Case Study 4: Bucket-List Balloon Flights

Bringing a Brand-new Ballooning Business to Life 🎈

Meet the Business

Bucket-List Balloon Flights is a unique hot air balloon business run by licensed pilot David Stagg. Offering exclusive and shared flights across beautiful Norfolk and Suffolk, David’s mission was to create memorable, small-scale experiences that felt personal, exciting, and unforgettable.

He came to Mae Day Marketing at the very beginning of his journey – with a big dream and a blank slate.

What They Needed

David was launching from scratch and needed everything:

A strong and memorable brand identity
A professional, scalable website to manage complex bookings
Ongoing marketing support to get his name out there

He had a clear vision for the experience he wanted to offer but needed someone to bring that to life in both visuals and functionality.

What We Did Together

✏️ Branding & Visual Identity

We started by establishing the brand’s visual foundations:

A revised and finalised logo
Smart business cards and flight certificates
Beautifully designed gift and flight vouchers for birthdays, special occasions and general gifting

These designs weren’t just aesthetic – they were also mapped to website systems so each gift voucher could be selected, customised and automatically delivered via the website.

🌐 The Website: A Truly Custom Build

What began as a simple online shop quickly evolved into a sophisticated eCommerce and booking platform.

David’s website had to:

Offer different flight types (shared / exclusive)
Handle variable pricing depending on the day of the week, time of day and number of passengers flying
Let customers choose their flying location
Allow customers to select add-ons to compliment their purchase
Sell gift vouchers with different designs and personalisation fields
Prevent any chance of double-booking – with one pilot and one balloon, precision was everything

Building this required far more than a typical WordPress setup. I had to:

Test and customise multiple plugins to ensure they worked together
Create voucher templates that matched user selections and pulled through personalised messages automatically
Configure a booking system that reflected David’s real-world calendar and business logistics
Add product add-ons, such as extras and upgrades, with conditional logic
Map out availability rules to reflect seasonal flying schedules and specific site options

It was easily one of the most complex web builds I’ve delivered to date – and required a huge amount of collaboration, flexibility and creative problem-solving. Every detail mattered, from checkout logic to ensuring the output of the voucher looked beautiful enough to be a gift.

Despite scope creep and technical hurdles, we launched in spring 2024 to great fanfare.

📣 Launch & Promotion

Once the brand and website were in place, I supported David with:

A launch press release that secured media coverage in:
- Eastern Daily Press
- Norwich Evening News (full page spread in print edition!)
- East Anglian Daily Times
- Future Radio interview
Social media setup and ongoing content, helping the business grow an engaged audience from scratch
Basic ongoing SEO implementation to help his site start climbing the Google rankings from day one

David also joined my Support Local 2025 campaign, giving him additional visibility and promotion across my network.

The Outcome

A standout new brand and identity that reflects the personal, magical experience David offers
A powerful website that looks great and handles incredibly complex functionality behind the scenes
Strong media coverage and community buzz at launch
Ongoing marketing systems and support to keep his business visible and growing

What started as a simple shop turned into a flagship example of how I help bring big business dreams to life – even when they’re up in the clouds.

What David said…

“I knew what I wanted but had no idea how to get there… Judi-mae has the patience of a saint and was very good when I kept changing bits. I would highly recommend Judi-mae to anyone who wants a website designed or specialised marketing.

Since we started working together, I can not have asked for a more supportive experience. What Mae Day Marketing does for me is enable me to focus on the flying and day-to-day running of the business… I wouldn’t look any further.”

If you need help launching a new business – whatever that looks like – call us on 07828 852448, fill out the form here or find Mae Day Marketing on social media: we’re on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

To find out more about Judi-mae, you can read about her varied and award winning entire career history here.