what the nuts and bolts of that answer is though.
Erin Dyer: So I think you, Matt and I will all have opinions on this. So my opinion is that we need to be appealing to consumers because contractors are able to find information about us in other areas and we're in dealerships. But there's also a really important section in there. I think it's the. Resource segment. All of those 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 pages in the resource segment, which is more than any other segment, are all for contractors. Right. Where to buy, specifications, getting started, cleaning and care. Yeah. So a lot of these pages are. Sorry, no.
Chris LaFay: And that's, that's my exact opinion is it's kind of like when I. It's actually very similar to how I think about like nonprofit website work is if you appeal to the actual problem that you're solving and you don't plaster the site with donate, donate, donate, donate by default. A donor is going to be interested because of, you know, that story that's told and they will go and find the donate button, if you will. And so if the site appeals to consumers and it showcases quality and good storytelling and there is that dedicated section then over there for them, that's all fine and dandy. So I'm in. I'm in alignment there, Matt. You did, you did smile and make a. I saw, I saw your face change when I asked the question. That's a better way. Is there anything to add?
Matt Nelson: No. You're, you're, you're asking all the right questions.
Erin Dyer: And.
Matt Nelson: From a. Here's where we are and here's where we want to go. We're in. You know, we, we actually as a company have been really focused on the marine industry, which is highly driven by contractors.
Chris LaFay: Right.
Matt Nelson: So from across all three divisions, we have resided in the marine market. But when it comes to composite decking, the big, huge market associated with residential decking is it. The market is huge and it's dominated by a couple of companies. Right. There's three companies. And the future growth and success of CMI is really geared toward appealing to the Personas that make the decisions in that bigger, broader market. Right?
Chris LaFay: Yeah.
Matt Nelson: Now here's just to clarify. There are a lot of consumers that make up their own minds about which composite decking they're going to, they can afford and what, what they like about the color and they'll make the decision and then they hire the contractor. And, you know, it's highly, you know, to some degree driven that way. But the thing about composite decking is that contractors still, even when a homeowner, homeowner deck in the backyard is built, the contractor still is a very powerful Persona to help the consumer make the decision as to what composite deck is the best value and what is the most durable and what is the best solution for their deck because of the cost. Right. And even a small deck can be thousands of dollars when you're talking about composite decking. So the contractor still has a, you know, a pretty significant influence on which brand the, the homeowner ultimately ends up installing or having installed.
Chris LaFay: I know for me, like, if I was redoing my decking, I would basically just listen to, like, I would have my trust in my contractor that I chose.
Matt Nelson: Yeah.
Chris LaFay: And then based on whatever options they gave me, I might do a little bit of research. But in reality, like, and I, I know that I'm not the target audience, but looking at a very base level as a dumb consumer in this area, looking at lumber rock versus timber tech versus Trex. Yeah, they all look high quality to me in general. Like, that's just like the consumer in me saying that. So it's like if my contractor says this one, I'm not going to find enough information to be like, I want to go this way. And so,.
Matt Nelson: Yeah, let Me, let me, let me just offer something. And contractors use websites like Trex for example to help them sell to the consumer. And, and the visuals are, are so absolutely important because when he's it sitting in front of, when the contractor is sitting in front of a consumer, they pull up the website, they'll show what's available. They'll see these incredible photos. They'll get to learn about why it's a good, good solution for their, for their backyard. So it's, it's kind of like you know we use, you know we every once in a while we use the word lifestyle. And I agree but from, you know, from my background I'm high. My tendency is to be a lot more contractor focused and less lifestyle. But I can tell you that you know, like for example the current photograph on our website, people love the photograph but it has nothing to do with composite decking. It's about conveying a lifestyle. So when you look at these, you know, like Trex for example, each one of their product lines is a certain application and it evokes a certain kind of, of application that you know, that consumers will, you know, hopefully you know, you know, would love to be a part of. Like for example Trek signature. I'm looking at their, their, their deck there. That's a lakeside application. Transcend lineage is a lot more contemporary, modern city dwelling kind of a thing. And then the transcendent is a typical deck. Right. So you know, anyways, I don't want to go on too, too, too long. I don't want to ramble that much. But yeah, I think the, the, the consumer is very important that bigger broader market and then the contractor is highly influential.
