CMILC - Current

Matt: The other thing I would say just looking at, too. And I. I know you guys are putting all this together, but when we talk about the collections. Absolutely. Coastal. And we could. We could use historic and Artisan, or what is it Not Artisan.

Erin Dyer: Miranda.

Matt: Miranda, into that. But we do want to. I don't want to have a suburban and mountain like that. It needs to be the classic and Genesis.

Erin Dyer: Yeah. We need to get a little bit of clarity on some of that. I like the way that. I like the template you're creating and the boxes you're creating. But I also was thinking, like, we have in there the section for. And probably once you get a little bit of the staging done, I can give you some clear direction. But we have the boxes right now for, like, historic. But I think that maybe we want to replace it with Artisan, because Artisan is a much bigger deal than I think Veranda is. Veranda is a collection that we have. I'm interested in your feedback on that, Matt. But I think it might. That might be where we put that. I don't know.

Matt: Well, I mean, that was going to ask about that because I don't know how, you know, Chris and Dawn, how you guys are familiar with our products, but we, We. We do sell it through what we call the OEM channel, which would be like other manufacturers that take our product and use it in different ways, and we call that Artisan. And so it's a completely different channel. It's a completely different kind of customer base. And so I was. I didn't know how. What the plan was to handle that.

Chris LaFay: So in general, my thought is, coming at this from a consumer perspective is I don't know the names of what your products connect to. Now. Coastal is different. Coastal kind of speaks for itself. Yeah. But the other ones, I don't know what the difference in those would be. And so my thinking is at this very high level, kind of on. At the home page, where people are hitting this for the very first time, not knowing how your products are divided up in the names that you've given them is what is the most. When I say generic descriptor, I don't mean generic in a way that's like global, but is most understandable.

Matt: So how.

Chris LaFay: Coastal is very descriptive of what it is.

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Artisan might not be. Or the other one, Genesis might not be.

Erin Dyer: Sure.

Chris LaFay: So that's what I'm. That's the.

Erin Dyer: The.

Chris LaFay: The tension that I would feel as a consumer of not knowing where to start. So my initial thought was we do this based on Location, given that your products fit. I know Coastal, obviously, is coastal. One more toward the mountains, one more toward regular everyday life kind of in like a. A regular, normal house in the city. That might not be the right way to think about it, which is fine.

Matt: But.

Chris LaFay: But my challenge is, in general, who is the target customer for each of these product lines? And how can we more simply state their locale in one word so that people be like, oh, I do have.

Matt: Yeah, yeah. And where we run into here's. Here is the rub is between Classic and Genesis. They are essentially serving the same markets. However, we would like to grow Genesis because we know that Classic is. It's a older board that's, you know, coming to the end of its life cycle, I would say. Yeah, but it's been around for a long time, and a lot of people still request it. But the new kind of standard call it backyard deck board board is the Genesis. So I don't know if we do, you know, backyard or something like that. And then you end up with. I guess the question was, if we did that here, and let's say you take mountains and call that backyard, and you could take suburbs and call it, you know, OEM or whatever. If you took that backyard. Does it make sense to have kind of two parallels? Because the main difference between Genesis and Classic is the Genesis is a color variegated board. The Classic is a solid color board, but they essentially perform identically. So it's definitely visually different, but it's really into the same markets.

Erin Dyer: I mean, I. I get it. I understand. Like, it is different. Right. Because when we first created the new website and the new branding, we didn't have Genesis. So Genesis came around after that. I still think about the Classic collection as it's built for specifically durable environments. Like environments where you need a durable deck or a durable deck board. And your Genesis, to me, with the way that we were distinguishing it, is that feels like your family backyard deck board. Right. It's still durable. It's still. But it's built for life. It's built for your life. Whereas because Classic, we don't sell it as often, I think, in that environment. I mean, where are they selling it? Right now?

Matt: We're selling it everywhere.

Erin Dyer: Everywhere.

Matt: But it. Primarily it's. It's more in the Northeast. Well, I would say call it north, the Midwest, and the Northeast.

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Matt: But the goal is to take Genesis nationwide and that kind of be our flagship board.

