Company: Milano Memorials URL: http://www.milanomonuments.com Location: Cleveland, Ohio Industry: Monuments and memorials in stone "We've been extremely pleased with Adrecom's partnership model and work ethic. Their E-Commerce Suite has proven to be an excellent website solution which is both flexible and scalable to our needs." Fred Elabed, Director of Ecommerce

Goals Fast implementation - to reduce time to ROI. Time and cost effective development and ongoing management. Easy content management and regular site updates.   Solution Adrecom E-Commerce Suite   Results Quick and smooth implementation enabled initial ROI within 6 months of purchase decision. Greater site functionality has raised lead generation by 300%. Increased amount of online content has expanded the customer base, resulting in orders from companies in other states.

Losing a loved one is a highly emotional and sensitive time in a person's life. Organizing the funeral is hard at the best of times; add mourning into the equation and you have one of the most difficult situations one can experience. Choosing the right people to work with for the funeral and the memorial is important.

Milano Monuments creates monuments and memorials for consumers, civic organizations and associations that want to memorialize an individual or place. The company offers a wide selection of customized products and wants to show these products to as many people online as possible in the simplest cleanest layout. When Milano Monuments decided its website should do more to build business, it chose Adrecom to supply the e-commerce solution. For Milano Monuments, the solution's scalability, flexibility and usability made it a natural choice.

Milano assists its clientele with everything from lot selection to cemetery regulations to the style and color of the memorial. This makes pre-arrangement planning comfortable and easy for clients, whether it is a single marker, custom-designed estate monument or family mausoleum.

However, before even starting the process clients need to see a selection of product examples, to see what they like and what is available to them. Hence, the Milano Monuments website is a critical component to their business. The first website was created 12 years ago and was a static, flat space, like a "web brochure". The information was not updatable and the traffic was low. Using Adrecom's E-Commerce Suite has brought more product options directly into the home of the consumer, producing a noticeable growth in traffic and significantly increasing lead generation.

Milano Monuments used to spend its entire advertising budget on radio and television advertising. However, the marketing team was aware that people went to Google to find information, and they were certain that Milano needed to gain access to this audience. By updating its site with the Adrecom E-Commerce solution, Milano was able to increase their ROI on marketing without increasing their budget.

In considering the available website solutions, technology, scalability and usability were Milano Monument's main concerns. As a family-owned and run business, it was also important to work with a company that provided personal attention; the same type of service Milano gives its own customers. In addition, Milano wanted to deploy quickly in order to start benefiting in the shortest timeframe possible. Adrecom impressed Milano with its attentive personalized service, flexibility and work ethic.

The benefits were almost immediate. Using the Adrecom E-Commerce Suite, Milano is now able to change the featured products on the homepage and product pages every other week. This gives clients a reason to return and allows Milano to showcase its wide selection of products.

"The point was that people go to the web for information and now we are able to target them," explains Fred Elabed, Director of E-Commerce for Milano Monuments. "This change has been very successful. We have about three inquiries a day for a monument or memorial product from the web and the inquiries keep increasing as the weeks go by. These inquiries are for high ticket items and opportunities. And, it's all been from the Adrecom site."

One of the reasons Milano Monuments created the new website was to take advantage of the data that could be mined from a well designed site. At the same time, Milano wanted to expand its product mix and offer pet memorials to a country-wide audience via the web. In comparison, human memorials are larger, with more locally based sales.

The Adrecom E-Commerce Suite enabled Milano to have numerous helpful sections in its site. The memorial product section has a query button next to every design so that an interested customer can immediately contact the company. The Adrecom solution guarantees that when Milano is contacted by a customer it already knows the model that client is interested in. Since updating the site Milano has increased lead generation by 300%. "It's made the process more streamlined and viable," says Elabed. "We can track lead generation much more accurately than before."

The pet memorial section is a fully-functioning online shop which is regularly updated by staff. Milano had already been offering pet monuments but it was only a small part of the business. The goal was to formalize it and take it to the next level. Now Milano is in talks with other companies to carry its pet monuments on other e-commerce sites. Because the Adrecom backend is so flexible and scalable, Milano will be able to grow and integrate with another retailer's site, opening a new channel for the Milano products.

According to Elabed, Adrecom's "technology is very good. All of the tools are there to maintain the site on your own and the technology is very customizable. The out of box solution fits 90% of what you are looking for and Adrecom is flexible enough to work on that last 10%. Their flexibility was essential in terms of the scope of work - certain things were involved in the discussions and they were able to get them done. Their partnership approach is important. I'd use them again in a heartbeat."