Who & what are they?
Peony is a women’s fashion brand whose core audience is aged 40+ with outdoor interests such as equestrian events. Run by a family with extensive experience in retail, merchandising and fashion, Peony’s goal is to make women feel their absolute best, in carefully chosen pieces that lend themselves to easy layering and effortless elegance. Peony offers hand-selected designs in a diverse range of sizes, to flatter every silhouette.
The Goal
Peony launched with eight bricks-and-mortar shops located throughout East and West Sussex, and we needed to create a digital presence that would resonate with their discerning audience. So, our goal was two-fold:
- To build a fully functional ecommerce website that would extend their reach to new customers
- To create opportunities to upsell Peony’s curated women’s clothing collections to their established in-store audience
What we did
- Pre-launch anticipation building: We designed and hosted a holding page featuring a ‘coming soon’ message paired with an exclusive launch offer, creating early interest and beginning to build an email database before the site went live
- Full ecommerce website design and build: We designed a WooCommerce-integrated ecommerce platform and project-managed the entire build, coordinating with graphic designers and developers to deliver on time and within budget. The site was optimised for Google rankings, mobile responsiveness, usability, and visual appeal, balancing aesthetics with functionality
- Strategic keyword research and competitive intelligence: We conducted comprehensive keyword research to understand how potential customers search at different stages of their buying journey, from early research to high-intent searches. This research doubled as a competitive discovery tool, identifying gaps where competitors had little presence and informing product buying decisions and promotional strategies
- Content strategy and optimisation: We created distinctive pages for key search terms, complete with on-page optimisation, internal linking strategy, and FAQs addressing highly searched topics in the fashion industry
- Brand and tone of voice development: We developed a warm, friendly, reassuring tone of voice (TOV) for use across all website, email and social media content. Our TOV for Peony incorporates flower-related language where appropriate to reinforce the brand identity, e.g. ‘blooming lovely savings’, ‘petals of praise’
- Performance benchmarking: Once live, we established baseline rankings for priority keywords to track the site’s search performance and measure ongoing
The details
- Competitor analysis: Before touching any design elements, we analysed the competitive landscape to identify opportunities and best practices in the online women’s fashion space. This competitor analysis revealed specific tactics that would work well on social media and informed our website structure and content approach
- Website build & optimisation: Working closely with a graphic designer and website developer, we managed every aspect of the build to ensure seamless integration between design vision and technical functionality. The site architecture was designed with SEO at its core, with each category and product page optimised for searchability while maintaining an elegant, user-friendly experience
- Creation of bespoke, high-quality content: Professionally written copy that spoke to the target demographic and photography that showcased the clothing in aspirational yet accessible ways. Every product listing included compelling descriptions and imagery designed to convert browsers into buyers
- Keyword strategy: Our keyword research went beyond simple search volume metrics. We mapped terms based on customer intent, distinguishing between informational searches from shoppers at the beginning of their journey and transactional searches from ready-to-buy customers. This mapping guided our copywriting, metadata, and future advertising messaging – ensuring every piece of content served a strategic purpose
- Launch & measurement: The holding page strategy paid dividends: by the time the site launched, we had an engaged email list primed to shop. Post-launch, we immediately began tracking SERP positions for keywords like “made in Italy clothing” and category-specific terms, establishing benchmarks that would measure our ongoing SEO success and inform continuous optimisation efforts