Chris LaFay: So when I was reading through the Word document, this is what I took from it, and that was how I.

Erin Dyer: I put it too. Chris, to your.

Chris LaFay: So I'm going to ask an overly simplistic, blunt question, mostly for the reactions. If Genesis is the. The new kid on the block and you want it to replace classic, does classic matter at all?

Matt: Plastic still needs to be represented because it is still a portion of our business and we do have a contingent of customers that are purchasing it. That said, classic volume continues to decline and we want to push the new Coex boards, which so classic board just to be. So educate all you guys. The classic board is mono extruded, which is. It's all through one extruder. The all the other boards, the, the Genesis, the coastal, the Veranda, they're what we call co extruded and they have a, if you think about it, kind of like a three musketeers bar. So you kind of got some more recycled material in the center. But the outside is the premium finish. Right. And it allows you to do all kinds of very interesting things with it without putting all the cost throughout the entire board. You just put it on the outside where people see it and it matters. But that being said, because it is co extruded, it is a stronger board. It performs, you know, much better than a mono extruded board. So from that standpoint, it. It's just an overall better product. However, I would say maybe at this point call it 40% of our sales are still classic and that classic board needs to be represented. So if we think about it on the lines, if we're talking about locales and we do something along those, the lines of a backyard or something like that, definitely I would lead if we come into that particular site, I would lead with the Genesis board up top. And then. Oh yeah, by the way, we also have the classic board, the classic collection, but both of those two collections would fall up underneath kind of your homeowner backyard deck, which would really be, you know, suburb suburbs or mountains. Yeah, because we don't really differentiate. I know the, the photos are very mountain focused on one, but that's just the outdoorsy type feel.

Erin Dyer: So I think with evolution of where we've come. Right. Because what we were trying to do in the beginning is distinguish. All right. What makes this board even interesting for people and that is that it's durable. And that's why we kind of shifted the branding around from just like, you know, your ho hum backyard board where it wasn't competing as much. But if you live in these spaces and you need something that lasts forever, this is really your board. This is really Your great thing. And I think maybe instead of saying mountains, we give that a little bit. But we still lead with the Genesis board being your go to standard suburban backyard board. Because I think that it's good branding for it. You know, Genesis is the all encompassing. No matter where you are, it's great. Still waterproof, it's great for families, it's great on your deck. But you can obviously buy both, right?

Matt: I mean, and then I get it, we've got suburbs and everything, but we do actually sell a lot of commercial projects, you know, commercial buildings from our decking offerings. If we say like backyard deck. Right? So that's the other challenge.

Chris LaFay: So, okay, this is. Okay, so let me. Let's remove. So the. The core concept was homepage plus a handful of collections pages. Right? Let's remove the word collections out of the mix for a second. So let's pretend that the, the. The core sub pages that we're thinking about spending a lot of our time and effort on are not necessarily collection pages in terms of the product lines, but the type of person that's coming to the. The site. Discounting contractors, we don't care about them right now. That's not. They're not in this conversation. So rather than thinking about these as locations, what if we were to think about them as clientele people and so on the. What I'm going to call, what we'll now call kind of the. The backyard everyday person. On that page, we showcase both sets of boards. So rather than now, obviously, Coastal is it. So like Coastal still fits this mold no matter what. Like the ICP for Coastal has the coastal board. They're near the water, the sand, et cetera, et cetera. Like that lines up one to one still. But what if instead of having these delineated by regions, we had them delineated by the type of person?

Erin Dyer: I like that because I think that that's kind of like how we started it too, right? Like, because that's what we did is are you coastal? And we defined what that meant. Right? You live on the shoreline. This could be like, are you. I think we have to think it through a little bit, Chris. I think we have to like, define what that's going to be. But, like, it works better for. That's mostly just porch board. That's what that is. Right. The historic one is just porch board for a very niche customer. And Coastal is pretty niche as well. But it's there. It's a very important niche for us. Whereas the Genesis and the Classic are both for everybody appeal to the masses. Appeal to the masses. So I think that all the work we've done works. We just need to, like, think very critically about how we want to frame it so it makes the most sense for people coming in.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, I get what we're trying to do here. And we've created this monster ourselves because then if you're to say whether it's homeowner and commercial. Right. Well, you can, you know, essentially use all those boards in. In either,.

