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Case: From Niche to Nationwide: How Comprehensive Marketing Efforts Transformed an Online Creative Goods Store

  • 30.08.2024 / Reading time: 11 min.
The creative goods industry is filled with niche markets, where uniqueness and customer engagement are paramount for success. The online store in this case had a diverse product catalog ranging from DIY kits to custom art supplies, appealing to a creative and passionate audience. However, despite their distinctive product offerings, the company was experiencing stagnation in sales and growth by early 2024.

The Challenge: Saturation and Stagnation

By February 2024, the store had hit a plateau. Although the company had managed to attract some loyal customers, it was struggling to scale beyond a core base of repeat buyers. The website’s conversion rate hovered at a modest 1.3%, with only 2.8% of visitors returning for a second purchase. Despite spending heavily on basic PPC ads, the return on investment (ROI) was a meager 1.4x. Monthly revenues from the website plateaued around $35,000, a figure far below the company's ambitious $100,000/month target.

Moreover, the company’s email marketing efforts were underwhelming. Open rates averaged 12%, click-through rates (CTR) were below 1.5%, and the unsubscribe rate hovered at 2.2%. Organic traffic from search engines had been falling month-over-month, with rankings for target keywords (such as "custom art kits" and "unique DIY supplies") dropping by 15%. Competitors were outpacing them, with no coherent SEO strategy in place.

Problem Diagnosis: Fragmented Strategy and Inadequate Reach

After a detailed audit, several issues were identified:

  • Fragmented Marketing Efforts: Campaigns across Google Ads, email marketing, and social media were disconnected, with inconsistent messaging and no unified customer journey.
  • Ineffective Targeting: The current PPC campaigns had broad targeting, leading to high bounce rates (59%) and low engagement times (average session duration was just 1 minute and 34 seconds).
  • Weak CRM: The company had a rudimentary customer relationship management (CRM) system in place, which lacked segmentation or personalized marketing automation.
  • Low Visibility in Search Engines: There was little focus on search engine optimization (SEO), and as a result, the company ranked poorly for high-intent keywords. Organic traffic accounted for only 14% of the total site visits, a clear sign of untapped potential.
  • Missed Opportunity in Email Marketing: Email campaigns were generic and untargeted, leading to low engagement and high unsubscribe rates.

With the store's vision of becoming a market leader in creative goods, there was a clear need for a comprehensive and integrated marketing overhaul.

Actions Taken: A Strategic Overhaul for Growth

Stage 1: Reconstructing the Marketing Ecosystem

The first step was a complete redesign of the marketing ecosystem, ensuring synergy across all channels. We developed an integrated strategy focusing on three primary channels: Google Ads, email marketing, and organic search (SEO), supplemented by CRM improvements.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

  • Unified Messaging: We created a cohesive brand narrative, focusing on the store’s unique selling propositions (USPs) — originality, customizability, and exclusivity. Each campaign, whether PPC, email, or social, reflected this unified message, resulting in a 28% increase in brand recall by June 2024, measured through customer surveys.
  • Conversion Funnel Analysis: We rebuilt the conversion funnel, paying attention to each stage of the customer journey. This led to a more user-friendly website with optimized landing pages that catered specifically to various buyer personas. This resulted in a significant increase in session duration, which climbed to 3 minutes and 21 seconds — a 107% improvement.

Stage 2: Hyper-Targeted Google Ads Campaigns

The existing PPC campaigns were revamped with a focus on more granular targeting, improved ad copy, and better budget allocation. We segmented the audience based on behavioral data, focusing on high-intent demographics, such as hobbyists, art educators, and small-scale creators.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

  • Keyword Optimization: We identified long-tail keywords such as "best custom DIY art supplies" and "unique craft kits for adults" that had lower competition but higher conversion potential. These keywords alone increased the conversion rate by 38% within three months, from 1.3% to 1.8%.
  • Smart Bidding Strategies: We implemented Google’s automated bidding strategies, specifically Target CPA and Maximize Conversions, tailored to user behaviors. This led to a 22% reduction in cost-per-click (CPC) (from $1.86 to $1.45) and improved the ROI of the ad campaigns to 3.2x by August 2024.
  • Lookalike Audiences: By leveraging Google’s audience expansion tools, we created lookalike audiences based on high-converting customers, which resulted in a 24% increase in new user acquisition. In total, the campaign attracted 8,200 new visitors per month by the end of August.

Stage 3: CRM Overhaul and Marketing Automation

We upgraded the company’s CRM to a more sophisticated platform, allowing for deeper segmentation and more personalized customer engagement. The new CRM allowed us to create detailed customer profiles based on purchase history, browsing behavior, and engagement with previous marketing campaigns.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

  • Segmentation and Personalization: Customers were segmented into cohorts based on their interaction with the brand (e.g., first-time buyers, repeat customers, cart abandoners, etc.). This enabled highly personalized campaigns, such as exclusive offers for loyal customers or targeted cart abandonment reminders. These campaigns increased email open rates to 22.8% by June and raised conversion rates on cart abandonment emails from 6% to 13.5%.
  • Automated Workflows: We implemented automation for transactional emails, post-purchase follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns. For example, a post-purchase email flow that offered 15% off a second purchase within 30 days led to a 14% increase in repeat purchases.
  • Revenue Boost: CRM-driven email campaigns generated an additional $18,500 in revenue by August 2024, up from a baseline of $6,300 in February.

