Building Connections Between Floor & Decor and Specialized Communities

The Challenge

Seeking to build trust and raise brand awareness among flooring installers, a group that is traditionally hard-to-reach online, Floor & Decor partnered with People First to deploy real stories and experiences through a robust microinfluencer campaign. This allowed Floor & Decor to embrace non-traditional messengers through the installer community, going beyond conventional approaches that simply highlight extravagant house projects. Guided by social listening and insights, the program was built to reach two specialized audiences: flooring professionals and buy-it-yourselfers (BIYers).

Our Response

• Through social listening, we found that the online conversation among flooring professionals was focused on project-based content, how-to tutorials, and pro recommendations. The existing discourse also demonstrated that installers and their followers shared high levels of trust. With these insights, the pros content was tailored to be project-oriented and focus on sharing trusted recommendations.
• The online conversation among the buy-it-yourself community (homeowners that purchase their flooring though they might not be the ones to actually install it), on the other hand, was focused on design and the overall experience of creating a particular look and feel for their spaces. Guided by this insight, we crafted a fun prompt to go into Floor & Decor stores, “show their tile style,” and take advantage of the store’s free design services.
• While the prompts for the two main audiences took different approaches to tap into their respective online conversations, they both told the Floor & Decor story through creative content and trusted messengers.
• Here are some of our favorite posts:

Results

• Not only did the program drive strong brand awareness through the microinfluencer content, several of the participating creators were so excited about the collaboration that they requested additional ways to continue the brand partnership with Floor & Decor beyond this campaign.
• Through analyzing comments on the microinfluencer posts, we found that the conversation driven by the content was overwhelmingly positive, with a positivity rate of 98%.
• Beyond the positive sentiment in the comments, 33% of commenters expressed interest in the products, 10% expressed purchase intent, and 12% endorsed the brand.
• Top performing creator posts were boosted through paid advertising, resulting in a 6.5 point increase in brand lift (ad recall).