Client / Agency relationships – the evolution continues…

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Greg Lee

As we enter the last quarter of the year, much continues to change in the world of search – technically and commercially.

At Leapfrogg, we have also become ever more aware that those clients who really believe in search as a core part of their marketing armoury will face a key question as they reconsider their objectives and strategies for 2013; how much of the work involved in search – especially in terms of pure implementation – can or has to be brought in-house? What is the best balance of staffing up internally and retaining external, specialist expertise to ensure their strategy and tactics are making the most of how search marketing is evolving?

This has become a more frequent discussion with our clients this year than ever before. As clients develop more confidence in what search can bring in terms of revenue and ROI, so there comes a time when they weigh up whether extra budget allocation for search should be invested in expanding the team internally or with external specialists. Quite rightly, it’s not best use of client budget to be spending it getting external specialists to be doing ‘grunt’ work. At the same time, if someone in-house is being tasked with devising a search strategy and executing this tactically, alongside other marketing responsibilities and tasks, they are at risk of not being as ‘sharp’ on the latest insights and techniques that specialist agencies make it their business to know.

We are in the process of working with a couple of our clients through this transition process, where elements of search strategy and tactics are ‘in-sourced’ and our expertise is deployed in a more purely consultative role, advising, guiding, corroborating and fine-tuning.

We look forward to seeing how this will evolve. We may find that the skills and expertise in-house are more robust, and that they can throw off the need to have agency ‘stabilisers’ sooner than perhaps even they think. Alternatively, it may be that the ‘weaning off’ process has tried to do too much too soon, to the detriment of campaign performance, and so agency involvement may need to be re-assessed.

Only time will tell. We shall adapt and adjust as we always must in the business services sector, as client/agency relationships continue to evolve naturally.

A summary of great client results in Q2

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Greg Lee

What’s happened to 2012? Bleak weather, bleak economic conditions, some light relief courtesy of the Olympics, but otherwise an air of uncertainty prevails.

In this climate, then, we’re so proud of the great work – and great results – we have delivered so far for our clients this year. They reflect;

the confidence of our clients to put their money where their mouths are by investing in digital to start with
our own expertise to identify areas for improvement in client digital activity and then execute our work to deliver these improvements

Following on from my last post looking at results achieved in Q1, here are some highlights from our efforts during Q2:

Premium retail;

Luxury bedroom furniture retailer, Feather & Black; their non-brand term natural traffic increased by over 60% year-on-year. Whilst I cannot disclose the actual figure, revenue from online sales is a very healthy % higher than this time last year
High-end fashion brand, Bastyan; for every £1 they spent on paid search the campaign generates ten times the amount in sales revenue
Emma Bridgewater; again, for paid search their campaign delivers return investment at a ratio of 19/1
Posturite; online revenue has increased by over 80%
Filofax; we have more than doubled their click-thru rates on paid search

Travel;

Cox & Kings; their non-brand term natural traffic has increased by 60% year-on-year. Revenue attributed to online also more than doubled year-on-year

Business Services;

Fruitdrop; their non-brand term natural traffic increased by over 100% year-on-year delivering return on investment at a ratio of 5/1
Flexioffices; we’ve recently exceeded conversion rate targets by over 40%

This is a flavour of the great results we’ve delivered to our clients. So far this year, then, we have helped them to win, to meet or exceed their own targets, about which we’re all delighted.

That said, we’re not letting the euphoria (nor the Olympic distraction) run away with us. Our clients each have challenging targets and business environments. Great results so far are lovely – but nothing like as important as making sure we’re focused on delivering more great results for them this year and beyond.

The economic outlook remains uncertain – the only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that growth is still a long way off. Therefore, strategies need to be regularly reviewed, tactics revised where necessary, results have to be maintained and improved, sales and revenue must be generated.

In some ways there is freedom among the uncertainty. If this causes the main focus to be on the here and now and making sure what we’re doing today and into the immediate future is working, then that’s what we’ll do.

That doesn’t mean we’re retreating into a tactical, short term shell, however. In July we hosted an event at RIBA in London where we presented our Retail Marketing Machine, which will underpin our strategic approach for our work for the 2nd half of this year, into 2013, and beyond (with apologies to Mr Lightyear…)

I’ll be back with an update on more great results from Leapfrogg later in 2012

Sticking to our New Year resolution…a summary of great client results in Q1

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Greg Lee

Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! We’ve got to April already (how did that happen, exactly?!) and, in keeping with our New Year’s resolution for 2012, we thought we’d have a look back over the first quarter of the year, reflect on the impact of the work we have executed for some of our clients and, importantly, shout about it! So below I’ve pulled out some edited highlights from three key clients operating in the premium / luxury space; Feather & Black, Bastyan and Cox & Kings.