Stage 4: Revitalizing Email Marketing

Email marketing had previously been an underperforming channel, but we saw great potential for improvement. We refined the email marketing strategy by focusing on content that resonated with the audience, personalized offers, and automation based on behavioral triggers.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

  • A/B Testing: We conducted extensive A/B testing on subject lines, email copy, and call-to-action buttons, which increased the click-through rate from 1.4% to 3.6% by July. This boost in engagement directly translated into more conversions, resulting in a 26% increase in email-attributable revenue.
  • Segmentation: Emails were now segmented by user behavior and purchase history. For instance, customers who had shown interest in DIY kits received product recommendations based on their previous purchases, leading to a 31% higher click-to-conversion rate in these segments.
  • Re-Engagement Campaigns: Dormant subscribers (those who hadn’t opened emails in the last six months) were re-engaged with a targeted win-back series, offering a 10% discount on their next purchase. This campaign brought back 14.7% of the inactive customers, contributing an additional $9,200 in revenue.

Stage 5: Aggressive SEO Strategy

Given the competitive nature of paid search, a robust SEO strategy was developed to drive sustainable organic growth. We prioritized both on-page and off-page optimization to improve rankings for relevant keywords and capture a higher share of organic search traffic.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

Content Overhaul: We revamped the blog and resource sections of the website, focusing on high-value content such as DIY project tutorials, product comparison guides, and user-generated content featuring completed projects. This content was SEO-optimized for keywords like "custom craft kits" and "DIY art project ideas."

Results:

  • Organic traffic increased by 48.6% (from 12,600 to 18,750 monthly sessions), and the bounce rate dropped by 15%.
  • Backlink Building: We initiated a backlink campaign, securing guest posts on high-authority websites and collaborations with popular art and craft influencers. This resulted in 145 new high-quality backlinks over six months, improving the domain authority by 11 points (from 37 to 48).
  • Ranking Improvement: The store climbed the search engine results page (SERP) for 15 targeted keywords, moving from an average position of 27 to 12. Keywords like "custom art kits" achieved top 5 rankings, resulting in a 38% increase in organic conversions by August.

Stage 6: Paid Social and Influencer Collaboration

To complement search efforts, we activated paid social campaigns and influencer partnerships to reach new audiences and strengthen brand identity.

Specific Actions and Numbers:

  • Influencer Partnerships: Collaborations were established with 25 mid-tier influencers who specialized in DIY, crafting, and home decor. Influencer-driven campaigns generated over 75,000 new impressions, driving a 14% lift in brand engagement across social platforms.
  • Paid Social Campaigns: Facebook and Instagram ads targeted specific segments like DIY enthusiasts and crafters, generating 21,000 additional website visitors and contributing to a 19% lift in conversion rates from social media traffic (conversion rate improved from 0.9% to 1.4%).

Conclusion: The Road to Success

By August 2024, the online creative goods store had undergone a complete transformation. The unified marketing strategy had successfully turned around the company’s fortunes, achieving impressive results in just six months.

  • Revenue Growth: Monthly revenue grew by 186% from $35,000 in February to $100,050 by August 2024, surpassing the company’s original goal.
  • Conversion Rates: The overall website conversion rate increased from 1.3% to 2.7%, driven by a mix of improved ad targeting, email marketing, and organic traffic optimization.
  • Customer Retention: Repeat purchase rates grew by 23%, reflecting the success of the improved CRM system and personalized marketing efforts.
  • ROI on Marketing Spend: The ROI on paid marketing campaigns improved from 1.4x to 4.1x, demonstrating the effectiveness of the new strategy and better budget allocation.

Sustainable Organic Growth

Perhaps the most significant achievement was the rise in organic traffic and the improvement in SEO rankings. By investing in long-term SEO tactics, the company was able to increase its organic search traffic by 48.6%, providing a steady flow of new customers without the ongoing cost burden of paid advertising.

Increased Customer Engagement

Customer engagement soared thanks to the personalized marketing campaigns. Email open rates more than doubled, while the click-through rates and conversion rates also saw substantial increases. Re-engagement efforts successfully reactivated dormant customers, driving additional revenue that had previously been lost.

Enhanced Brand Visibility

Through the use of influencers, social campaigns, and high-quality backlinks, the company increased its visibility in a crowded market. The brand became synonymous with unique and customizable creative goods, with a strong presence on social media and other digital platforms.

Next Steps

With this newfound success, the company has now set its sights on further expansion, including potential international growth. The next phase of the strategy will involve scaling the CRM efforts to integrate SMS marketing, expanding the product line, and increasing investments in content marketing to further cement its authority in the DIY and creative goods space.

In summary, this case demonstrates the power of an integrated, data-driven marketing approach in transforming a niche online store into a leading player in its industry. The online creative goods store was not only able to achieve its revenue targets but also positioned itself for sustained future growth.

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