Chris LaFay: But you're telling a slightly different story. So the board in and of itself doesn't. It matters in terms of the feature set that it provides and the solution that it provides. But if you're a regular, everyday homeowner with a backyard, that's going to draw more people to clicking into that next level than having them choose between Genesis and Classic without knowing what's what.

Matt: Yeah.

Erin Dyer: And. Yeah, go ahead, Chris.

Chris LaFay: I'm sorry about saying that's my core. My core takeaway is. So let me back up a step. So whether. Back up one more step. Hold on a second. Got five steps ahead and have to take a couple steps back. I don't care whether these are regions or whatnot.

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: I really care more about is what are the four, three or four? It doesn't even have to be four. It could be three. What are the three or four generic buckets that people. When they see a combination of a photo and one word, preferably maybe two words, they'll be like, yep, that's me.

Erin Dyer: And then next level for the backyard, for the coastline, for the manufacturer. And I think that you're right. And I know that this is a little bit like, it is a mess mat, but at the same time, it's so much more innovative than how the other people are doing. Does create a customer journey, whereas theirs does not as much.

Matt: So I. I think it is along the lines of I actually like the historic and the coastal. I think those two fit very well. And I think maybe it's just three, and you do backyard, and then when you come into that backyard link, there's actually two collections there.

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Yeah.

Matt: And how do we. Yeah, how do you guys think that would be as far from an organization standpoint? Do you run them, you know, side by side, or is it, you know, start with the Genesis and then, you know, further down as the classic?

Chris LaFay: So let. Let me walk you through the single. So we're a little bit over time right now. I have the flexibility to stay Don. I don't know if you do.

Erin Dyer: I do.

Chris LaFay: Let me Double check and make sure that I'm not lying. I do.

Erin Dyer: Okay.

Chris LaFay: Yes, I do have flexibility. Let me walk you through kind of our core thought on what a single collection page is going to look like top to bottom. And then from here, this will kind of lay the foundation because I still think this is about 70% here. And then we can then figure out where do we want to inject certain things. And so this is color wise and texture wise based off coastal. Don't read too much into the actual words on the page. So we would talk about here something that talks about beachy stuff, etc. Etc. Tiny little story. Probably pull from some of what Aaron, what you wrote in those documents that you sent over. That kind of sets the stage. And then here we talk about in more detail than on the home page. Here's that core thing that people are thinking about. And this is where you tell some of that story. And again, that's where these, the problems from the document that you sent over will funnel into. Also notice we got the sand texture pulling in here as well too. Just that subtle notation of you are where you're supposed to be. Do these a few times over. And it doesn't have to be three. They could also be alternating left and right as well too. So have a little bit of visual distinction. It could be one, it could be four, it could be three. Doesn't matter.

Erin Dyer: I like it. I like the way it builds.

Chris LaFay: I do too. The card style is really popular right now. And I like it. It adds a visual like layering that's really nice. Then hitting them with some type of a, like, gut punch, like, not guarantee. It doesn't have to be a lifetime warranty guarantee, but just a. A mint. After hearing all of these stories, the goal here is, is to give them just kind of like a big mental checkbox of like, this is the big thing that will kind of like go. That'll make them think, oh, sweet, that sounds great.

Erin Dyer: And that is important.

Chris LaFay: It is 100 exactly. You just want to kind of break up storytelling with like facts basically. Kind of the idea kind of bounce back and forth. This is something that Claude came up with and he definitely did generate these images. And again, this is why I say don't lean too. Even though this is the. The coastal. This is not a coastal image, but the idea. And he pulled this from the. The Sherwin Williams site. I think it was Sherwin that we looked at last week, where you can actually kind of see in context a little bit what those colorations look like. And Then also see it in different. Different stages as well, too. So it's a little. From a. From a creation standpoint, it's definitely a little extra. Like there's not. I don't think anybody is going to go here and click every single color and click on morning, overcast, and evening. But I also think being extra in this also layers in that higher quality feel as well, too. Now, the danger that you run into with this is because these are going to be a lot of AI generated images. And you can actually kind of tell when you go from. Oh, no, the pro.

