Building a cycling brand
from scratch
When I joined Soomom in late 2023, the brand was at an early stage of its commercial growth. There was limited acquisition beyond basic paid media, minimal lifecycle marketing, and a relatively small digital footprint.
The brand had a product. What it didn't have was a brand system, an ecommerce experience worth talking about, a content strategy, or the retention infrastructure to turn first-time buyers into repeat customers.
The objective wasn't just to make things look better. It was to build the creative and commercial systems that a growing brand needs to actually grow.
I led creative, ecommerce and marketing strategy across brand and campaign development, website and ecommerce optimisation, content production, ambassador programme management, email marketing and automation, paid media creative, product launches and SEO content strategy.
Most of it started from nothing.
"Soomom had the foundations of a product business, but much of the brand, ecommerce, content and customer ecosystem still needed to be built. My role became connecting those pieces into a more coherent brand and growth platform."
Cycling is crowded with performance claims. Every brand promises speed. Every brand promises innovation.
The opportunity for Soomom was to build something more human. Across campaigns, product launches and content, the focus became creating a brand that felt approachable, considered and authentic to the people riding in it.
This philosophy influenced everything — from product naming and campaign photography through to ambassador partnerships, ecommerce design and customer communication. The objective was to create a brand people wanted to belong to, not simply purchase from.
Each season was treated as a distinct creative platform — not a product update, but a brand statement with its own concept, photography direction and channel rollout.
O2+ wasn't just a product — it was a launch platform. I developed the positioning, campaign narrative, photography direction, ambassador rollout and ecommerce launch experience end-to-end. Every asset traced back to a single creative brief.
Created to expand Soomom beyond traditional road cycling. The range introduced a more lifestyle-oriented expression of the brand while maintaining performance credibility. The creative direction intentionally shifted toward adventure, exploration and everyday riding experiences.
An ongoing collaboration platform that invited Australian artists to reinterpret cycling apparel through their own creative lens. Collaborations with Mulga and Spin Spin produced limited-edition collections that expanded the brand's cultural reach and created genuine product scarcity.
Created a creative platform focused on riding through difficult conditions rather than avoiding them. The campaign helped support significant growth during traditionally slower trading periods.
Growing Soomom wasn't just about traffic and sales. A large part of the brand's growth came from building a community around real riders.
I developed and managed an ambassador programme spanning Australia, Europe, North America and Asia, bringing together cyclists, triathletes, photographers and content creators who genuinely aligned with the brand. Rather than focusing on influencer reach alone, the programme was designed to create authentic content, product feedback and long-term brand advocacy.
The ambassador network became a key part of product launches, seasonal campaigns, event partnerships and customer engagement — including support for UCI World Championship athletes and the Soomom x Mulga artist collaboration.
The Soomom story is best understood across three parallel dimensions. Each one reinforces the others.
The clearest way to show what changed.
Beyond ecommerce growth and marketing performance, I led creative development across product launches, seasonal campaigns, artist collaborations and ambassador programmes.
Each project required a combination of product positioning, naming systems, campaign concepts, photography direction, content strategy, ecommerce storytelling and launch planning. The objective wasn't simply to launch products. It was to create reasons for people to care.
Soomom was already using Omnisend for email when I joined. I migrated the programme to Klaviyo in mid-2025 — a better fit for Shopify integration and lifecycle automation — carrying across the existing subscriber base of around 5,000 contacts and rebuilding the flows and campaigns from scratch on the new platform. By FY26, the list had grown to 11,073 subscribers (+119%), with a 40.6% average open rate and a 13.5% Welcome Series order rate.
The automated flows delivered strong order rates across Welcome, Abandoned Cart and Browse Abandonment sequences.
The email programme covered welcome flows, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase automation and seasonal campaigns. Every flow was written, designed and optimised by me.
The positioning was the real work. Cycling apparel is crowded and everyone claims performance. We went a different direction — performance that doesn't look like it's trying too hard. That one decision shaped everything from the logo down to the care labels.
I ran four seasonal campaigns from concept to delivery: O2+, ESCAPE, Artist Series and Winter. Each started with a brief and a positioning argument, not a mood board.
The Shopify store was designed as a brand experience, not a transaction engine. Product storytelling was written and art directed by me. The homepage alone now generates 82,878 annual sessions in FY26 — the next highest page gets 4,154. That ratio tells you something about where the brand investment has landed.
Conversion rate has grown from 0.73% (FY24) to 0.93% (FY26). The next target is 1.20%.
I developed a content strategy focused on cycling education, route guides and buyer-intent content. Google Search is now Soomom's largest attributed acquisition channel, growing +105% year on year in FY26.
Route guide content continues to drive significant organic traffic. Cycling-specific educational content performs strongly. The business is now generating sufficient traffic to support materially higher revenue without significantly increasing marketing spend.
Packaging, care cards, swing tags and labels — every touchpoint considered
