David vs Goliath: Novel Coworking challenges established industry giants
How can a challenger brand compete with established industry leaders? Access the market data and create strategic initiatives to leverage opportunities.
How can a challenger brand compete with established industry leaders? Access the market and create strategic initiatives to take advantage of opportunities.
Background
In 2016, Novel Coworking was a David among Goliaths in the coworking space. Looking to expand presence to new U.S. markets, Novel Coworking needed a partner to help compete against larger, established competitors.
CEO and Founder Bill Bennett had worked with several digital partners, “They weren’t strategic. There are plenty of potential tactical partners, however our challenges were multi-dimensional,” he said. To compete against the well-established industry giants, Novel needed to build its brand awareness quickly and effectively. “The agencies we tried just didn’t have the full-stack experience how to address our unique brand position.”
That changed when he started working with Arcaléa.
The Challenge
“We knew we had to be inventive,” said Mike Stratta, founder of Arcalea. Rather than jumping right in with a splashy campaign, Arcalea started with its hallmark scientific approach: Undertake a strategic assessment to understand the landscape and the client’s goals, engage in a quantitative assessment of the available data to set KPIs, then determine the right sequence for implementing the identified tactics.
“Working with Arcalea has been a game-changer for us.”
—Bill Bennett, Founder and CEO of Novel Coworking
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The Solution
The approach Arcalea took was multi-faceted: “We began by establishing the brand online, in all its forms. We then created prelaunch strategies for each new Novel Coworking location so that by the time they launched in each market, demand already existed.” Then Arcalea focused on conversion rate optimization and understanding the customer journeys on Novel’s site.
INCREASE IN OVERALL TRAFFIC
INCREASE IN ORGANIC TRAFFIC
The Result
“Arcalea understood our challenges and our goals,” Bennett explained. “Their evaluation of the market and understanding of the customer journeys on our site not only brought us a 152% increase in overall traffic and an 156% increase in organic, year over year, but it also led us to create the first-ever ability to book a location tour online, something our competitors added after seeing how successful we were with it.”
By positioning the company as a leader, rather than simply trying to follow the lead of their much-larger competitors, Novel Coworking was able to not only build brand awareness, but also to create a unique value position in a very competitive marketplace.