Matt: There we go.

Chris LaFay: When you go from one to the other, like, the coloration of the image changes some, but that's because AI doesn't generate all the colors like around the edges, like around here, the house textures and stuff like that. It's just a little. It's a little different. So we do have to be careful when generating all of these that they stay as close to one to one as possible. So there's a lot of potential content creation here. But I think this large immersive photo that you can just swap into 30 different iterations, I think provides that quality.

Erin Dyer: That's a super cool wow factor. I like it. What do you think, Matt?

Matt: I like it. This is all the. I guess these are these all the classic colors?

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Yeah. I don't know where he pulled the list from. He just pulled a list from a list of colors on the page.

Matt: So.

Erin Dyer: No, those are all classic. Those are all right.

Chris LaFay: And he only did. He did gray and then redwood for the. For the sampling.

Matt: Yeah.

Erin Dyer: That's cool.

Matt: Yeah, I. I like it. A cool feature. Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And then we have another CTA getting in touch with somebody kind of pulling in the emotional side and then also pulling in kind of like a gallery of images here as well, too. And then with the CTA being that tealish green color kind of with that overlay. So you're seeing over, over and over again that the. This teal color is the background color for everything. Given that we're on the coastal page, you're seeing the sand as the texture across the board. And then as a very brief comparison, switching over into something that isn't coastal. Now we have dark blue being that base, the. A different texture for the background, different photography. So it all structurally is exactly the same. It just feels a little bit different. And that's the point. So whenever we decide on these are the four buckets will then say. We'll then go and say, what is the base color going to be for that? And what is the texture going to be for that? And then that will be what makes these different, like ideal client buckets stand out and feel slightly different. So how's that feel?

Erin Dyer: I'll be the first to say. I really like it. I like it. I think there's some things we need to add in. Right. Like we need to have in there a link where they can access the specifications, you know, direct them over there. So because we got rid of all of that, I love that we are laying out the problem. I love that we're doing a very customer journey storytelling piece here. I do think that we need to have the call to action pretty visible across the board so that they can easily, once they, if they've already, you know, been, if they've already been convinced after the first three, okay, go ahead and request a sample.

Chris LaFay: We'll go ahead and put cta like inside of each of these sections. We'll put like, we'll put buttons inside of here as well. Too.

Erin Dyer: Perfect. Perfect. I love the way that the storytelling is coming out and I think that you're right, it looks way better than the way Trex did it. But it is doing what we need to, which is, hey, we know when people come here, their decks are rotting, it's high replacement cost, there isn't a lifetime warranty. They're frustrated by very specific things. And we're putting that in the forefront of the storytelling here. And I love that.

Chris LaFay: So I think the way that this shifts, if we're going to have multiple collections on a page, the problems are still all going to be the same. Like if we're talking to somebody at the beach, their problems are. If we're talking to somebody in the suburbs, their problems are all going to be the same. If they're just backyard people, they probably have kids, they probably have pets. Whichever board they choose is going to solve all the same problems. And so my initial thinking is actually. Let me ask one question. Does the texture of the board between Classic and Genesis, are the textures different?

Erin Dyer: So the texture is actually the same, the Classic and Genesis. But one is. It's a different board. But actually you could keep the texture the same and then it's different colors.

Matt: Yes. Yeah. So the Genesis board is multi colored.

Erin Dyer: Yeah.

Matt: The classic board are mono colored.

Chris LaFay: Gotcha. So I would almost say that we probably have maybe even underneath the peace of mind here, not in, above this section. We almost have like a two column layout that's like. With this we actually have two different options for you and do kind of like a comparison and contrast table in between both of these so that they know that there are options. And then below here, we would put some sort of verbiage that basically says, find your perfect match. These are all the color styles across both of our collections. And the wood looks the same. The. The board looks the same. That's not phrased well. But yeah, I think it would be too cumbersome to have this section duplicated on a page that would take a lot of scroll time to get through.

Matt: Yeah, I agree. And there's only two colors for Genesis. Right. So you don't have all these. And we may in fact, Aaron, want to pare down these colors. I don't know.

