Old South Carriage Company

Modern marketing for a classic experience

Old South Carriage Company has a long history of serving Charleston guests with iconic carriage rides. They wanted to explore their growth potential by adding an agency who could manage and increase their marketing investment.

What we did

Customer Research
Brand Strategy & Positioning
Measurement
Advertising
Web Design & Development
Print
Local SEO

Challenges

Digital marketing was not being fully utilized, and measurement was not set up to track ROI. The competitive differentiators were unclear.

Solutions

Blend studied the market, helped articulate the differentiators, set up measurement, and began paid advertising and conversion rate optimization.

Market research & brand strategy

We toured with Old South Carriage Company and competitors, to look for meaningful differences in this nearly-commoditized industry, that we could utilize in marketing. We then conducted additional customer research—including an on-the-street survey and website usability testing—to further inform our recommendations. This has led, in part, to embracing the hospitality focus that now serves as a common thread in their marketing.

Creating a new website

While the site already converted very well, it was slow (during a time when speed was more important than ever), and the brand needed a better presentation. We also thought that, despite all odds, there might be room to improve the already-high conversion rate. We used a tool similar to the Tourism Website ROI Calculator to calculate the value of a new website based on even a modest conversion rate improvement.

It turns out that simplifying the decisions for customers, applying techniques from years of tourism website experience, and creating a fast website with a look that matched the professionalism, beauty, and hospitality of the company and its tours, actually did improve the conversion rate.

Advertising

Old South Carriage Company's advertising includes search advertising, social advertising, brochures, emails, and other placements. Digital advertising is now fully tracked so that every dollar spent has a corresponding revenue number. And for non-digital applications, we track with tagged QR codes and coupon codes. We are involved with placement selection, copywriting, design, video editing, and creating shot lists when new photos or video assets are needed to refresh the ads.