For Marlene of Blauw Lifestyle, online marketing is now child’s play

Marlene van Vianen has a successful shop, selling baby clothes, children’s clothes and home accessories: Blauw. Her shop allows her to share her passion for children’s clothing with her customers. Thanks to online workshops and coaching sessions from the Google Digitale Werkplaats, more and more customers are finding their way to her door.

Marlene started Blauw ten years ago with her sister-in-law, Liesbeth. Marlene: “Our shop in Ridderkerk performed really well from the beginning, which allowed us to expand our range to include baby gifts, tableware and small home accessories. In 2016, Blauw relocated to larger premises, where we could present our growing collection more attractively and effectively.”

In 2013, alongside the physical shop, Marlene and Liesbeth launched a web shop. “The web shop encouraged a larger target group to visit our shop.” As a result of the coronavirus crisis, Blauw’s successful growth came to an unexpected halt. “We had to close our shop overnight, and that created a lot of anxiety for the whole team. It meant that online communications and web shop sales suddenly became a lot more important.”

During the workshops and coaching sessions, Marlene learned how to inject more structure into her online marketing activities, including newsletters, social media and reviews. “In the first half of 2021, we achieved 16.5% revenue growth, and revenue continued to grow steadily. The number of web shop visitors was up by 900% from the previous year, and the number of visitors via social media (mostly Facebook and Instagram) increased by as much as 2,500%. In addition to working mothers, more and more grandparents are finding their way to us. The collaboration with the Google Digitale Werkplaats coach, Janke, was great and very valuable. Blauw’s motto is ‘Dream Big’. With the fantastic results generated from our online marketing, our dream really has come true.”