Northug wanted to be more than a name everybody knew
After years in one of the toughest markets in Norway, they went looking for customers who had never followed them.
- Northug
- Sports eyewear and apparel, Norway
- Own webshop
- Direct to customer
- Against Oakley
- Second on preference in sports eyewear
Where they started
Every Norwegian knows the name. That is not the same as having customers.
Northug built a brand out of a sporting career and put it into a market that got harder every year, up against names that had been on the shelves for decades.
The ceiling
What they had was a following. Social media, the newsletter, people who already cared about Petter. It sells, and it is the safest money in the business — but it has a ceiling, and it proves nothing to anyone looking at the company from the outside.
They wanted a brand that could stand on people who had never followed the career. And they wanted to be able to show it, not assume it.
How we help them change
They chose the harder money. Instead of spending on the audience that was already theirs, they developed content for people outside it and put the budget behind reaching them — after years when the easy option would have been tempting.
They also insisted on proof. Not a rise in the total, but a clear line between a returning customer and a genuinely new one, so the growth could be shown to anyone who asked.
Our part in it
- Ran the marketing and the online presence, and built the content that took the brand to audiences beyond the following
- Set up the tracking that separated new customers from returning ones, so growth could be documented rather than claimed
- Kept the webshop, the technical side and the newsletter working together as one channel rather than three
73%
of everyone who bought from Northug in the period was a new customer.
Measured against returning customers in their own tracking
Where they are now
Northug came out of it knowing where their next customer comes from — and able to prove it.
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