Q&A With Studio Habgood Founder Sophie
- Tell us about yourself and Studio Habgood
Hello! My name is Sophie. I grew up in Oxford and lived in Vancouver for a few years, but I am now back in England & based in The Cotswolds.
I set up Studio Habgood in 2018 with the ambition of running my own company and bringing my marketing manager skills to companies who don’t have in-house marketing departments.
I oversee digital marketing experts, such as website developers, graphic designers, SEO specialists and social media managers, to manage campaigns, launch new websites & products and ensure consistency across all platforms.
Studio Habgood primarily offers website design and development, but we don’t finish there. Once the website is live, we want to find our clients’ customers online, bring them to the website and convert them into sales and we do this using the best email marketing, SEO and social media tools.
- Having worked for large corporate organisations what made you want to go it alone with Studio Habgood?
I had a great time working in real estate for top developers in London and Fortune 500 companies in Vancouver, but I was ready for a new challenge and I wanted to achieve my own success.
I felt like I had gained really valuable experience from working in large organisations such as detailed processes, best practise and strategy, and wanted to apply this to my own business.
- Since setting up your own business what have been the biggest challenges and rewards?
The biggest rewards are definitely seeing our client wins! New website launches, record-breaking sales, social media following targets smashed… the list goes on but ultimately I really love seeing our clients making great progress online & with their marketing.
The biggest challenges of setting up your own business are being a one-man band trying to run all aspects of the business – strategy, finance, admin etc! So I am really looking forward to having our new Digital Marketing Assistant Ben working with me and also taking on more employees this year!
- Looking back on 2020 what would you say your biggest successes and challenges were?
One of our biggest successes was growing our client’s email marketing database from 1,000 to over 50,000 subscribers in lockdown due to adding a very simple pop up to the website that said ‘Sign up to our mailing list and take 10% off your first order’. This increase in email subscribers led to record-breaking sales revenues from the email marketing campaigns we were sending out.
The biggest challenge of last year was probably working remotely and not being able to see our clients for real in-person meetings during the Covid pandemic!
- Do you think Covid-19 has changed the way we do business forever and how have your clients been affected and what have you done to counter it?
That’s a great question, and there is no doubt that Covid-19 has impacted the businesses we work with and everyone has had to adapt somehow.
I feel like a lot more people are shopping online through Social media and Google search, so that has been positive for us and our clients.
We are running more online events such as Facebook and Instagram lives, so our clients can still connect and speak to their customers. I hope this will continue but it will be nice to have in-person events too in the future!
- Many of your clients have seen record-breaking sales in 2020. What would you attribute this to?
A combination of many things! Having a beautifully designed and managed social media feed by the wonderful Jenny Hopkins, linking through to a fully functioning and easy to use e-commerce website, and lots of regular email marketing… combined with customers at home shopping online more during the pandemic!
- What digital marketing trend are you most excited about in 2021?
I’m really excited about the Instagram shoppable feature and social media becoming the main shopping platform in 2021. The little shopping bag icon and ‘view shop’ function on Instagram makes it really easy to view a website’s product catalogs and click through to order a product in very little steps.
- What do you think 2021 has in hold for Studio Habgood and your clients?
I’m hoping we can continue to serve the clients we are currently working with to increase their online sales from email marketing, social media campaigns and on the website.
Internally within the company, we are looking to grow this year, as well as rebrand so keep an eye out for a new look and website design that really shows off our skills!
- Studio Habgood are e-commerce experts, what would be your top tip for anyone entering the e-commerce world?
My top tip for a successful e-commerce launch is to make sure you invest in high-quality photography and visual assets! This is absolutely key to showing off your product in the best light across all digital marketing channels – social media feeds and ads, websites and email marketing.
- Working from home it’s hard to stay motivated, do you have a morning routine to get you in the right frame of mind for the day?
I do have a morning routine which gets me pumped for the day ahead!
My morning begins with a big coffee, a cold shower and watching a motivational video every morning such as this one:
If you have any more questions for Sophie relating to her company or how to grow your business online, please feel free to email sophie@habgood.studio or call 07900038941 to chat further.
We’d love to help you with your digital marketing and growth strategy for 2021!