Green Circle Growers is one of the nation's largest greenhouses. The family-owned company recently celebrated 50 years in business and is best known for its orchids, growing more than 8 million each year. Kuno Creative has been instrumental to the company’s growth since it created its popular brand, Just Add IceⓇ, more than a decade ago. Kuno also helped the company build its first e-commerce website two years ago using a Shopify and HubSpot integration, giving it an additional revenue stream to supplement in-store sales.
The Just Add IceⓇ ice cube watering method makes orchid care simple, turning an exotic tropical plant into a household name and a popular gift for every occasion.
In recent years, the Just Add Ice brand has expanded to include a wide variety of other indoor plants, including anthuriums, bromeliads, bonsai trees, money tree plants and more.
The company sought Kuno’s help to create a new website and a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy for these additional offerings. This successful strategy helped the Just Add Ice brand gain the attention of top retail companies like Texas grocery company HEB and ultimately resulted in the creation of a new line of branded products specifically for HEB.
The Just Add Ice brand was well-established, but primarily known for orchids. Most customers didn’t realize they offered a variety of other indoor houseplants, including bromeliads, anthuriums and money tree plants—or that they could buy these other plants online.
The Just Add Ice website was already successful as a resource hub for orchid care information, but the company wanted it to be a source of inspiration for home decor and gift-giving ideas as well.
The company hoped to catch the attention of large retailers that would enhance its credibility not only as a grower, but as a lifestyle brand.
Kelly Dressler, marketing communications and e-commerce manager for Green Circle Growers and the Just Add Ice brand, discussed the challenges of doing so in this video.
Kuno worked with the Just Add Ice team to create an exceptional website design that enhanced the user experience while positioning JAI as a lifestyle brand.
First, the Kuno team used HubSpot analytics and reporting tools—including attribution reports—to examine actual user journeys.
Kuno examined numerous elements, including:
While the previous website was clearly attracting new visitors (with an increase of 41 percent from the year before), it was less successful at converting them into engaged users. The average session duration and mobile engagement had both dropped from the previous year, while bounce rate had increased year over year.
Next, Kuno analyzed the Just Add Ice website and several of its competitors to determine what keywords they ranked for. They used these insights when creating headers, meta descriptions and other on-page SEO elements so the new website would be easy to find in search.
All this information helped the Kuno team make data-driven decisions about the new website layout.
The new website navigation and design simplified the user journey, making it easier for potential customers to find what they were looking for as quickly as possible. Kuno added more prominent calls to action to direct visitors to relevant care resources and the Shopify site, among other things. The team also created an easy way for wholesale customers to create an account and place orders online.
Each plant has a dedicated page optimized for search, as well as a product description, quick care instructions, relevant care resources, color options, decor ideas and a call to action to buy.
After the new website launched, Kuno developed strategic marketing campaigns to drive more visitors there. Marketing activities included:
Since launching the new website along with new marketing activities, Just Add Ice has seen measurable improvements compared to the previous two-year period, including:
While it’s difficult to show a direct link between website engagement and sales for a client that sells its plants in hundreds of retail locations, the significant improvement in engagement is clearly bringing in new customers and encouraging existing ones to buy again.
“Our repurchase rate is up 50 percent in the last three years because of these resources,” Dressler said.
The impact went far beyond numbers. Other retailers took note of the new website, branding and marketing efforts, which opened doors for new, lucrative partnerships.
Kuno Creative supported the company in its sales efforts by creating custom branding for several retailers, including HEB.
The Texas grocery company was so impressed with the new Max & Miles brand created exclusively for them that they awarded Green Circle Growers the Vendor of the Year award. This positions Green Circle Growers as a strong partner in a highly visible way, boosting the company’s image and potentially helping them secure new partnerships.
Kuno continues to support Just Add Ice with full-service inbound marketing. In addition to creating new branding, a new website and inbound marketing campaigns to support it, the Kuno team has created numerous videos, assisted with an influencer marketing program and offered continued support and optimization of the HubSpot and Shopify integration.
Green Circle Growers and Just Add Ice have impressive growth goals for the next five years, including a vision to expand its already wide reach throughout North America and lead the industry with the most-loved collection of plants.
To help recruit new wholesale partnerships and the employees needed to support that growth, Green Circle Growers will work with Kuno in the coming year to update its corporate website. The new website design will better reflect the professionalism of the company and the tremendous growth it has experienced in recent years. It will make it easier for prospective partners to quickly learn about the organization while also showcasing the many benefits of working there for potential employees.
All of this has already had an impact on sales—and it will position them to continue their upward trajectory well into the future.
“Working with Kuno is a true partnership,” Dressler said. “They do feel like truly an extension of our in-house team.”
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