How does a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer with 50+ locations world-wide and annual sales in excess of $1 billion adapt to changing consumer habits, while lacking an online storefront? As the first Digital Marketing Manager for the U.S. Marine Corps, my solution was to create an agile website that visually appealed to young males who historically did not shop offline, while offering the capability to deliver electronic gift cards directly to their mobile phones.
Our aim was to deliver an experience that felt on-brand without being inauthentic and overly salesy. The task was two-fold – to establish entirely new visuals for use in both digital and print advertising, as well as create a new revenue stream that would offset a multi-year decline in foot traffic and sales.
With a heavy dose of psychographic data on our target audience, we rebelled against the conventional visual architecture of a department store website and adopted a dark, dramatic look-and-feel with an adaptive interface and minimal navigation. We then layered it with bold, attention-demanding visuals to evoke the rugged, techy and adrenaline-fueled lifestyle of Marines.
Mobile optimization required that all transitions and logic be adjusted to ensure a level of visual finesse without any loss of performance. The purchase and delivery of electronic gift cards was seamlessly integrated into the mobile experience and extended to a custom-built application within Facebook.
At the time, mobile commerce was uncharted territory for most retailers, allowing us to serve as the first adopter of a technology not yet readily available in the private sector. Through a variety of innovative marketing campaigns and reward promotions, we amassed $125K in revenue in the first year and increased average basket size nearly 20%. Our new website yielded a 65% increase in traffic, email conversions were up 20% and social engagement exploded from 2K to 22K followers.