Mole Valley Farmers
Mole Valley Farmers was started in 1960 by a small group of farmers around South Molton in Devon who were concerned by the discriminatory practices and the large margins being taken by many of their input suppliers.
Today it remains one of a few true co-operatives in the supply industry, but boasts a turnover of more than £130m through more than 20 retail outlets and various farming focused services. Products range from farm requirements to clothing, footwear, garden supplies, pet food and accessories, domestic goods and power tools.
Objectives
- Clear and accurate view of the performance of the client's previous e-commerce website
- Ability to track and measure marketing campaign performance
- Gather insights into website usage and visitor behaviour
- Increase the volume, quality and conversion of website traffic
- Redesign a new e-commerce website to increase conversion
- Create a new online brand and rural community information service
Initially, Appius were asked to implement traffic and conversion analytics using the world-leading WebTrends solution. The project utilised Appius's expert position as a WebTrends Interactive Partner to gather reporting requirements into a set of key performance indicators and reports specifically tailored to Mole Valley Farmers' business structure and the information required by different groups including board directors, marketing and product category managers.
Next Mole Valley Farmers asked Appius to increase website traffic levels and the conversion of this traffic to newly registered customers and online orders. Appius initiated a Search Engine Optimisation strategy and email marketing campaigns to generate higher levels of website conversion and repeat visits. Alongside, extensive Pay-Per-Click campaigns were put in place for over 5,000 products with a carefully managed seasonal and keyword level strategy to maximise return-on-investment. Incentivised data capture campaigns and segmentation for targeted email marketing underpin the retention and value add for current customers.
Having dramatically increased visitor and order volumes, Appius's most recent brief was to create a new online brand for Mole Valley and design a new e-commerce website for implementation by Mole Valley’s I.T. provider and partner business First4Farming. To achieve this Appius applied its full user-centred design process involving the review of direct competitors and best practice e-commerce solutions, documentation of audience groups and capturing brand values, desired positioning and a set of potential ‘themes’.
The project then moved on to creating ideal emotional and goal-driven user journeys for groups varying from farmers in the local area to the equestrian audience unfamiliar with the brand. The proposed new website was user tested with the target audience as a prototype prior to the actual website build.
Throughout the project Appius worked closely with the client’s content team and First4Farming to ensure the success of the project and the quality of the final implementation. Detailed wireframes, our Online Brand and Content Guide and a set of browser tested HTML templates were key to achieving this objective.
Results
- Deep qualitative and quantitative insights into website user behaviour
- Website traffic levels multiplied by four times to date
- Monthly website orders increased to five times start level
- Tracking online purchases triggered by offline campaigns
- Website conversion improved by 40%
- Online brand values and style rolled out to offline
- Email marketing list built from scratch and segmented by interest