How to Market Your Shop Online After Offline Success

Nowadays, it’s hard for many of us to imagine growing a business without an online presence. But Miss Rose Sister Violet is one of those rare exceptions—they’re a miraculous unicorn of a business that, over decades and trade shows and word of mouth alone, thrived.

Since being established nearly 40 years ago in Australia, the company—a range of original women’s and children’s apparel, home decor, and accessories—has made iterations and launched in the US. As it’s grown, it’s always stayed in the family, and it’s this sense of warmth and care that really shines through and makes the brand unique.

Yasmin and her sister Gabriella attend about 11 trade and retail shows a year, with much success. They operate mostly as a wholesale company, selling their product nationwide. Although they didn’t yet have a website when they came to us, they’d grown an incredible social media following: 94,000 likes on Facebook and 9,000 Instagram followers!

“We have never done anything in regards to branding, marketing or PR until this year,” Yasmin told us. “It seems to have reached a level as being a successful ‘small business’ and we want to take it to the next step.”

To do this, they needed a website that would grow both their online retail sales and expand their wholesale options. They needed an online space to direct their very loyal following to. “We have no catalog, no e-newsletter, and no online access for them to re-order,” Yasmin said. And, since this would be the first time doing major branding and messaging work, they knew they wanted to really define themselves by moving away from a “cottage craft” image to a more sophisticated and contemporary, pretty style.

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Learn How to Market Your Shop Online

Right away, we got to work playing “catch-up” on some marketing essentials. Yasmin signed up for a 2-month marketing and promotion session with our marketing strategist, Caroline. Together they identified essentials like Miss Rose Sister Violet’s target customer and the company’s core values and messaging differentiators. The experience gave Yasmin an entirely new perspective on her customers. At trade shows, and throughout her travels, she and Gabriella would think about the guides and questions Caroline had prompted them with. “Even while walking to and from work each day, we would study the public and look around us and pick out our customer from the crowd. It was so much fun… and wonderful to spot a woman and say “THAT’S HER!!! THERE SHE IS!” from how she dressed, what she was doing, which stores she was walking in and out of, etc.”

With this customer in mind, Sarah was ready to begin designing the company’s new website, starting with the homepage:

“When I design a homepage, in truth I am not simply designing a homepage – I am designing your whole website. The rules I set up on this one page will be repeated and carried through ALL the pages of your site so I take great care to plan all the little details to make sure that when it comes to the rest of the design everything else should flow and break down easily for responsive browsers like tablets and mobile phones.”

To complement the beautiful floral details of Miss Sister Rose Violet’s branding, Sarah focused on creating a balance between the details and the minimal nature of the brand and products. Because the company’s visual identity had already been developed, Sarah decided to focus on making the site a joy to arrive at, emphasizing its user-friendliness. She created a simple homepage that invites customers to click deeper—this builds brand trust as they fall in love with your products and notice how easy your site is to use.

In working with the images Yasmin had submitted, Sarah noticed that a majority of them were vertical images, and so she suggested hiring our photographer, Jen, to help balance out the visual variety with some horizontal images as well. Yasmin was fully on board; her openness to our suggestions and approaches as we discovered ways to strengthen her brand was paramount to this project’s success. By the time it was complete, Miss Sister Rose Violet had a beautiful new retail site, complete with customized blog designs, Home and About page copy that gave voice to the company’s warm and charming personality, plus beautiful gift cards that were designed and developed to help keep in-person customers engaged online as well.

We shared many smiles, happy dances, Star Wars references, and overall giddiness as Miss Sister Rose Violet’s new site came to fruition. But it was Yasmin’s words at the end that had all of us Aeolidians high-fiving and sending virtual hugs to everyone involved: “I’m so excited I think I have to pinch myself that this is actually REAL!! You are all a team of angels.”

Aw, go team! We love working with businesses that are just as passionate about branding and design as we are. Is yours next? Get in touch.

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