Hand-crafted digital activities that increased subscribers, sales and search visibility

Key achievements:

• 243% increase in email subscribers over 12 months from a homepage popup box
• Instant increase in product orders (mobile and desktop) following popup box install
• 2 new search rankings for phrases associated with navy strength gin
• Contributed to increased sales revenue from email conversions through design changes
• Designed engaging Amazon brand page inclusive of serving suggestions

The brief:

Brighton Gin Founder Kathy Caton sent us a little video from her “Gin Cave” explaining that she had a small team that were run off their feet and that they needed some help.  Her aim is to take the spirit of Brighton – that she’s captured in her popular hand-made gin – both nationwide and international.  Her brand sells direct to consumers online and via distributors, third-party websites and bars.

The team at Brighton Gin have a strong visual brand and are keen on getting a coherent message out far and wide.  They want to do good and interesting things (and already are) to help them get ahead in a very crowded marketplace.  But like many small businesses, their resources are stretched to the limit and often the wish list gets longer rather than shorter, especially when digital expertise is required.  They needed some flexible, technically-capable, creative support.

The work:

A drinks company naturally relies on resellers, but when Brighton Gin sell their craft gin directly, it is of course more profitable.  To begin with we refreshed the Mailchimp template that the brand was using to keep in contact with customers with email campaigns.  Alignment, font consistency, layout, colour palette and links were all considered and the email took a leap forward in terms of engagement.

Then we stepped in with digital design skills to get the Amazon brand page into a position where the distribution company could put it live.  We hadn’t done an Amazon brand page before so this was new territory, but we like a challenge.

The third task was to create and install a pop-up offer to encourage new email sign-ups and grow the subscriber list.  A 15% first-time order discount was the temptation, with the combined opportunity to spur potential customers on to purchase their own bottle of Brighton Gin for the first time.  This pop-up has been a resounding success.

Finally, we conducted some thorough key phrase research for the gin company to provide them with the insight they needed for future search optimisation and content creation work.  This hasn’t been put to full use yet but has already led to two new high search rankings for terms associated with navy strength gin in relation to their seaside-strength product.

The results:

We built a lovely relationship with this fantastic craft gin brand and were so pleased that our work had such a positive impact on revenue.  The 2.5x increase in email subscribers through the pop-up window and the identification of two key phrases that paved the way for new search rankings were real highs.