Case Study

Website Case Study

Sounds Dreamy case study for SkiptonWeb - June 2005
by Josie Wood - Director
 

Who are we… and what we looked for in a website design service

We are Josie Wood and Annie Heyes, partners in Sounds Dreamy Ltd. We make children's bedtime stories on CD which are sleepy, dreamy and relaxing. We wanted the atmosphere and effect of the CDs to be reflected in our website… to enable anyone visiting the site to have a real sense of how our product works and feels. So we were looking for designers who had the skill and creativity to achieve this. We were also looking for a company which could handle all the technical aspects required for running a mail order business on the internet.

Why we chose Skiptonweb

We looked at several web designers’ sites on the internet and were drawn to finding out more about Skiptonweb because they appeared to combine a relaxed friendly approach with a wide experience. We were impressed by Skiptonweb’s large and varied portfolio – it gave us the confidence that they would be able to take our outline ideas and build a website from them.

Our experience of working with Skiptonweb

Right from the time our first telephone call we have always found Steve and Wayne to be friendly and helpful. They are relaxed and easy to talk to, and they explain things clearly. We have found meetings with them to be very useful for the development of our site… with creative ideas and solutions being suggested by them that have transformed the effectiveness of our site and our business. Plus they make a nice cup of tea!

How we planned our site

We had an idea of how we wanted our site to look before going to Skiptonweb, although being fairly new to the world of e-commerce - we were not sure if it was possible to achieve this goal. At our first meeting, Wayne and Steve showed us how our vision could take shape – and, very importantly, in language we could understand. They mapped out what they needed from us to build our site… the logo, the text, the images of the CDs, and an overall plan of the layout.

Setting up our website was one of our main start up costs and our budget was quite defined. It was great for us discover that Skiptonweb could build our site at a cost that we could afford. We have always been made aware of the costs involved in any work we have planned.

Seeing our site for the first time

This was a very exciting moment for us… we were delighted with what Skiptonweb had created. Annie and I were particularly impressed with the way they had interpreted our ideas… taking them from the concept stage… with a few rough visuals drawn by me… and making them into a format that really worked well as a website.

We recognised that this was a testament to their design skills, because what we were wishing to achieve with our site had a different look and feel to a lot of the other sites that Skiptonweb had created. The ‘typical’ Skiptonweb style is probably more streamlined and corporate. For Sounds Dreamy we wanted to have an additional dimension of comforting dreamy softness in our site, to echo the atmosphere we create with the bedtime CDs… and we think Wayne and Steve did a brilliant job in achieving this.

How our site evolved – The first phase

Annie and I have big dreams for Sounds Dreamy and we obviously wanted our website to match this. Right from the outset we had several ideas about how we would like our site to develop and grow, and we decided to do this in phases. This was partly for budgeting reasons – to spread the cost… but also it seemed wise to observe how our site was working in practice and make changes accordingly.

For Annie and I the launch of our website set in motion a process of discovery about the internet and how it all really works. We were both very aware the power of the internet as a marketing and sales vehicle… but our actual use of it prior to this had been limited - so this was an interesting learning curve.

Skiptonweb gave us advice on how to make the best of our site… without having to invest any more cash at this stage. This covered information about the significance of Google, how to achieve high ranking, and how valuable that is for the effectiveness of the site.

Steve and Wayne also told us how to approach other relevant sites for links, and how this increases traffic. They explained the dual benefits from this - that Google 'likes' sites with good quality links, and visitors will also find us through links from other sites.

Another extremely helpful suggestion from Skiptonweb was to use a statistics package to view visitors to our site. This gives information such as how people found our site… did they come through a search engine, and if so which keywords they had used. Or did they come through a link from another site?

Skiptonweb explained how gathering information such as this about the traffic flow to our site is equally as important as getting the 'look' of the site right. For a site to be really successful the two things have to work together.

This point is illustrated by the following example… it was only when we had a statistics package that we discovered that about 80% of the visitors to our site come from outside the UK - and most come from the US. This data has opened up the development of our business in various exciting ways.

Another tool that we would recommend is Google Adwords… this is pay per click advertising… which has been quite effective for us. We can see that with the statistics package!

