This paper outlines a digital strategy for Northeast Ski, a ski sports retail company seeking to extend its in-store customer experience to an e-commerce website. The paper covers key principles of effective website design — including aesthetics, navigation, page speed, and content balance — alongside strategies for increasing brand visibility through event sponsorship, social media engagement, and corporate social responsibility. It also addresses how the website can serve as a tool for converting non-skiers into customers through educational content. The paper concludes with a proposed brand identity, including a store name, tagline, and brand promise.
There are several ways through which Northeast Ski, as a company, can bring the warmth found in its physical stores to its website and help visitors feel that same welcoming atmosphere online. The following recommendations address website design, brand visibility, customer conversion, and brand identity.
The first priority is that the website should be professionally designed. This does not mean it must be formal, but it should be clean-looking and make visitors feel comfortable as soon as they arrive on the page. The aesthetics of web design should be genuine, with accurate details about the company clearly presented in order to inspire trust and appeal to visitors.
The second consideration is accessibility of information. The details that clients want to find should be easy to access upon first opening the website. Visitors should not have to navigate through many pages to reach the information they are looking for. From its years of operation, the company already understands which information is most important to its clients and which is of lesser priority. Ensuring that every visitor immediately encounters the most critical details about the company is paramount to a user-friendly experience.
Because this is a sports-oriented retail website, there should be a balance struck between text and graphics. The warmth of the brand can only be conveyed online when visitors find details — both pictorial and textual — that accurately reflect the in-store experience, without distortion, exaggeration, or omission.
Just as service at the company's physical stores is fast and efficient, the website should also load quickly and avoid keeping visitors waiting before a page opens. Website navigation should be organized clearly, with each page serving a defined purpose and an overarching goal of guiding visitors toward discovering what Northeast Ski has to offer (Kronik Media, 2009).
To enhance brand visibility, the company should consider sponsoring events outside of skiing. These could include related winter sports events or activities in entirely different sporting fields. Exposure to other sports audiences increases the likelihood that new fans will discover the company and develop an interest in skiing. The company should also engage actively on social media in order to reach college students, who represent a key demographic still forming their sporting preferences and making decisions about specialization.
Additionally, the company can engage in corporate social responsibility activities, particularly with communities located in areas where skiing takes place. Building goodwill within these communities will strengthen the brand locally, and visitors traveling to those areas for skiing will be more likely to seek out a brand that is well known and respected in the region.
"Using online content to attract new skiing customers"
"Brand name, tagline, and brand promise recommendation"
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