Welcome to the Froggblog

Towards the end of last year, I announced (in slightly candid fashion) a shift in direction for Leapfrogg in 2010. With a much disrupted January now behind us (please, never mention the word ‘snow again!) the time has arrived to tell you a bit more…in our typically open fashion.

If you missed the last post, I explained how in the increasingly competitive and complex market for digital marketing services, it has become more and more difficult to differentiate one agency from another. Most of the good agencies tend to offer the same services and say the same things, just in a slightly different way (which adds to the confusion if you are a buyer of digital marketing services!).

The lesson we really learnt in 2009 is that regardless of the market you operate in, or the great reputation you may already have, you still need a business proposition that is unique. We realised last year that we had fallen into the same trap as many of our competitors in using the same old buzzwords and points of difference (which in reality were not that different at all!).

So what do we do to break the mould? Well, after a whole load of research, analysis, brainstorming, head scratching and the odd ‘eureka’ moment, we have come to the conclusion that demand is on the increase for specialist, boutique-style agencies, with exceptional knowledge and experience in one particular market.

So on the basis of this research, and our many years spent working with, and learning from, brands such as Feather and Black, we are creating a new division here at Leapfrogg focused on servicing premium retail brands; a specialist offering that helps differentiate Leapfrogg from other agencies, whilst providing premium retailers with a viable alternative to the ‘one-stop-shop’, ‘we service any client’ approach taken by many agencies.

The new division will build on the solid expertise we already possess in this market. For a number of months now we have been reviewing our existing services and how they can be finely tuned to better suit the requirements of premium retailers. We have already overhauled how we deliver work to clients with much more emphasis on research and planning, as well a more integrated approach to digital marketing that combines search, social media and content. It is our belief that these channels cannot operate in isolation but instead must be used in combination to maximise reach, targeted traffic, online conversion rates, levels of customer retention, as well as developing those all-important advocates of your brand.

New services specific to the needs of premium retailers, and in line with how we expect retail to change in the coming months and years, are also being investigated by our team. Mobile, augmented reality, rich media content, dynamic merchandising, cross-channel and customer retention tools are all on the radar with services due to launch over the course of 2010.

We will also be ramping up our ability to accurately measure results across all channels with an Ecommerce Analyst due to join the team in the coming weeks. A recruitment strategy focused on sourcing experts with the right blend of skills to complement those we already possess will be an ongoing theme.

Alongside all of this, we are going to be freshening up the Leapfrogg brand and website, a project kicking off in the next couple of weeks and one that I am particularly excited about.

With all of the excitement around a new division, it would be easy to forget where we have come from. But rest assured that won’t be happening. We’ll continue to deliver exceptional digital marketing expertise for new and existing clients in other sectors, running alongside the new retail division.

So that’s us…a new division, new direction and newly found strategic focus in everything from sales and marketing to recruitment. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below or get in touch.

Get involved
We want to involve premium retailers in the ongoing development of the division. This will begin with surveying dozens of the UK’s premium retailers to better understand their experiences of digital marketing. We’ll be using this research to compile an insightful report looking at the state of digital marketing in premium retail, as well as a series of round table events to explore the findings.

Keep a look out for the survey launching later this week.

What is the appropriate response time for a brand to get back to you through a social media channel, such as Twitter or Facebook? What are your expectations as a prospect, an existing customer having a rant or a brand advocate?

On this occasion my focus is on Twitter. Although these questions apply to all social spaces, Twitter, it seems, is the most instant and fast paced platform. It’s also the ideal place for a quick-witted rant if you are unsatisfied with the service received from a company you have engaged with. But how quickly should you expect a response…if you are lucky enough to get one? With more traditional means of communication, expected response times vary; a phone call is pretty instantaneous (if you ignore the time you are on hold!), an email you might expect a response in a day, a letter maybe a week. But all of these channels cost money, time and people power. Not that I am suggesting that monitoring and responding through social media doesn’t. But the speed and immediacy of a tweet, as well as the fact it is in the public domain, offer numerous benefits to forward thinking brands willing to integrate social media tools into their customer service processes.

Absolutely integral to achieving this, is listening to what is being said. Some companies it appears are better at this than others. This post highlights two companies at polar opposites when it comes to responding to their customers through Twitter. Sales Director, Ben and I had a rant about o2 recently on Twitter. The persistent texts about their iTunes Christmas offer were frustrating. The fact that texting ‘STOP’ had no effect (despite this action supposedly putting an end to the barrage) made the whole thing infuriating. But despite a very public rant that brought in comments from other frustrated customers, 02 were completely silent on the issue, despite having a live, and pretty active, Twitter account.

At the other end of the scale was ASOS. The experience with o2 prompted the Social Media and Content team here at Leapfrogg to see if their favourite online clothing store had a better response time. It is well known that ASOS have very open and transparent dialogue with their customers; they are a successful retail brand that has embraced social media brilliantly, both with their Twitter and Facebook channels. But it’s always a test to see how closely brands are listening. It’s all too easy to use social media as a vehicle to push out information and products but fail to listen to what their customers really want, so @copyratty (aka Matt our Digital Content Specialist) and I did a little experiment.