Erin Dyer: Yeah, yeah, Some of them are. Are rarely ordered, you know, so we can say more available upon request or see a full list. Another thing I did for our for aluminum Fab VP the other day was I put all three boards next to each other in the same color. These aren't the ones I use, but I put the coastal, because you guys, if you can see it, it's a very different. Right. Texture there. And then this is actually classic. And then Genesis is like this, but with streakers. And I put all three next to each other on his desk. And that was a very compelling explanation of the difference between them. Because when you have the same. This kind of like they would call it putty and we also call it. I can't remember what is in the other one. But when you put them all next to each other, then it's like really tells the story of. Oh, look. And this is really what you're choosing, right? You're seeing these three different things.

Matt: I. I do think we need, Aaron, actual pictures of our boards in the various colors. Yeah, right. Yeah. On some. At some location there to see the texture and color variation.

Chris LaFay: This would be a good place if you actually did a photo shoot, like very zoomed in, well lit. And rather than having color swatches, we could very easily put images in for those swatches.

Erin Dyer: And I have this. I got. Yeah, we have all that stuff available for you.

Matt: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: Awesome.

Erin Dyer: Because making the texture has literally been the most important thing that I've had to try to figure out, you know, how to get across. So I have tons of that.

Chris LaFay: Awesome. Fantastic. Okay, so wrapping things up here, what I'm gonna. What we're gonna do. So what I, what I'm hearing is structurally and aesthetically, homepage and collections page are pretty much good to go accepting on the collections page. Adding in some sort of like a two column comparison feature for Any of the collection pages that need to have like a. That need to have, like a dual comparison. The primary change from a messaging and content perspective is going to be what are we calling these four collections? So let's actually back up. I've been using the word collections. Let's go ahead and remove that. So we need to figure out what are the four groupings, people that we want to call those. And so on the home page, what do these four things turn into? What do these four things turn into? And so what do we want to group these people in as? That's the primary question that we have. We could then go in, swap these images, swap the labels across the board, and then on one of these collection pages or one of these client type pages, use that as our core messaging pinpoint at that point.

Erin Dyer: I definitely understand from what you guys have been doing, the way that you're building it out and the way that the fonts are and the way that the calls to action are, and all that is going in a great direction. I do think that I need to circle the wagons for a minute and think about that and talk to Matt about. Okay, how do we want to say? Because it is a shift from how we're doing the branding right now, which is.

Matt: Okay, now's the right into this conversation, too.

Erin Dyer: Yeah. And we need to get him in there, too, and talk about how we want to make sure. But what you guys are doing on the back end is all the right stuff right now. Awesome.

Chris LaFay: That sounds good. If we give you guys the week to figure that out and then next Monday, circle back with whatever you've come up with, does that give you enough time for that?

Erin Dyer: It works for me. If it works for Matt, it's going.

Matt: To be on your plate, Aaron. So it works for me.

Erin Dyer: That's fine.

Matt: Awesome.

Chris LaFay: So what we'll do, we'll hold off on doing any new design work over this coming week, because in reality, once we have that from you and you guys feel confident with it, we'll be able to go out and start developing out the rest of these building blocks.

Matt: Yeah.

Chris LaFay: And actually get into development. And while that's happening, we can tidy up the last couple of pieces on these couple of layouts so that then during development, Aaron, you can start literally filling in the gaps for content. You have your template structures, you have the homepage, you have the four different bucket pages, which is what I'll try to call them from now on out. And then for each of the buckets, you can then go and fill in that content so that when development is done, we can then import the content for those five core pages and then do the migration of content in as well, too. That sound good?

Erin Dyer: Sounds good to me.

Chris LaFay: Fantastic. Thank you, as always.

Erin Dyer: All right, thanks for sticking with us while we figure all this out.

Chris LaFay: No, we're gonna. We're gonna come up with a really daggum good website because we're taking a little bit more time in this. This is. This is great.

Matt: Great.

Chris LaFay: So much appreciated.

Erin Dyer: All right, thanks, guys.

Chris LaFay: Have a good one. Take care.

Erin Dyer: Bye.