Web marketing, success stories on the net

Berto salotti by Meda in New York

Meda is a small town in the Brianza’s area in Italy, famous for its handmade furniture and designer.

Berto Salotti is one of these handicraft industries established in 1972 thanks to the will and passion of the brothers Carlo and Fioravante Berto who for decades have produced and sold their best production in the store of their factory lounges.

Today the company is led by Filippo Berto, young and capable entrepreneur who has helped to enhance the company bringing it on the international market thanks to intuition, the use of the web for the internationalization of  his company.

“The first budget of our line  promotion amounted to just a few hundred euro” confesses Filippo Berto during our interview via Skype.

“We started as subcontractors in the midst of an economic boom to create our own line then that is sold directly to shops and private individuals” tells Berto, a long path that crosses years at different times of the economy of the country and a market that imposes rhythms increasingly challenging but above all that is becoming global.

The changing market and the need to reach an increasing number of customers has prompted the company to evaluate new business models and new communication channels including the internet.

“We wondered how to keep the wealth of experience and expertise accumulated over time and especially how not to miss a story that definitely could have the dignity of being exported all over the world. Internet at this point has become a bridge that allowed us to connect all this with the rest of the world ”

In 2000 the first version of the company website with what was the first real investment “the first marketing tool was analytical and gave us the ability to understand what was happening in the site – says Berto – and that many people there were finding through keyword and it was easy to see that we had to use the pay per click advertising platforms to make advertising to target ”

But what were the results? “Our goal was to turn our contacts in visitors in our showroom. This became true and the contacts were so many that we have started a process of organizational restructuring of the company that still has not ended”

Internet is not just a new marketing channel, but a model which in this case has produced a veritable revolution “in our case the change was radical, we had a small showroom next to the production but the increasing number of visits prompted us to make investments, to broaden the exposure and to open the first flagship store “tells Filippo Berto during our interview,” we have increased staff in the production, administration, sales and structuring a marketing function. ”

The firm underwent a constant change thanks to the numerous requests coming from the web. In fact, about 80% of customers today come from the network and have pushed the company to distribute its products in the US and Russia.

“All thanks to our site in six languages, and the ability of our customer care that is able to convey to our customers Berto’s professionalism and quality of production”.

The model followed by Berto Salotti was not easy, but it has been pursued consistently over time. The first positive results came from experiments that have not always been positive. But even  thanks to the errors, they have managed to develop a successful new model in a channel marketing, that is still evolving and still does not have a solid foundation of experience to exploit for their own success.

You need to make a very important effort of analysis, planning and study of the medium in order to get results. Sometimes it is difficult to  assess what type of commitment  you need. Initially the economic commitment  can even be lower.

“We started with a budget of a few hundred Euros with Google Adwords, that commitment in time and thanks to the results changed dramatically” confides Filippo Berto “creating a blog is not expensive, but keeping it updated and developing relationships in the network of a certain quality, trying to build value through a daily update is not easy. ”

The site of Berto Salotti factory is constantly updated and pages on social media offer an overview of the products and the people who work for the company that attract attention from around the world.  Some of the videos on Youtube have also collected 600,000 views that for a product of this type are definitely a success.

Google in 2014, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has created  goole.it/madeinitaly as part of the Made in Italy excellence in digital platform. This has been created by Google Cultural Institute and among Italian companies selected there is Also Berto Salotti, an award based on product quality and the ability to use new technologies for the development of their company.

“We use the Google platform since 2002 and we are perhaps among the top advertisers in Italy in the furniture industry by giving us an advantage that I define evolutionary species” that has generated a competitive advantage in the market and that has allowed Google to know in depth since the beginning. “An important recognition for a company that today has grown by focusing on the global market  by successfully using the web as a marketing tool for growth and communication.

Alessandro Conte