Background
The Coral Centre is the UK’s largest sustainable coral company. Founded in 2019, the business  frags their own corals in their specialist shop in Hampshire. They sell all varieties of corals and are distributors of aquariums, tank equipment, and dry goods from some of the most reputable providers in the industry such as Red Sea, Ecotech and Reef Zlements. The Coral Centre also has dedicated research programmes to find new ways to protect marine life and support the conservation of coral reefs around the world.

Situation
The Coral Centre came on as a Creative Pod marketing client in April 2021 for support with day to day social media activity, as well as campaign work to increase online sales from their website. Upon onboarding the client, we began marketing work with a plan to rebrand The Coral Centre and create a new website once we had increased sales and brand awareness. They continue to be a longstanding marketing and design client with a fixed monthly retainer.

Solutions and Results

Marketing
We began our marketing activity focusing on monthly social media batches and scheduling  2-3 posts a week across their three platforms (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) , as well as any requested ad hoc posts. After a year of activity, we had increased the Facebook following by 25%, Instagram by 5%, and Twitter had seen a 30% increase in followers. We also took over responsibility of the weekly ‘What's in Stock’ eblast that gets sent to subscribers to give the owner more time to work on the business. Additionally, we set to work on paid campaigns, which included running Facebook ads to advertise an ‘Ask the Expert’ initiative for new coral hobbyists to arrange an advice meeting with one of the expert Coral Centre team, as well as their wide range of online stock. We also brought in more traditional marketing concepts such as a Coral Nerd loyalty card.  Alongside this, we set up Google Search advertising which received excellent conversions to purchases on their e-commerce site. Within the first six months of running the Google Ads, the client had received over 200% return on their investment of the cost of the ads in sale conversions.

Branding
Once we had increased sales and customer engagement using the campaigns and methods approved in the marketing plan,  our client decided it was time for a rebrand of The Coral Centre. The Design team had an initial meeting with the client to establish what the client wanted to change about the current branding, and the kind of aesthetic they wanted to achieve. It was decided that a bold and modern feel would be created with the coral colour and deep purple colour palettes of the ocean. After presenting three different logo options and making slight alterations to the client's favourite one, we rolled out the new branding across all current marketing collateral such as loyalty cards, posters, and social media graphics. We also created new branding material such as a ‘Dry Goods’ banner and a feedback form flyer with the new colours and logo.

Website
The client also decided that they wanted to create a brand new website to reflect the new and vibrant branding, so our Web team worked on the key features that the client required for a heavily e-commerce focused website. This included product filter sections, easily interchangeable deal sections, and an excellent navigation system for customers. Additionally, it was important to the client that the vast amounts of research for reef conservation they ran as part of their organisation was well displayed for prospective sponsors and partners.

We launched the website with a ‘Show Us Your Tank’ social media competition to increase customer engagement with the new website and expand reach. The new website received excellent feedback from customers, and one month after the launch, the e-commerce conversion rate increased from 0.45% to 0.67%, with monthly revenue doubling too! Organic search traffic has also continued to increase due to the website now being more Google compliant for ranking.

We continue to work with The Coral Centre on a monthly marketing retainer to expand brand awareness and sales through elements such as blogs and press releases about their research work, email marketing, and continuing paid Google Ads.

If you are interested in outsourcing your branding, website or additional marketing activity or would like to discuss your requirements further, please get in touch at hello@creativepod.uk.com.

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