The results

I asked Matt to Tweet using the ASOS review box. While we still don’t know if they are screened, this response popped up within minutes.

And then after Matt responded, back came ASOS with more lighthearted banter:

He has since heard directly from the menswear buyer at ASOS, as well as two other representatives. Now that’s a stellar example of ‘listening’ to your demographic. Oh, and Matt is a big shopper too….

Social media works as a service tool

Since this interaction, Matt has now started to send his ‘look’ to ASOS once a week. Their response has created an advocate in Matt.

“I feel that there are people behind the brand, they are approachable and you can connect with them if you need to,” Matt said.  “With any large brand you want to feel that they are accessible I feel I have built up some good rapport with them over the last week”.

So if you are looking for a fine example of how to interact through social networks, such as Twitter, look no further. And in particular, note the impact it had on a customer; the promise to go back to the site and purchase products that he might otherwise have purchased elsewhere, or not at all…he just had to wait until pay day first!

Leapfrogg MD, Rosie, came across this little gem of a video this morning. If for one moment you think social media is a passing fad, digest the facts and figures from this video and see how you feel at the end of it!

Mind blowing eh? Social media isn’t going anywhere!

Video courtesy of SEOMarketingExperts.

Last time I introduced you to the concept of personalised search, explaining what it is and why it has been introduced by the big search players, namely Google. In this follow up post I explore some of the things you need to consider and actions you need to take to ensure your digital marketing strategy remains relevant in light of personalised search.

One of the main outcomes of personalised search is that, in theory, no two people will see the same set of search results when searching using the same query. To cite an example; two members of the Leapfrogg team could be sat in the same location (our office) conducting the same search. But because they are on their own computers, with their own patterns of search behaviour recorded by Google, they could each be presented with different search results.

As it stands, Google will not disclose the degree to which results differ from user to user. Neither will they disclose the percentage of listings on the actual results page that are personalised in some way. However, Google has said that it wants to keep some results similar between users. Product manager Johanna Wright said:

“We want diversity of results…this is something we talk about a lot internally and believe in. We want there to be variety of sources and opinions in the Google results. We want them in personalised search to be skewed to the user, but we don’t want that to mean the rest of the web is unavailable to them.”

It remains the case that searchers want variety in their search results. So it’s not necessarily a case of having one or two favourite sites, or themes of sites, that simply show up over and over. This means Google’s other ranking factors will still be considered, so as far as we can tell at this early stage.

So now to the question we all need to be asking…is there anything we need to do in particular to ensure our sites perform well in light of personalised search? Well as luck would have it, below we provide a list of actions we recommend you consider:

Ditch rankings as a means to measure success

Personalised search effectively makes it impossible to report rankings with the same degree of accuracy as pre-personalised search. By its very nature personalised search means there is no longer an absolute position; a website ranking number two for one person may not even be on the first page of results for another.

So if you measure your search engine marketing efforts on ranking data alone it really is time to move on. You cannot calculate ROI or make informed decisions on how to improve the user-experience of your website using basic ranking data. Therefore, if you are not already, personalised search should be the catalyst to assess your search marketing efforts against metrics that really matter.

Remember, the end goal of your search marketing strategy is not to rank number one on Google for a specific search term. The end goal is to convert the traffic that ranking generates into sales. Once you have established sales targets (or leads, downloads, newsletter sign ups, etc) you can combine Google Analytics with other tools (telephone tracking, for example) and good old fashioned CRM to calculate the most important metric of all; ROI.

Saying all of this, it is worth running regular ranking reports especially if Analytics shows a large hike or drop in traffic. Although ranking data is less reliable it at least acts as an indicator as to whether Google is favouring your website, or otherwise. For example, if your rankings appear to be remain pretty consistent but traffic from search is on the up it may suggest personalised search is working in your favour. Therefore, analyse data from your Analytics account alongside the use of ranking tools to keep track of how your site is performing in the aftermath of personalised search.

Build your brand with a holistic strategy

Some are concerned that personalised search will reward big ‘brands’ who have already received an apparent boost from Google as a result of the Vince update last year. If Google is favouring branded sites is it not inevitable they will feature in search results more prominently and as a result receive a higher proportion of the clicks?

If this is the case, you need to learn why Google favours these brands (often regardless of how well their sites are actually optimised). They tend to be looked upon favourably because they are well-established and trusted. Google is also beginning to pay attention to factors such as how often a brand is mentioned across related websites, blogs and forums. The more ‘buzz’ that exists around a brand, the more important the website is deemed.

You too can build an online brand by implementing a holistic digital strategy that combines traditional SEO activity with paid search, social media and content. So, an action point for 2010 would be to start thinking about SEO as part of a wider set of activities; a strategy that is focused on building a sustainable and reputable online presence with reach far beyond search engines.

But remember the basics

Personalised search is all about delivering more relevant results. Google will determine how relevant a result is to a user based on their behaviour i.e. when presented with a set of results, Google will analyse the sites clicked on and even how long the user spends on the site once they get there. In simple terms, if a user clicks on a site they see as relevant and then spend a reasonable amount of time on that site Google will think, ‘hey, that’s a site the person found useful – I will therefore serve that site next time…or sites that are similar’.

