The story of how a small business maximised its resources and increased its revenue in a short span of time through strategic marketing techniques

Two Leaves and a Bud, a tea company based in Basalt, Colorado benefited from a new website design that led to a 34% increase in revenue. As a small business offering premium products, Two Leaves and a Bud faced budgetary challenges for a website redesign. However, the company website was full of usability issues and was underperforming as an e-commerce platform. With a goal of generating 10% of the company’s revenue from online sales, developing a new user-friendly website was key. Dedicating three months and a small budget to the task, the business decided on a complete re-branding with a new website at its core.

1. Building a website

Building the brand’s new website was a significant undertaking. Organising the build in this way allowed the business to launch the new site promptly and start seeing its impact in a short space of time whilst working with a small budget.

Research

The first stage was in-depth research and comparative competitive analysis. This helped the business to understand how its competitors were presenting their message to customers. One significant element was conducting interviews with customers, company employees, and wholesalers. By undertaking this research, the business was better able to understand its market and start to develop a stand-out niche for itself. Identifying this niche formed the basis of the re-branding and website overhaul.

Analysis and rebranding

Following this research, Two Leaves and a Bud focused on analysis and developing an in-depth and expansive marketing plan. At this stage, the company also began its re-branding, which was first launched internally. Research results and the development of the internal brand became a basis for how the business would market itself externally, including through its new website.

Building the website

The research outcomes, new internal brand, and the new marketing plan helped to guide the direction of the new website. The web designer’s work began with a detailed discovery process to give more structure to the new site. This included interviewing team members to get their feedback on the website’s features and elements, auditing the new brand, and reviewing Google Analytics data for the old website to gain a deeper insight into the company’s challenges.

The web designer was then able to start building the site, working closely alongside Two Leaves and Bud’s Marketing Director to plan its architecture and organisation. Importantly, they also focused on the user experience and user journey around the site. The three key priorities for the site’s design were usability, building the brand, and selling the product.

Implementing research findings

The company also applied insights from the research stage to the new website. Research revealed a lack of knowledge about tea so the new website offered educational content about where tea comes from and the types of tea that the company sells. Research also showed that in retail environments sales of tea doubled when ten boxes of one variety of the company’s tea were on the shelf instead of five. The brand replicated this effect on its website by adding a navigation bar at the top of the page with images of every variety of tea the company offers.

2. Marketing the website

After launching the new website it was necessary to market it effectively but Two Leaves and a Bud lacked a substantial advertising budget. Instead, it incentivised customers to make purchases and market the business through word-of-mouth. The overall approach to marketing deployed a number of different strategies and was divided into three principal areas.

Content marketing

Content marketing through blog posts and social media was a significant part of the strategy. This worked on the basis that generating meaningful content would increase the chances of customers sharing it and the company reaching a wider audience. Email marketing, multiple blog posts each month, and being active on social media were strategies to offer promotions and encourage interaction with customers.

Email marketing

Prior to the website redesign, the business used weekly emails but campaigns focused on promotions and discounts. Whilst the emails were driving website traffic and sales revenue, excessive discounting can be detrimental for premium brands. Following the re-design, the company continued to send promotional emails but balanced alongside transactional and content emails. This significantly reduced the frequency of promotional and discount emails. The outcome was discovering that both content and transactional emails increase open rates and sales.

Rewards and incentives

The business implemented rewards and incentives to encourage existing customers to make purchases and refer others. This involved a rewards programme where customers earned a $10 voucher for every 100 points they collected. Points can be collected by creating an account, spending on the website, and redeeming gift vouchers.

3. Results

Two Leaves and a Bud saw substantial growth resulting from their website overhaul and re-branding strategy. The business experienced this across a range of different metrics. These outcomes compare the numbers before and after the launch of the new website.

• Overall revenue increased by 34%
• The conversion rate increased by 63%
• Returning visitor conversion increased by 20%
• New visitor conversion increased by 17%
• Organic search traffic conversions increased by 85%
• Overall page views increased by 20%
• The bounce rate decreased by 14.5%
• Average page views increased by 6.34%
• The exit rate decreased by 9.62%
• Sales grew to 300% above average on days that email newsletters were sent out
• Content-based emails had a 14% higher open rate compared to promotional emails
• Traffic from Facebook grew by 135%
• Facebook fans increased by 10% after the new website was launched
• 15% of newsletter sign-ups converted into sales
• 13% of $5 gift vouchers sent to new customers through the refer-a-friend scheme were redeemed

This is clear proof that you can increase your revenue and profits by getting marketing services that are fit for your business needs. Centring the Two Leaves and a Bud’s re-branding and marketing strategy on launching a new website and developing it as a sales channel had a significant impact. The revamped website led to greater traffic, an improved user experience, and ultimately an increase in sales revenue.

Easy Websites™ wants to make the building and marketing process easier for small business owners. You can increase your revenue without spending months of planning, strategising and building with a marketing agency just to pull this off. Because with a small budget, you can create a full functioning website that is responsive, interactive and profitable. You don’t have to worry about any design, copy or technical back-end work since we got it all ready for you in just 24 hours.

Ready to take your small business to the next level?