Social media + good website design = success!

Over the past 18 months, we have been working with Personalised Cardboard Cutouts (PCC) who sell pretty much what it says on the tin, fun and life-size cardboard cutouts for all occasions created from photos and images that their customers send to them. The company also provides advertising stands and promotional boards for businesses, exhibitions, trade shows and corporate events.

During our first meeting with PCC company director, we discussed the limitations of the existing website, the creation of an effective social media marketing strategy and drew up a feature list of required features and functionality. We also discussed the number of orders coming through the website, at that time it was approximately 1-2 orders per month, there were problems with customers not being able to upload their images directly to the website at the time they placed their orders resulting in emails with attachments being sent making the ordering process both time consuming and labour intensive. A few days after the initial meeting we produced an action plan to redevelop the existing site in a mobile friendly (responsive) template with improved features to make the ordering process for customers as easy to use as possible and enhance the overall customer experience of the site with an attention-grabbing, vibrant website theme showcasing the various products that they have on offer, including vinyl wall art and social media/selfie frames.

As well as fact-finding during the initial meeting, we also spent time researching the industry to really understand the business and put it at the very core of the social media strategy to connect with existing customers, expand brand awareness with potential new customers and drive more traffic to the site.

Once the new proposal was signed off we took over the existing website and social media management while we re-developed the next generation version of the website. This involved reviewing and optimising content and profiles for PCC’s FaceBook, Instagram and Twitter profiles and creating engaging content for posts to build loyalty with followers, reach out to a bigger audience and ultimately generate more sales. While development was underway with the new website we integrated a new image upload function to the existing site as an interim solution to improve sales figures and clearly the results speak for themselves:

So what does all this mean? Well, clearly social media can have a significant impact on attracting business and converting them into sales if it is managed properly with timely, relevant and targeted posts, and further proves that social media for business is well worth the time and investment as part of traditional online and offline marketing communications.

Today on-line transactions made using a mobile device makeup approximately half of the UK’s total eCommerce sales so it re-enforces the importance of good design to make your customers experience of your website as streamlined and intuitive as possible to keep them coming back.

Client: Personalised Cardboard Cutouts

Website: www.personalisedcardboardcutouts.com

Nature of work & project functionality: Website re-design, integrated eCommerce online shop, online payment processing, a mobile app to manage orders on the go, social media management.