Background
Thatchers is one of the nation’s favourite brands of cider. Still a family run business since it’s inception they’ve been making cider on Myrtle farm in Somerset for over 115 years. A staple in pubs and retail outlets across the land, their range of ciders covers long-standing favourites and new innovative flavours.
Situation
As lockdown 2020 started, Thatchers found everyone flocking to their website to buy their favourite cider online. But the online shopping experience wasn’t optimised and didn’t deliver the visual and user experience worthy of the brand. Furthermore, the team didn’t have an efficient way of managing the content on their website. So they reached out to get help.
What I delivered
Working as a combined team with branding and creative experts Firehaus, we set about uncovering insights about how online visitors engaged with their existing website - both qualitatively using surveys and quantitively using analytics data.
This allowed us to identify the key user journeys that were important for both brand and website visitors and which became the high level definition of needs for a future improved website.
In parallel, following an analysis of their current content management system and alternative platforms, I delivered a recommendation that would give the team a much improved ability to manage their customers’ online experience and provide tighter data integration with their back-end systems.
Whilst Firehaus were busy designing the look & feel of the new website, I expanded the user journeys into a set of detailed user stories which the web development team would use as a full and complete definition of what the website needed to deliver. I also defined the new website’s information architecture including all internal SEO aspects of that architecture in order that the copywriters could ensure the site was highly optimised.
Armed with the detailed user stories, I ran a partner selection process which resulted in Squarebird joining the team to turn those user stories into a fully working, new and improved website.
Finally, I created a multi-channel, near-real-time, interactive dashboard that gave the Thatchers team visibility of how site visitors and shoppers were engaging with the website across the key user journeys originally identified.
Services delivered
Outcome
A new website that meets the needs of both customers and the brand
Clear visibility of website customer behaviour delivered in an automated, always-up-to-date online dashboard
Well-defined business KPIs and a simple way to measure them
Improved SEO performance
Improved content management capabilities for the internal team
Tighter integration with back-end systems
Technologies used
“Matt’s characteristic of outstanding thoroughness combined with his ability to simplify any challenges led to a perfect scoping and delivery of the project.”
Philip McTeer, Head of Marketing, Thatchers Cider
Want to hear more about what I’ve done for my clients? Read about how I’ve helped grow revenue for FaderPro.