09-05-2018
Why We Rebranded and Launched New Website and Online Collection
FILED IN: Behind-the-Scenes, M&G Happenings
Posted By: Jamie Kutchman, Founder
I've toyed with the idea of rebranding for a good long while. I had plenty of bouts of that New Shiny Object Syndrome that creeps in, grips you, and makes you think you "need" a brand new logo and website whenever you see "everyone else" launching beautiful brands and sites. After resisting the urge for almost four years of being in business, I finally decided late last year when goal setting that it was time. After an exhausting search for the right designers and developers for the job, we got started in March of this year.
Image by: Lissa Ryan Photography
Many of you have reached out and asked us along the way why we were making such drastic changes. Well, there's no better time to confide in you and share our open and transparent reasons with you than on launch day!
Ill-Fitting Logo and Brand
Back in 2014 when I started Marigold & Grey, I was madly in love with my logo. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was "the one". At the time, we focused exclusively on weddings and the logo served us really well as we attracted that particular audience. Fast forward to late 2018 and while we're still serving wedding planners and couples with full service wedding welcome gifting, we are doing more and more corporate and client gifting than ever before. Not only was our previous logo a little too crafty and unpolished for our high-end and sophisticated wedding clientele, it certainly wasn't doing us any favors when it came to attracting our ideal corporate clients. What we've ended up with is a more elevated and grown-up version of our previous brand. We were doing grown up and elevated work all along but now our brand finally reflects that.
Poor Web User Experience
Our previous website was clunky with a user experience that wasn't at all intuitive. It made something as simple as specifying a notecard message a manual process for both us and our clients. And to top it off, the site was down an awful lot which wasn't doing us any favors. It had to go! Our goal was twofold: 1/ create an easy and inspiring online shopping experience and 2/ tailor separate parts of the website to each type of client we serve for custom gifting. For example, our corporate clients now have a specific place to visit in the site so they're not inundated with our wedding work and our brides and wedding planners aren't sifting through corporate event gifts to get to the info and visuals they need.
Outdated and Incomplete Online Collection
As I said before, we got our start as a wedding business. But that isn't entirely true of our identity today. Our previous online collection was wedding-heavy with tons of options for brides-to-be, bridesmaids and even engaged couples. These pre-designed gifts did very well but in trying to serve our corporate clients in need of pre-designed gifts quickly and busy individuals needing high quality gifts quickly for all of life's occasions, we really lacked variety. We were so busy focusing on the custom gift design side of the business that we didn't necessarily innovate when it came to the online collection. Some of the gifts had been around since the very beginning of the business! Eek! So, I made the decision to scrap the entire collection and re-design it from the ground up. And double it in size. It was an exhausting, daunting, and at times, intimidating undertaking. But now that it's done, I'm SOOO glad we went big and tackled everything at once. I'm proud to say we now have a complete online collection of ready-to-ship pre-designed gift boxes at a variety of price points intended to serve as client gifts, housewarming and hostess gifts, gender neutral and masculine gifts, mom and baby gifts, lifestyle occasions, welcome and hospitality and yes, a completely revamped wedding collection too!
Image by: Lissa Ryan Photography
Lacking Stories
We pour our heart and soul into our custom gift design projects. Our old site had a gallery but it was tough to update and really didn't allow us the chance to tell the stories behind each of the projects. Now, we have full blown case studies for our custom projects in addition to a fully functioning portfolio broken down into gifting categories (ie wedding, corporate event, client appreciation, social events, etc). No matter the occasion, when someone comes to us for custom gifts in bulk, we have plenty of examples to inspire them and give them ideas of what they like and maybe even what they don't like. But most importantly, we're better able to show and explain exactly how we bring our clients' gifting goals to life!
Rebranding on its own is tough. Designing and building a new website site is notoriously rough. And scrapping an entire online collection and re-designing a brand new one that's double the size of the original...well that's just borderline insanity. But we did it! We absolutely cannot wait for you to experience the all new Marigold & Grey. Please let us know what you think because after all, we really did do this with you in mind!
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