Ankle Brace Company Makes Strides by Leveraging Web.

Business & Feature Editors

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LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 11, 2000

In the volatile world of dot.coms, you need more than a better mousetrap to be profitable - you need an e-commerce distribution model that can leverage the power of the web.

Active Ankle Systems, Inc., a Louisville-based manufacturer of ankle braces, has done just that. Using an e-business model and a creative marketing campaign, the company has tripled brace orders in a matter of months.

"Our web sales just keep growing and growing," said Scott Morton, Vice President - General Manager of Active Ankle Systems. "We're fulfilling up to 400 orders a month right now. That's pretty good in this business."

Active Ankle braces are used by professional, college, high school, grade school sports teams in a wide variety of sports all over the country. In the past, sales were targeted to athletic trainers and coaches.

"The Web has really opened up consumer and international sales," said Morton, "we've been successful since our site went online."

"Our formula was simple: first, you need to focus on the goals of your site, then design your site to fulfill those goals. Next, you need to promote your site to your target audience. Not promoting your site is like building a store with no road to it."

To build and drive traffic to their Web site, Active Ankle uses VIA Internet Studio.

"They've kept me up in the search engines plus created banners, email, direct mail, ads...a real combination of traditional and new media to drive traffic to the site. We've measured everything we've done and can now accurately predict results before we invest in creating a marketing program," Morton said. "Now we want to do for the ankle brace what moms did with the bicycle helmet."

According to a recent study by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, ankle sprains and strains are the number one injury area in a wide variety of sports including basketball, exercise & running, volleyball, tennis...even swimming. The new Active Ankle campaign will call mothers' attention to this with banners that state: "Where is your child most likely to be injured?"

Clicking on the banner takes you to the Active Ankle Web site. Banners are targeted to sites frequented by mothers with children involved in sports. At the site, they can purchase plus learn all about the care and prevention of injured ankles.

Active Ankle is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky and its Web site address is www.activeankle.com.

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