BYD cars

BYD Discovery

As one of the world's leading electric vehicle manufacturers, BYD (in partnership with its Australian distributor EV Direct) needed a digital presence that reflected its innovation, performance, and customer-first approach. With rapid growth in the Australian market, BYD engaged Luminary to provide it with the strategies and tools to transform its website – optimising navigation, improving product discovery, and ensuring a seamless purchase journey.

Quick stats

in-depth customer interviews

in-depth stakeholder interviews

key pages content audited

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The challenge

Despite its global scale, BYD was a relatively unknown car brand in Australia in 2022. After quickly launching in the market, BYD and its Australian distributor, EV Direct, could see the opportunity to elevate how they showcase themselves online as a global brand. BYD had quickly scaled to have multiple dealerships in Australia, but needed to facilitate greater brand awareness, engagement and trust. Understanding the critical role that digital plays in the user journey of an EV customer and then optimising this experience, would give BYD further opportunity to transfer its global success to the Australian market.

Together with the challenges of being a new market entrant in a relatively new category, there were some technical and process challenges that BYD wanted Luminary to help solve. The international BYD.com site and a local reselling site were both outranking the BYD Australia site in search. With local site visibility being critical for dealership awareness, online purchase and customer care, addressing this challenge was vital. 

Another key challenge was the volume of contacts being made to customer care teams to support new owners with their aftercare – customers were unable to get all the information they needed online and were being pushed to the call centre to aid their problem solving. Ultimately the brief as a whole sought advice to support BYD in elevating its online visibility, unlocking organisational efficiency and building trust and leadership in the Australian market.

BYD - website screen shots

What we did

To address the identified challenges, Luminary set out to develop a best-in-class digital strategy and roadmap. To help understand BYD’s current state and future potential, Luminary conducted a full discovery of the site, auditing and reviewing the critical digital pillars, and then utilising these insights to provide actionable recommendations. The process was highly consultative to ensure the Luminary subject matter experts had a clear understanding of the industry, the brand and its strategies, and its customers. Work streams were set up in strategy, SEO, analytics, UX and design to create a full picture of the current BYD digital landscape, and importantly, to identify opportunities to elevate the online presence from both a brand positioning and user experience perspective. 

Addressing visibility

In-depth SEO and analytics audits identified a multitude of game-changing opportunities to foster improved visibility and content optimisation. Keyword strategy updates that speak to the local market and the vast number of EV search queries that Australians are googling presented a large opportunity for BYD to own the role as the EV thought leaders in Australia. Addressing the challenge of outranking international sites will also be aided by elevating the quantity of quality content, together with PR and technical SEO updates.

Content to support the Australian customer

With most Australian EV customers being first time buyers, Luminary took the opportunity to speak with recent and potential EV buyers to understand their experiences and frustrations in their user journeys. After mapping the key personas and user journey from consideration, to purchase, to after care and loyalty, opportunities were identified for BYD to elevate its online support, ultimately reducing any friction to purchase. 

Finding the right balance between providing the critical decision making information, and not overwhelming potential customers was a key insight. Australians are still learning about EVs and many customers were searching for a lot of basic information about owning and maintaining an EV. These questions are currently hitting the call centre, but digital content has the opportunity to better inform and support users in the digital part of their user journey, creating operational efficiencies and customer autonomy.

Optimising the onsite experience

To support the recommendations from SEO, content, analytics and user insights, a new information architecture was developed to better guide customers on their journey with BYD. By featuring more educational content, and highlighting what makes BYD unique and the right EV choice, the BYD website can support building trust and bolster the brand’s position in the market. New wireframes were supplied for key pages using best practice design principles to ensure the site is intuitive, accessible and easy to navigate.

Design direction

A design review was conducted to identify what was currently working well and where there was opportunity for improvement visually. Best practice design guidelines were provided to ensure the market leading position of BYD is communicated through every touchpoint online, and the site is both accessible and distinct to build further brand recognition.

BYD website screenshot

The result

After the exploratory phase was complete, a suite of strategic documentation (digital vision, content strategy, SEO strategy, and analytics framework) was produced to support BYD in implementing best practice solutions to address its digital challenges. When applied, the recommendations will see a step change in BYD’s digital presence, user engagement and conversion. Key areas of focus for the digital vision include:

  • Taking measures to showcase BYD as a leading brand in electric and hybrid vehicles
  • Leveraging educational content to position BYD as category leader
  • Streamlining the process for product navigation, booking and purchasing. 

A roadmap was developed to aid in phasing and prioritisation, arming BYD with the tools and insights to springboard this powerful brand in the Australian market.

Partnering with Luminary has been a game-changer for BYD and EV Direct. Their expertise, collaborative approach, and deep understanding of our challenges helped us transform our digital presence. From strategy to design and SEO, Luminary delivered clear, actionable insights that empowered us to create a more intuitive, customer-first website. Their work has set us up to strengthen our brand, improve product discovery, and better support Australian EV and PHEV buyers positioning BYD for long-term success in this fast-growing market.

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