Chris LaFay: So one of the things I'm gonna ask a very pointed question. I'm kind of curious reactions here so I to the outside person the, the names of Genesis Veranda, Coastal. Coastal actually is more in. More direct. Don't necessarily mean as much to a consumer without the description that goes underneath them. Coastal is specific. It says kind of what it does. My given that you have boards that are specific to different areas of life. More coastal beachy, more lifestyle I'm going to call it in the suburbs that's not precisely but just like regular people with regular houses that just have moisture problems and just live an active life outside. They don't have a house in a specific locale. Historic ones like with porch boards and things like that. My thinking is that at the very towards the top of the home page we want to get people into their specific story as quickly as possible. So my thinking is we almost have buckets towards the top of the home page where it's like, it's not gonna. Not necessarily the specific, but this is the only thing I can think of right now. But like have segments to where it's like, I have a beach house, I have a mountain house. I live in the suburbs, or I live active lifestyle. I live in a historic neighborhood. These aren't the right words I'm trying to think of because they're all kind of coming to top my mind. And then those then go into the specific collection pages of. Here's your coastal line and why having these boards for your beach home makes sense. And that's where you type in like weave in that. That active story element with the. The beach lifestyle and let those photos also speak for themselves as well too.
Erin Dyer: So that is. That was our intention with the. It was further up. And then we added this Genesis, like, I don't know section in there. But the like explore the versatility of Lumber Rock. Choose youe Adventure. And you have the classic coastal artisan genesis. Which product line is right for you? And if you take the which product line is right for you? It actually gives you like a little test. What's most important to you? Durability, variety of color. You're a classic collection. Like we wrote, like, remember this? Choose your own adventure books. So that was kind of the thing behind it. It's like, hey, what are you. Take this little test here and we'll point you to the right place of where you need to go. And then we take you right there. Right. And I actually really do like that. I think we need to fix this part right now. But. Yeah, I agree. I think so too. I think. And some of the. Some of the line names came from our vice president. He just liked them. Like one of the colors. Some of the colors are just reminiscent of Tennessee, which is the college you went to. So, you know, those were just personal choices. But yeah, I think so too. We have to be. And you can. You can see that on the other pages, they don't lay it out like this. Right. They're very technical. They're very specific, spec oriented. There's a lot of like lifestyle video and such. But, like, it gets very granular very fast. And I actually like that we don't do that. I like that you kind of have the opportunity to talk about the lifestyle a little bit and not just focus on specs.
Matt Nelson: Okay.
Chris LaFay: Trying to think what other questions I have right now because we're about to hit time. Let Me do this. So we're about to be at 11 o' clock here. I have some ideas and I have some concepts in my head. Now. Let me, let me share this with my designer whose name is Claude, who's not the AI. And I was like, that's not real. No, it's not real. Right, exactly. Let me share this with him and let me see what other questions we might have. And what we might do is.
Matt Nelson: We'll do.
Chris LaFay: We'll do one of two things this week. We'll either send over some other questions for you guys to ask if we feel like just the answers are more important rather than the conversation around the answers, or if we come up with questions that we feel like conversation might be better, we might try to schedule something ad hoc this week as well too.
Erin Dyer: That's fine.
Chris LaFay: So does that sound good?
Erin Dyer: Yeah, I just make one comment because what Matt was speaking about before, as far as our website goes, conversion is very specific. So we are getting all homeowners or business owners that are sending in requests for quotes. But we're also had 10,000, over 10,000 downloads of specs last year. So we are actually hitting the right markets across the board. Yeah, that we've had some success with that. I would say that's performing well.
Chris LaFay: Awesome. Okay, that's good to know. And I think honestly that the like how that's laid out kind of overall on the site right now is something we would probably keep. Like it's story driven and getting people to the right collections page to then make the their request. And that CTA and then that resources is just kind of off to the side. And so like that general concept is probably going to stay exactly the same. You'll just have better landing spots for specific people within your ICP and then a homepage that actually drives them to the story that they want to be told. And so your homepage will actually probably end up being a little bit shorter than what it is now with the goal of basically saying here are the different things, these are the different areas that you could fall under, choose your adventure. And then below that having a couple of like not data points from like a scientific perspective but like proof points of like quality durability, stuff like that with a lot of really good imagery that's not honed in on a specific line but is meant to then draw like drive people to somewhere else. Like the homepage just be a filter to basically like get in, get out and move on.
Erin Dyer: Probably will help with conversion. Right. Because we find that they don't really know what to do after that. They either just go to the quote, you know, or they're kind of lost. And I think that is what we need to fix.
Chris LaFay: Yeah. Okay, awesome. Let me go ahead and get all this stuff over into his hands today. Let him take a look at it. Listen back to this video as well, too, and we'll reach out middle of this week, probably about next steps. This was very helpful. Much appreciated. Awesome. Thank you guys for coming. I appreciate it.
Matt Nelson: Great. Thank you.
Chris LaFay: Take care.
Erin Dyer: Bye.