Putting the Sole in Naboso's Brand Experience
What if...
Naboso's founders had built an incredibly innovative insole and mat technology that could help stimulate sensory movement for those who needed it most, but what they needed was a better brand strategy and marketing ecosystem that could help them tell their story in a way that would capture the attention and interest of their core audience segments.
We did...
What started as a small pilot go-to-market digital campaign to prove immediate ROI quickly turned into a full branding and digital strategy partnership. We helped Dr. Emily and her team develop a true Naboso brand DNA and connected brand experience to enhance internal and external communications; we designed new packaging for their line of proprioceptive mats; we directed and executed a full product photo shoot; we reimagined and redesigned the Naboso digital experience and re-platformed it onto Shopify Plus; we set up advanced analytics to track and measure success; and we delivered a high-impact, full-funnel DTC go-to-market strategy that has set new benchmark standards for the brand’s online revenue.
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When Naboso first engaged us, the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun—and with it their 2020 plan of primarily selling to gyms, doctors’ offices, and physical retail stores went out the window. With us, Naboso found a partner eager to make them a DTC-first brand, and the timing couldn’t have been any better.
To prove the power of online, smart media targeting, and relevant messaging, we kicked off a small digital-only customer acquisition campaign for a couple of months, generating record-breaking sales and delivering a 150% ROAS. Although early on we believed COVID-19 could have played a factor in efficient CPMs on social channels, as time progressed, that relation became more inverse as CPMs normalized and revenue continued to increase with each passing month.
Soon after DTC became a necessity instead of a nice-to-have, Naboso and we teamed up to zero in on the brand experience. We kicked off our Brand DNA process with our cross-functional team of a writer, art director, and strategist to get to the core essence and expression of how to bring the Naboso brand to life. Within a matter of weeks, we had a spunky grown-up brand that knew how to speak its customers’ language and knew how to look the part, too. What we ended up delivering wasn’t a deck or a pdf, either. It was a living, breathing, best-in-class brand book and design study, all accessible within the same online experience for easy sharing and access.
With the founder’s dream brand in place, it was time to fill in some gaps with the product packaging design. The Naboso mats, which are used for standing, training, and bodyweight exercises like yoga or Pilates, needed a refreshed look to match the updated designs of the other product packaging. Yet we didn’t want to merely copy the other packaging one-for-one we wanted to step it up a notch and make the mat packaging more inclusive of the entire brand experience. Together, our writer and art director collaborated on creating mat packaging with designs and images that evoked the feeling of optimized movement, along with familiar brand language and copy that spoke to Naboso’s truths. The result is more than a killer look — it’s a brand - friendly packaging experience that also educates and engages consumers.
There’s almost no better way to capture the expression of a brand than with photography. Coming out of our Brand DNA co-creation process with the founders, we conceptualized, directed, and produced all new product photography to bring it to life. Our award-winning studio photographer, Steve Walter, led the charge. Where most agencies have to outsource this work, the process was as simple as the Naboso team shipping product to our studio, and we went from style frames to ready-to-launch photography rapidly. (Well, it wasn’t that simple. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to collaborate remotely with Steve and the Naboso team to pull of a successful shoot in our own production studio. But it was fun and successful nonetheless!)
Naboso needed to quickly scale their ecommerce capabilities as they planned to launch new products in new markets. With 2020 plans of international scale, they needed a plan and platform capable of such aspirations. Shopify was an easy choice as the platform is a huge leader in the DTC space, and for good reason. With new product data, collections, and imagery in hand, our team of designers and developers began to build out the Shopify store with a focus on quick product views and ease of conversion. We wanted to design a commerce experience that was fast and cohesive to either new or returning customers, that also allowed for scalability and new product additions and product innovations along the way. Shopify Payments, transactional and marketing emails, automated fulfillment, and built-in analytics gave our team the tooling to create a highly optimized digital commerce experience in record time.
Shopify has a built-in analytics platform focused on sales, customer retention, and other key ecommerce metrics. However, to ensure our strategic focus remained consistent with brand goals and KPIs, we implemented a custom Google Analytics and reporting suite focused on the core metrics that startup founders and CFOs need to make real-time decisions on how to adjust, pivot, and utilize their financial investment planning. We made use of Enhanced Ecommerce in order to track conversion and sales data, as well as custom events to monitor user behavior and UI interaction. We then used Google’s Data Studio to create customized reporting dashboards to ensure KPIs were top of mind and continuously monitored by all members of the DS & Naboso team.
Now that we had all of Naboso’s physical and digital properties refined and ready for the world, it was time to devise a go-to-market strategy. Because the insole and footwear spaces are so congested, both the Naboso and Digital Surgeons teams understood that this go-to-market had to make the brand the star of the show. Yet at the same time, it had to drive traffic to the new site experience and, of course, convert. So, our copy and design teams went to work crafting high-level, brand awareness messaging to go along with evocative brand visuals, while our account strategist and media strategist collaborated on creating a full-funnel blueprint for launch and post-launch media and advertising. Add in a launch email strategy and some human touches to the unboxing experience, and we had an airtight DTC go-to-market strategy in place for Naboso.
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