The importance of a mood board when translating a bricks&mortar store to a website
Almost every conversation now includes “and then COVID came”. Whenever there is a small business owner involved, it is likely that they…
Almost every conversation now includes “and then COVID came”. Whenever there is a small business owner involved, it is likely that they will be a part of the majority of small businesses in the US that do not have an online presence and a proper online store.
Working with some of the most creative small business owners in my area, I have found that one of the struggles is to accurately transpose the experience that customers have in the store to their online shopping experience.
Building the website is no challenge. Setting up a CRM, integrating an e-commerce engine and syncing their social media and other channels is scary, long and frustrating, but in the end it gets done.
Getting customers to open the website and experiencing the same feelings they do when they step into the brick and mortar store is, well, a bit more difficult.
Experience building is tricky. Businesses go out of their way to hire expensive consultants who will develop a high-tech, immersive, 360º enclosure that grabs the user’s attention and blasts the message through each of their five senses.
More modest versions can also do the trick. Less technological but every bit of effective, small businesses use the power of design to recreate the immersive experiences of the high rollers.
Jumping online is a different animal. The setting from where users go to a store’s website is not controlled by the store. Mood, color, sound, smell, texture and other elements can vary greatly.
There’s really no answer to how to do this right. Top-notch websites and inexpensive templates are equally as limited.
The good news is that there is a great way to recreate the experience by using storytelling. Every store tells a story and usually it becomes so integrated with the design of the space that it is almost a design element.
Customers buy into that story and craft ideas and memories associated with them. Props and aids help in that effort. When online, the trick is to go for triggers that bring back those memories.
Stores that create their signature scents then sell them so their customers will remember the store experience at home. Others can make the original music that is played in store available to customers so the bond with the brand continues at home.
Enter the mood board. In the process of translation from brick and mortar to online, I have found that this simple checklist can aid. Do not treat it as a silver bullet, but call me and we can shoot together and see if it does the job.
Write down the three main ideas that your brand represents to you (or ask your customers to come up with them)
List one color, song, smell, taste and texture that each idea reminds you of
Shuffle them and mix them up and come up with as many “mood boards” as necessaryFind a free service like Canva or Adobe Spark Post and create posts for each of your social media accounts to test with your audience. Make a survey or any other aid to let your tribe decide which “mood” suits your brand better
Once you have that data, creating a website that reflects the winning mood will ensure that your website replicates as best as possible your brick and mortar experience
Little extra things that help: embedding your official playlist in the website or sharing recipes or an “official” store Pantone.
It’s a game of infinite iteration, really. If you think this helped, drop me a line or visit storefrontmastery.com to subscribe to the email list and find out more about how Storefront Mastery builds beautiful cities, one storefront at a time.