This being the case you need to ensure your search engine listing is highly relevant to a users search query. How do you do this? Well, by going back to the very basics of SEO; ensure your title and description tags are well written and engaging. By doing so, you may encourage users to click on your listing over and above your competitors.

User experience

In order to ensure visitors stick around once they click through to your website you need to ensure the user-experience and content is top notch. You have a small window of opportunity to grab the users’ attention so ensure your content is relevant and calls to action clear. This is integral to establishing user trust and encouraging return visits. If users enjoy their experience on your site then they are not only more likely to convert into enquiries/sales but they are also more likely to return. Therefore a goal for 2010 should be to evaluate and improve upon your site usability and build on ways in which to engage visitors.

Another interesting method of increasing your site’s visibility in personalised search has been put forward by Marty Weintraub in his article ‘How To Exploit Personalised Search For SEO’. In this article, Weintraub suggests that “the solution to optimizing SERPs, which are customized based on an individual user’s affinities, is to influence that user’s offline behaviour”. This includes tips such as asking prospects and customers to search using specific terms (presumably that you know you are going to appear for!?) and click on your website. Definitely worth a read if you have the time.

In conclusion, personalised search may cause a decrease in traffic for some sites, but in theory users will be getting more useful and relevant results. Could this lead to increases in relative conversion rates? On this note, I believe a safe assumption is that the future of search is not about rankings or even traffic volumes but more about keeping better qualified visitors on your site for longer by providing great content to engage users and encourage them to return.

Hopefully, this introduction to Personalised Search has cleared up any confusion you may have had and also helps to turn your thoughts towards actions you need to take in order to ensure your site makes the most of it.

Next time, a lesson in social search. Until then…

As you may have noticed in recent times, when conducting searches across the major engines the results you are presented with are looking very different to those of a few years ago. Thanks to the innovative attempts of big players such as Google and Bing to provide the richest, most varied and in particular most relevant results to their users, we are increasingly seeing ‘blended results’ that incorporate rich media content, such as images and video, as well as real-time information, from social networks such as Twitter. Results can also vary depending on factors specific to the searcher, such as what they have looked for in the past.

So in a series of articles I am going to give you the lowdown on three significant developments shaping how search engines present their results. I’ll be covering Personalised Search, Social Search and Real-Time Search to ensure you can distinguish between them and understand their likely impact on your digital marketing strategy.

You will learn that these developments demand that you make it a priority in 2010 to combine tactics in social media and content with you search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. SEO can no longer operate in isolation. Instead, an integrated strategy is needed to maximise your reach and therefore targeted traffic.

So with that in mind, let’s begin with a look at personalised search…

What is personalised search?

Google’s personalised search considers a user’s search history to deliver them with (what Google hopes to be) more relevant and useful results. So, in a nutshell, Google delivers results based on your previous search queries and the sites you’ve visited. By analysing what you search for and the links you click on the search engine results page (SERP), over time Google builds a picture of the types or themes of website you favour. Therefore, it is likely that these sites will appear in your search results more often for particular search queries. In essence, it means search results are being custom tailored for each individual.

Personalised search in itself is not a new concept. When it was first introduced users only received personalised results if they were logged into their Google account. However, Google has now updated their algorithm to deliver personalised results to all users worldwide, even those who aren’t logged into their Google account. The result is that more and more often we will each see different results when we conduct a search, even for the same query.

For example, let’s say you regularly conduct searches for the term ‘eagle’. Without personalised search Google is unlikely to tell whether you are a fan of the large flying bird, the rather beautiful Jaguar E-type or perhaps even the band of ‘Hotel California’ fame. However, you’re a bird lover, so with personalised search, over time, Google will begin to put two and two together as you click on listings that are bird related. As a result of this realisation, the bird related content you are interested in occupies more and more of the search results, sifting out, or moving down the page, information on Jaguars and the band that you have shown no interest in through your click patterns.

Therefore, personalised search has the potential to serve you very different search results than you would have received before its introduction.

If you would rather that your search results are not personalised in this way then you do have the ability to opt-out completely. You can do this quite easily by clicking on the “Web History” link positioned to the top right of the search results.

You will then be presented with the following page. Once on this page click on the “Disable customisations based on search activity” link and hey presto your results will no longer be affected by your past search history.

However, even if you do opt-out of personalised search, Google will still log what you search as it always has done. The only difference is that it won’t personalise your search results using that information.

Why has personalised search been introduced?

So why has Google rolled out personalised search to all users worldwide? The most obvious reason for this development is that Google is trying to serve individual users with tailored results which prove to be more relevant. Therefore users are more likely to see listings in the results which satisfy what they were looking for. This in turn increases their satisfaction with Google’s search experience, increasing the likelihood that Google will be first choice for their next search.

On an official level Google says:

“When you search using Google, you get more relevant, useful search results, recommendations, and other personalised features. By personalising your results, we hope to deliver you the most useful, relevant information on the Internet.”

So that’s personalised search and how it works. In part 2, I’ll explore what means in terms of your digital marketing efforts?

Until then…