HOSPITALGOWNS.COM business makes great strides helping patients.
hospitalgowns.com launched a retail website where consumers can purchase direct designer hospital patient gowns, surgical scrub caps and bouffant hats for top quality healthcare clothing.
(PRWEB) December 19 2003--If you've ever spent time in a hospital —
recovering or visiting — chances are you're familiar with the traditional
patient garb: a stale blue or light green snowflake gown with just enough fabric
to provide adequate coverage — hopefully. There's nothing very inspirational —
or comfortable — about these hospital gowns. That's why, after spending an
extensive amount of time in hospitals visiting ill family members, Clif Shakun
felt compelled to create something that would better represent people's lives
and personalities. So in 1999 Clif launched hospitalgowns.com, a retail website
where consumers can purchase designer hospital patient gowns, surgical scrub
caps and bouffant hats.
"Doctors and nurses have great cool designs on
their outfits," said Shakun. "Why shouldn't patients — the people who need
inspiration the most — have a better quality, creatively-designed, colorful
hospital gown to make their experience a little more
uplifting?"
Self-funded and started from a small kitchen table with his
creative design, this Interland customer offers an online-only catalog featuring
26 colorful designer hospital patient gowns, 65 surgical scrub cap prints and 21
bouffant hats prints. His designs, with imaginative names, such as Tropical
Indigo, Rosaria, Coral Fish, Flames, Sushi, and Cat's Meow, come in adult sizes:
S thru XXL.
Customers can easily and quickly click on their favorite
colorful swatch print, see a model, review the measuring charts for accurate
sizing, submit the order via the Dansie Shopping Cart, choose a shipping option,
and proceed seamlessly to AuthorizeNet's secure
real-time credit card
processing.
However, Shakun is more than a source of colorful patient
gowns for his customers. He has added more than 1,500 links to health-related
sites which provide access to information on a range of health resources and
conditions, including the American Organ Transplant Association, National Kidney
Foundation, Association of Cancer Online Resources, National Institute of
Health, and many more. He has supplied these links through his own research as
well as through customer suggestions. He also posts and invites testimonials
from customers, many of whom have found that either they or their family
members, dressed in the designer patient gowns, scrub caps and bouffant hats,
get a lot more attention from doctors and nurses. This boosts their spirits and
brightens their day, promoting an overall happier hospital stay.
Shakun
has experienced dramatic growth since launching his website online in 1999, and
has tested then implemented a number of strategies for achieving online success.
He has seen growth every month compared to the previous year's sales, and sells
as much as 10 percent of his products around the world — from Japan to Saudi
Arabia.
To ensure his company's capabilities are fully represented
online, he owns the domains for both hospitalgowns.com as well as
surgicalcaps.com. And, while print advertising has not paid off for Shakun,
Google AdWords have made a tremendous impact. Shakun has strategically selected
about 20 Google AdWord phrases that position him precisely for Internet
searches. As a result, he averages an overall click-through rate of 11.3 percent
on Google searches, with as much as a 22 percent click-through for some key
words. Through his search engine optimization plan, he ensures that his leads
are very targeted. He attributes his success to five years of carefully refining
his optimization so that he is positioned in a prominent spot.
In
addition to Google Ad Words, Shakun participates in a link exchange program that
provides him with free banner ads on other medical-related sites in exchange for
hosting banner ads on his site. This has worked for Shakun because he is able to
determine which categories of sites are acceptable for the exchange without
having to seek out advertising.
Shakun tried selling pop-up ads for his
website without success. However, rather than abandon the idea, he opted to use
the pop-ups to feature meaningful Web sites for site visitors. Several times
each month, Shakun rotates the pop-up ad to showcase sites representing Breast
Cancer Awareness, Scleroderma Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Tour of Hope
and Victory Junction, just to name a few.
In a time when many companies
rush to send mass e-mails to every e-mail contact they can find, Shakun is
particularly sensitive to the needs and desires of his customer base. Each year,
Shakun sends a one-time only seasonal holiday thank-you e-mail to each customer
to show appreciation for his or her support and purchases. But Shakun has
intentionally steered away from e-mail marketing as a strategy.
As Shakun
looks to the future, he continues his counter-intuitive approach to business. He
actually hopes that he will see more competition, as this will mean that more
patients are served with colorful, friendly hospital patient gowns, surgical
scrub caps and bouffant hats.
For more information, please access
hospitalgowns.com or surgicalcaps.com.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2003/12/prweb95311.htm