HUGE

Experiential branding

Cellular South is a customer-focused company, with an incredibly loyal clientele and a churn rate so low it puts the rest of its industry to shame. The challenge was determining how to bring these aspects of their brand alive in the digital channel. HUGE’s solution moved beyond brand messaging to experiential branding – make online interactions customer–driven and easy- to-use, anticipating what customers are trying to achieve.

Evolving the experience

With digital initiatives including online advertising and marketing, CRM, the website, and digital in-store interfaces, it was critical to prioritize and plan our evolution of the Cellular South experience. HUGE developed a strategic roadmap for the company, outlining a series of initiatives to achieve the long-term vision. As the website’s purchase path was the first and primary online touch point for the majority of new customers, we began with a redesign of this interaction along with an overhaul of the SEO, SEM, and online advertising programs driving potential customers to the site. In tandem, we worked on an initial release of a Cellular South B2B Account Management portal.

One size doesn’t fit all

One of the key insights our research and strategy work revealed was that Cellular South’s customers needed more than just well-done basics when it came to making purchases. For a high-commitment and relatively big-ticket purchase like a mobile phone with a 2-year contract in a tough economy, a wealth of information and options is necessary to make customers feel comfortable about making this kind of decision online. The site’s redesign focused on simplifying often confusing plan and product selections, decisions, and pricing to give the user confidence that they were making a sound choice. We also worked with Cellular South to implement options such as online chat and in-store pickup. Giving consumers the ability to talk to someone online while shopping, and the option of making their purchase online and picking it up in the store, was key to increasing conversions.

Quick results

Interim “quick fix” usability updates to the site’s purchase path confirmed the strategy almost immediately; after a series of interactive, live tests, HUGE was able to achieve a 27% increase in conversion rate with two small releases occurring 2 and 3 months after we began work. The full purchase path redesign went live October 5, 2008, and resulted in an additional 25% increase in conversions. All told, compared with when we began work on the purchase path, 59% more site visitors are being converted into new Cellular South customers.

Marketing success

Our ongoing online digital advertising campaign for Cellular South included media planning, search marketing, display advertising and rich media units, with a focus on driving sales and lowering customer acquisition costs. Marketing efforts were driven by test-and-learn methodology, with a focus on testing multiple creative executions and media outlets to find the combination that minimized cost-per-acquisition. As a result, HUGE increased the efficacy by over 200% compared with previous Cellular South online advertising initiatives.

Continued evolution

The October 5th launch of the redesigned purchase path was a first step in evolving the Cellular South digital experience. The next major initiative to launch will be touch-screen interfaces designed to enhance the in-store shopping experience, as well as a redesign of the online account activation and customer service portions of the customer-facing site, and continued development on the B2B site. Projects around CRM, digital promotions, and viral communications continue to drive traffic to the enhanced website.