Talking with…The Land of Nod Managing Director Michelle Kohanzo

By ARTEMIS BERRY, VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL RETAIL, SHOP.ORG | Published: SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Be the first to comment | This entry was posted in Events, Marketing, Merchandising, Mobile,Retail Companies, Social Media

There is something delightfully different about The Land of Nod. From the hand-selected, curated product selection to creative, story-telling blog posts, this Chicago-based retailer is one of my favorites.

I had the pleasure of meeting The Land of Nod’s Managing Director Michelle Kohanzo thanks to one of our Shop.org Board Members. She has been with the company since 1999 and has worked in just about every department in the organization. With 18 years of experience working for Nod and parent company Crate and Barrel, she has helped lead the company in redefining marketing strategies, opening a pop-up toy shop in New York, remodeling the Chicago flagship store and driving brick-and-mortar expansion.

This retail star and mother of four will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Shop.org Digital Retail Boot Camp. In advance of her presentation, I asked Kohanzo about her retail career, the power of Pinterest, and how product assortment helped reinvigorate the brand.

Tell me a bit about Land of Nod and your role. You began your retail career in customer service and have worked in nearly every division. What has your your career journey been like?

Michelle Kohanzo, Managing Director, The Land of Nod

The Land of Nod is a multi-channel retailer specializing in children’s home furnishings – our tag line is “design for kids and people who used to be kids.” Our goal is to create a happy, creative home for families. We are owned by Crate and Barrel and have been around for 18 years. I am Nod’s managing director, which means I run the organization. I have been with Nod for 14 years and was the 10th employee. I also have four children and have been said to be Nod’s biggest customer.

I’ve had such an amazing career. As The Land of Nod grew, so did my career. I had the opportunity to work in every area of the company and truly create my expertise on the job. I was lucky to have a brilliant mentor who trusted me completely – he taught me everything and pushed me constantly. Some of the highlights for me were the opening of the first stores, my time in merchandising and, of course, being offered the opportunity to lead the company. I’m fortunate enough to love what I do – honestly it’s never really work for me and that’s the best part.

Last year, Land of Nod made a lot of changes to its product assortment. Tell us about what led to that process and what the response has been.

The changes to the product assortment were part of a larger strategic rebranding. We wanted to reinvigorate the brand and really get back to our roots. We turned over our entire product assortment and really focused on color, trend, playfulness and of course quality. It was a massive undertaking and took several years to complete. The response from our customer has been phenomenal – which I’m incredibly proud of. At the end of the day, the customer’s opinion is the only one that matters.

Your website is rich with content, featuring artists, real families, photo galleries and a blog full of personality. Can you share some insights into your content strategy?

Our content strategy is to add value beyond the selling experience. Our customers are typically busy moms and we really respect the fact that they have limited time and so when they are interacting with us, we want to inspire and engage them. We consider it a privilege to be given that ounce of free time that mom has. We share everything – sneak previews of new product launches, behind the scenes of our day-to-day, and lots of fun DIY projects. We also have many blogging contributors, which adds depth to the content and introduces our customers to some new faces. Honestly, it is a challenge for us to truly capture and leverage the magnitude of content that we are creating on daily basis. There is a lot of opportunity.

Talk a little bit about what went in to developing Land of Nod’s mobile strategy. Why was it important to include the baby and gift registry on your mobile site?

From a mobile perspective, we’ve had the advantage of our much larger parent company, Crate and Barrel, blazing the mobile trail for us. We have followed their lead and have seen huge adoption rates from our customers. The registry is a key element of our business and so was necessary from a mobile perspective. I see our mobile strategy rapidly evolving in the near future, as we begin to leverage more mobile marketing opportunities.

Your social media presence is robust. What role does social media play for telling Land of Nod’s story and engaging customers? How would you describe the importance of Pinterest to your entire social media strategy?

We love social media. It’s such an amazing way to engage with our customers in real time. It allows us to open up the brand in a way that no other medium could. We also love the conversation and the ability to really solve problems for our customers. We have several different individuals engaging in the conversation at any one time, which makes our content that much richer. Pinterest has been an amazing vehicle to drive traffic and awareness to the brand. It’s a great platform for us, because it’s all about inspiration and creativity – I’m always so pleased when a year later a photo from a Nod media preview pops up again in my Pinterest stream. The imagery can really live forever there. We are also utilizing Pinterest to provide design services to our customers. We are creating custom mood boards, upon request and getting tremendous feedback. We are really just scratching the surface of that opportunity today.

You will be the opening act at the Shop.org Summit Digital Retail Boot Camp. What are you looking forward to the most?

I’m looking forward to meeting many new people and of course getting inspired to do that next innovative thing. I find that any time I am at Shop.org I walk away invigorated and full of ideas. I’m also looking forward to my speech being over. I’ve got nerves!

What innovation (or innovator) do you think will shake up the retail industry next?

I believe there is something coming that will clarify the intersection of .com and brick-and-mortar – not sure who will get there first, but it’s brewing.

via Shop.org Blog http://blog.shop.org/2013/09/12/talking-with-the-land-of-nod-managing-director-michelle-kohanzo/