About the Client
Bristol based Hobbs House Bakery is owned by the Herbert family, who guard the quality of their products fiercely but are happy to share the “secrets” of their success.
This is why the most recent generation of bread impresarios in the family – Henry and Tom Herbert – have found themselves in demand for television and event appearances. The duo are known as “The Fabulous Baker Brothers”.
Henry and Tom have broadened the family’s long-standing love affair with bread, by the addition of their butcher prowess. They have also authored books aimed at making breadmaking a national pastime once more.
In fact, the whole team at Hobbs House Bakery "rise to the occasion" when sharing their passion for baked goods with the general public. This is why, alongside selling breads, pastries, confectionery and butchery items in their growing retail network. They even sell home baking kits!
The company also hosts regular courses in its Chipping Sodbury Cookery School. This includes not only breadmaking insights, but also the skills needed to make perfect BBQ and pies, or mouthwatering cakes and pastries. This family firm is especially keen to inspire new generations to enjoy “real” bread and make their own meals, so kids’ classes are also on offer at the cookery school.
With all this to manage, (plus six stores,) Hobbs House Bakery could be excused for “kneading” a rest. However, the team is keen to expand the reach of their messages and product range out to people across the UK.
Our Brief
Hobbs House Bakery aims to “put bread on the table"- as their slogan suggests.
We were tasked with providing the website and digital marketing support that would ensure the firm could reach more tables!
This included a national re-brand for the high profile bakery company, which had to fit with the family firm’s mission of helping customers rediscover a love of well crafted, all natural artisan loaves.
The new corporate identity was the focal point of a new ecommerce website. It had to make ordering easy for customers, but also enable the team at Hobbs House Bakery to update products quickly, and process payments securely.
Added to the digital marketing brief was a rather more unique “ingredient”. Hobbs House Bakery wanted their site to have a high level of interaction with customers, including the ability to curate and share recipes and breadmaking tips.
The Solution
- We mixed up a batch of both business-like and creative features, to craft a website that rose to the occasion.
- This was largely enabled by using a combination of a WordPress bespoke design, and the reliable functionality of WooCommerce website features.
- The Hobbs House Bakery website includes a fully integrated online shop, but also a store locator to enable local or visiting customers to pick up their tasty treats in person.
- We also ensured that the web build included an intuitive place to house and download recipes. Not only did this meet a primary “caring and sharing” goal for the client, but it also helped to boost website traffic and SEO.
- Within the friendly, warm and easy to navigate website, Factory Pattern provided their client with the perfect platform to promote their passion for sourdough. The company uses a specific and long-standing strain of sourdough fermenting agent in many of its products – a key element of their promotion of traditional and natural recipes.
- The new website proved to be a “hotbed” on which to grow their national sourdough marketing campaign.
The Outputs
Having a website that looks good and performs well is clearly important to a company making its products – and messages – available beyond its stores in the South West.
However, was it effective? The proof is not “in the pudding”, as the saying goes, but in the statistics generated by website analytics.
Since launching its new website:
Hobbs House Bakery has seen a 75% increase in traffic stemming from the redesign and the SEO techniques we used in its development.
What really takes the biscuit though, is the 206% increase in online revenue the company enjoyed within the first 3 months of the new website going live!
Crumbs! We’ll “toast” to that!
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Andy, our Founder is on hand to answer your questions.