Who they are
Walker & Hawkes is an established countrywear brand with a 30 year history making good quality, competitively priced clothes for hunting, riding, walking, or just those who love the traditional country look.
Although they do work with wholesalers across Europe, their primary sales channel is e-commerce.
What they wanted
Their website sales had plateaued, the digital marketing campaign was no longer delivering the same levels of return.
They turned to us to handle search engine optimisation (SEO), content creation, social media and email marketing, later adding paid search (Google Ads) to the mix.
What happened?
%
year-on-year growth in web sales
%
year-on-year increase in sales through paid search
%
blended ROI for campaign and flow emails
%
blended ROI across the digital marketing campaign
Paid Search
Following the success of the other channels we managed, Walker and Hawkes asked us to manage their paid search.
Although the paid search had been generating sales, the bulk of the terms being bid on were branded terms – in other words, people who had already heard of the company.
This meant they were effectively paying for clicks that they’d already have been ranking first for, so the sales being generated from this channel would have likely happened anyway, without the need to pay for a click.
By restructuring the account to focus on Walker and Hawkes’ most popular and highest value items, we were able to drive both a higher volume of sales and a higher return.
Search engine optimisation
%
increase in first position terms ranking
%
increase in ranking in top 5 terms
%
year-on-year increase in sales from organic search
%
increase in Google Features Snippets
To date there has been a 775% increase in the number of terms the site ranks in position one, while it has also seen a large increase in the number of terms appearing in the top 5 (350% increase) and top 10 (113% increase).
There has also been a 627% increase in Google Features Snippets following on-page optimisation (eg reviews, star ratings, images, People Also Ask) – all of which help make the site more visible to potential customers. The optimised content has also ensured the site is frequently references in AI Overviews and other LLM platforms.
A lot of work had been done on building links to the site, but far less attention had been paid to the site structure and page content. This resulted in several pages trying to rank for the same terms, and a very confusing hierarchy for Google to wade through.
This, coupled with the omission of key information ‘behind the scenes’ on these pages (such as titles, page descriptions, image descriptions), meant they were at best low down on page one for most of their big ticket products.
To make matters worse, missing or poorly written meta descriptions – the text that appears when your result shows in Google – meant the terms that were being seen by searchers weren’t being clicked on.
To combat this, we developed a clear plan for which pages should rank for which terms, and worked on rewriting all the meta descriptions to be as compelling to searchers as possible. By restructuring the content on the pages, we also increased the likelihood they would also appear for Google’s other search features such as People Also Ask or Images, and that they appeared with reviews and ratings where possible.
Find out more about our SEO services.
Email marketing
The result has been a 3x ROI and 2.5x revenue for emails since taking over, with campaign emails averaging 517% ROI and flow emails averaging 3,333% ROI.
1,925% blended RoI from campaign and flow emails
Walker and Hawkes’ email marketing had been delivering good return, but had begun to stagnate thanks to a lack of segmentation in the audiences as well as designs that were rarely, if ever, refreshed. Over time, recipients became blind to the messaging and sales were starting to slip.
We:
- refreshed the look and
- segmented the audience into male and female to ensure the imagery and products were as relevant as possible,
- increased the number of monthly sends to three per audience (up from one-two in total previously),
- implemented monthly A/B testing to ensure the email designs constantly evolved based on performance.
- created smarter automations – such as messaging customers based on their previous purchase frequency to catch them when they are likely to be considering their next purchase – have further boosted sales.
The strong performance of both campaign and flow emails has not only driven new sales for Walker and Hawkes, but has also helped them recapture abandoned browses, carts and checkout at a constantly increasing rate.
Get in touch
Got a project or question? Need more enquiries/sales? - We’d love to hear from you!
Get in touch using the form below, call us on 0118 948 7025 or email us at hello@sitebites.co.uk
Social media
Although Walker and Hawkes has an excellent library of imagery, frequently updated for the seasons, their social media feeds were failing to maximise these assets. Inconsistent messaging, repetitive visuals and a lack of social media best practices such as the use of trending hashtags meant that, while they had reasonable follower numbers, the reach and engagement was lower than industry standards. This meant they were both failing to reach potential new customers, and failing to encourage existing followers to spend more money with them.