RedBalloon is looking to opportunities across the ditch, with the online gift retailer shaking up its brand positioning and digital assets to drive growth in Australia, and to ready for a push in New Zealand.
Last week, RedBalloon set live its new website, along with a fresh brand positioning and CEO of the business Nick Baker told AdNews it was critical to get the site right.
“If you're going to do it, you've got to do it well,” Baker said. “When 90% of your business comes through the site, the site is everything.”
The project as a whole, including the site and brand refresh, cost the business around $700,000 and when it comes to KPI's around the launch, Baker said conversations were on the top of his list.
“We want everything from a lift in our conversions by 10% on the new site, we want to provide a deeper engagement on the site and we want people to be able to find products a lot quicker.
“Probably the most important number for us is increasing our conversions especially on mobile,” he added.
This is why Baker explained that RedBalloon appointed digital agency Deepend to work on the project to ensure it was done right, and since going live last Thursday, there are already plans to expend its roll-out.
“We want to ramp up our New Zealand operations significantly. We're going to do a New Zealand roll-out of the website in March of next year. The new site gives us a greater aspiration and I think the team has done an extraordinary job,” he said.
“We'll be looking at what happens in New Zealand, we want to get New Zealand right both for New Zealanders travelling to Australia and Australians travelling to New Zealand.”
Baker made the transition from CMO to CEO earlier this year and says he's enjoying the change.
“It's interesting the switch from being a CMO to a CEO,” he said. “Obviously RedBalloon is a very marketing oriented business, it's also very product based. Even though I was CMO I spent my early years in operations, so I'm not a pure marketer all the way through my career.”
“I imagine I am a bit more involved in marketing things more than most CEO's and I'm enjoying stepping out of it,” he added.
The business isn't just looking to our cousins across the South Pacific, it is also eyeing off growing its partners and also the Christmas season, with Baker telling AdNews that there is a marketing push coming, but he remained tight lipped about what exactly the activity could look like.
“Expect more fun, and more work that brings RedBalloon to life,” he said.
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