Web Site Markets Sheets to Students

When Peggy Allen and Ronda Pierson were sending their children off to college a couple of years ago, they were appalled at the low quality and wrongly sized sheets available for dormitory beds.

This led the pair, both former executives at Lifetime Television, to found an online operation dedicated to this supplying this niche market.

Today, Campus Bedding (http://www.campusbedding.com) pulls in more than 1,100 unique visitors daily, up from maybe 300 or 400 last year, says Allen. On top of that, the company has convinced about eight colleges and universities to recommend it as a supplier of bed sheets and linens to their resident students.

So how did they get started?

The pair began their venture by sourcing product, says Allen, noting Pierson had a number of contacts with manufacturers in China and Pakistan. Next it was time to set up the Web site with the help of Websiteforge, a firm that was able to design and set up the online store for about $1,100.

Allen and Pierson then embarked on an online marketing strategy that centers on Google Adwords and search engine optimization. Campusbedding.com uses what she describes as “all the obvious ones to search,” but notes some words like “sheets” are too general to be of much use.

The other side of Campusbedding.com’s marketing strategy is to get schools to specify their products over other firms in the same market.

“We have been slowly chipping away at working directly with colleges and universities to have them recommend us,” says Allen, noting their firm has to go up against On Campus Marketing, a firm she terms “the 800-pound gorilla” in this arena.

“I’ve been meeting with colleges that have had relationships with this other company and when they see what we’re offering they’re like ‘great, we can dump this other company,'” says Allen, who concedes this process is slow.

“We’ve had very, very good meetings that could put us in front of a lot of students but it just takes a long time to set these contracts up,” she notes.

Campus Bedding offers about 12 different colors of 100% cotton, 300 thread count bed sheets. Earlier this year, the company added a mattress cover to its offerings.

The company plans to keep going after this niche and sees no need to expand beyond. “There are four million kids going off to school every year,” says Allen. “I’ve got plenty of growth potential.”