The second phase

As we at Sounds Dreamy established our business and learnt more about the role of the internet for us… we invested some time to research the subject of marketing on the internet. This has been quite influential in helping us plan the next steps for our site.

When we first planned our site we felt we did not want to overload the home page with information as we were so keen to promote the gentle, relaxing and dreamy aspect of our product. But we learnt that most people who are 'surfing' the web only stay on a site for a few seconds before moving on. So we realised that we had to find a way to give our home page more impact without losing the gentle atmosphere of the site.

We also realised that we had to find a way to reach people who might be interested in our products, but might not be using a search engine to look for 'sleepy bedtime stories' or 'relaxing bedtime CDs' for example. So this is where the next phase of our site development really took off.

We put FREE SLEEP POEMS on our site… and advertised them on Google Adwords. This has greatly increased the number of visitors to ours site.

The next step was to encourage these visitors to our site to stay awhile and find out more our product… we did this with audio clips of the CDs.

This was followed by a very exciting development for us… the membership area or as we call it The Sounds Dreamy Club.

We had learnt through our research on internet marketing that one of the most effective ways to increase internet sales is to have an opt in e-mail list.

One of the ways this is often achieved is through a monthly newsletter to subscribers. Given that Annie and I need to devote most of our time to writing and recording the CDs, as well as the other aspects of running a business… this approach seemed too big a time commitment.

Then Skiptonweb came up with the inspired idea of having a free membership area… where we give a few more free goodies to people who sign up with their e-mail address. This suits us perfectly… it greatly enhances the feelgood aspect of our site which is important to us. We have a news and feedback area in it which develops our relationship with visitors future, and of course it helps us build a mailing list in an a way which is easy and low maintenance.

Further developments – the ebook of Sleep Poems

The idea to create an ebook of Sleep Poems evolved out of several factors. At Sounds Dreamy we have always planned to publish our work in book form but we thought this would be in hard copy at a later stage, as were initially focusing on producing the CDs - which are at the core of our business.

Then we saw that the Free Sleep Poems we had put on our site to promote it were very popular and were being printed off by people all over the world. We felt this would be an ideal format to extend into a book that could be instantly downloaded.

Putting this into action was something new to both Skiptonweb and Sounds Dreamy… but we were encouraged by Wayne and Steve’s relaxed confidence that it would be a breeze to put it all together.

The effectiveness of our site

For Sounds Dreamy having a website has been the foundation to our business so far.

We have retail outlets in the UK, and a wonderful flow of orders through our website to UK customers… but for us it is also thrilling to see how our website site also opens up our ‘shop window’ to the world. Our CDs have been purchased by customers in the US… Canada… and Australia. It is motivating to know that this is something we can generate more of… as we increase the flow of traffic to our site.

Our site has also been a key factor in building our business in other ways. For example we have had two enquiries from distributors in the US who would like to handle the marketing our product there… for both of them our website was the first point of contact. Other similar and exciting business opportunities have also grown out of people finding us on the internet.

We have also found our Website to be a great information resource for the press and media… and this has been very helpful in building our profile further.

Annie and I are very proud of the Sounds Dreamy website, and are delighted with the way our whole business has grown and developed through its effectiveness.

We have various plans for the development of our site in the future… for example… to set up a facility for people to download the full CD product rather than receive it by post.

Another example is… the membership area on our site gives us a great opportunity to strengthen our relationship with customers - making our site more interactive and personal… which seems to be the way ahead for achieving growth through the internet. These and other ideas to expand the success of our site are very exciting to us.

The Internet opens up a whole world of possibilities for any business and in itself is developing and changing all the time. So we know that as our business evolves and as we learn more about how to make the best of our site, and what the internet can offer… even more ideas will come to us!

Our confidence that we can take this all forward and grow with the internet as it changes… is underpinned by the fact that Skiptonweb are great to work with. Steve and Wayne are encouraging and helpful… they come up with inspired ideas and solutions, and with their particular style of making everything feel easy… we know that whatever the future holds will be enjoyable and exciting!

---

Visit the Sounds Dreamy website at: www.soundsdreamy.com