If we can sell surf lessons online, we can sell anything

“If we can sell surf lessons online, we can sell anything.” It’s a line I often say when I tell the story of Tilegit, an online surf academy for which we did the visual identity, creative direction, website and campaign. When we went through SSTIL’s case studies with Adri Beloki, the group’s Head of Comms, it was one of Adri’s favorites.

What is Tilegit?

It’s a digital surf academy. It teaches surfers to improve their technique with structured training programs that are followed online.

When the academy started growing with its digital products, it needed a website that explained the value of each course well and turned visitors into paying students.

Why did it seem hard to sell?

Surfing is learned in the ocean, and an online program has to convince someone they’ll improve without an instructor next to them. On top of that, at an online academy almost everything happens on the website: there’s no shop or first meeting where trust gets built, so the website does the selling.

That’s why I like it so much as an example. If the brand and the website manage to get someone to buy something like this, the argument works for many other products that look hard to sell at first glance.

What did we do?

We worked on the visual identity and creative direction so everything conveyed the surf lifestyle, and on that foundation we built the website and the campaign. Each course page was designed as a funnel: the positioning of each program had to be understood quickly, the content needed a simple hierarchy and the next step to sign up always had to be clear.

We also left a structure the Tilegit team can manage on their own, to add content and launch new courses as the academy grows.

What was the result?

The new website increased the conversion rate by more than 30%, according to the case study published in Minimum’s portfolio. It’s a figure that’s easy to remember and to tell, and that also helps when I use it in a meeting.

Why do I bring it up so much?

Because it answers in one go the question that stalls a sale more than any other: whether we’ve done something similar. I explain it better in how to show what you do when your work isn’t visible. With Tilegit the work is visible, so opening the website and showing it is enough.

And because it brings together the two kinds of trust I’ve been writing about. An online academy has no salesperson to look after you, so all the trust has to come from the brand and the website. When that’s well done, the line stops sounding like an exaggeration.

What’s the hardest product you’ve ever had to sell? Tell me, I’m interested in cases like that.