Ray Cardinale, R.N. started the Allergy Supply Company in 1985, offering long-lasting, quality health equipment and hard-to-find allergy supplies.
Ray can be reached by e-mail at Allergy@ allergysupply.com or by phone at 800-323-6744 or 703-391-2011.
Visit the Allergy Supply Company Web Site at http://www.
aaabiz.com/AL/
alhp.html.
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Ray Cardinale
Allergy Supply Company
President - specialty product mail order company"The primary marketing focus for us is exposure. Our prospects are individuals and physicians who know what they need but don't know where to get it. It's our job to let them know that we're available to offer the advice and products that best meet their needs.
We research our products well. Knowledge is key. Consumers are sophisticated and want to know what their options are when it comes to buying specialty health supplies and equipment. My R.N. training also enables me to help customers make decisions. I have their interest at heart and I tell them the truth.
Our marketing centers around our print catalog and 800 number. Since we've been around for a while we get quoted in the press quite a bit. We also get commercial referrals from our product manufacturers and through word-of-mouth advertising from physicians and allergy/asthma organizations. I offer to talk for groups at universities, hospitals and associations. This usually brings a lot of positive feedback, which can lead to sales.
The most exciting marketing experience we've had in the last year is through the Internet and the World Wide Web. We put our site up in July of 1995 and it is has definitely increased our business. We're attracting prospective customers we couldn't reach through our print catalog. We've fulfilled orders for folks in Japan, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, South America and many other countries. We're receiving an average of 3 orders a day now through the site and I answer a lot of e-mail requests asking for information about certain products. Everybody's different...that's the beauty of the global marketplace. There's a lot of potential there, especially for a specialty product company.
I think the key to advertising on the Net is to initially spend the money to create an attractive, professional-looking web site. Prospects aren't going to call the company that sponsors a "junky-looking" site. I wouldn't. It's also important to make sure that your site is well "seeded" in the WWW search engines and directories. Otherwise, how are people going to find you? I've also made sure that our URL is on all our printed materials such as the catalog, business cards, and letterheads.
Another very important Internet marketing tool are the Usenet newsgroups and mailing lists. I believe that my consistent participation in these groups and lists has really helped bring a lot of people to our site. It's a lot of work. I spend at least a couple of hours every day reading and posting answers to questions posed on the Internet in the allergy and asthma-related newsgroups and lists. Morning, afternoon and evening...every day. I make sure that I include a "signature" about the company at the bottom of each message I post, which can attract a lot of site visitors. After you answer questions for a while, people start to view you as someone who is an authority. They're starting to say "Check with Ray...he seems to know what he's talking about." You can't find a better customer than one who you've really helped."
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