Looking first at Feather & Black, the luxury bed and bedroom furniture specialist, we helped them attract almost 40% more natural traffic year-on-year. Their paid search campaign continues to deliver greater revenue for less cost, and is evolving to support their multi-channel strategy to generate greater footfall in their UK showrooms.

Feather & Black continue to grab the headlines; this year they have also been shortlisted for the Best Multichannel Retailer award at the 2012 Paypal awards. We are expanding both natural and paid activity from April, working ever more closely with their in-house team to keep momentum going on all fronts and build on the success of last year…when we helped Feather & Black grow online sales by 46%.

Staying within the retail sector with Bastyan (part of Aurora Fashions), we significantly exceeded revenue targets and delivered a return on investment (ROI) of over 14:1 across paid search. In parallel, we are working with them to refine their core site, and from May will be developing their content strategy and channel prioritisation for their marketing.

Our work with luxury travel specialist, Cox & Kings, in Q1 has really focused on improving conversion rates; these have increased across both natural search (four times greater than the set benchmark) and paid search (exceeding benchmarks by an average of 30% across all campaigns).

The call tracking solution we put in place (that integrates with our analytics and attribution technology) shows exactly how the digital activity is generating phone calls, enquiries and sales. This intelligence, where we can track the customer journey during a long and complex buying process, allows us to optimise channels accordingly, leading to greater efficiency and ROI.

Anecdotally, looking at all of our clients as a whole, we would also observe the following from Q1;

Multi-channel activity, both in thought and execution, is growing in importance across ALL sectors
There is confidence to invest in digital where the results are clear (and positive!)
While the digital picture may look rosy, clients are still cautious overall about what the future looks like

Clients still want ‘brand prominence’, and happy consequence of remarketing activity, for example, is that it does just that – provides a sense of brand ‘scale’ to those people who have already engaged with the brand, over and above generating extra sales

At the end of Q2, I’ll provide a similar overview looking back at the first half of 2012, as well as some thoughts on how the second half of the year is shaping up.

Making sense of Facebook’s latest updates

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Greg Lee

Much has already been spoken about in the blogosphere about Facebook’s F8 conference last week, and the changes introduced, not least the Timeline feature.

We believe it is still far too early to draw definitive conclusions for what this means specifically for retail brands within Facebook, certainly in terms of how they organise and share their content and encourage people to do this on their behalf.

Why? Well, to start with, an article on 16th Sept (before F8) by Paul Fabretti on Social Media Today suggests that while Facebook has generated huge followings (although he observes that in the top 20 ‘most followed’ within Facebook there are zero brands), engagement with these groups by ‘core fans’ is tiny. The % of ‘core fans’ engaging with the top 20 is comparable to the % CTR one might expect from banner advertising…hardly a glowing endorsement of engagement. Logic suggests therefore that the solution to poor engagement is ‘better’ content. This isn’t new news to anyone, and harder to deliver it seems. Especially content that people want to share, to pass on.

Will the updates revealed at F8 make the delivery of ‘better’ content easier or more difficult, then?

Anecdotally at Leapfrogg International HQ(!), opinion is divided. Some love the new layout and the freshness of Timeline, while others are concerned that if Facebook is starting to decide what constitutes a ‘top story’, rather than having posts fed through chronologically, it raises a question mark over posts that a user might previously have seen that now get missed.

Is there an element of information overload now – how many types of posts can anyone really look at, in different places on one page? For brands, this seems a risk as well as an opportunity.

Ciaran Norris raises some interesting concerns in his article on Search Engine Land , as does Travis Pitman in Tnooz. The launch of Gestures, offering the facility for people to share every song they listen to, every book they read or place they go to more easily than ever, could invite ‘stream fatigue’. If Facebook’s new content structure means that brands are fighting for page real estate in the ticker section of the page with an increasing volume of information from friends, standing out from that ticker stream is going to be more and more difficult. The thought that the ticker feed is simply ‘the current News Feed on steroids’ is valid.

One solution for brands may be to invest in sponsored areas of the pages; it cannot be a coincidence that within the refreshed content structure, the areas where Facebook generate revenue from brands remain larger, colourful and more impactful than the ticker feed.

At the same time, it seems more important than ever that brands and businesses ensure they have Facebook’s presence embedded within their own sites, to ensure it is as easy as possible for people visiting their sites can broadcast information back to Facebook as easily as possible.

In short, for brands and Facebook, it’s not ‘why?’, but ‘how?’ Our reason for this is simple; not only are more people (800m+ globally) registered, but recent data shows they spend more time there than on any other social media property;

Image source: Citi Investment Research and Analysis

The value of a positive review gathers pace

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Greg Lee

The importance of reviews within the online consideration and buying process has grown in importance in recent times.

A recent industry report suggests this importance is going to keep on growing – and quickly.

The next step is for customers to be asked for their feedback not just on the product(s) they bought, but also the service they received while buying.

This can cover customer service, delivery and whether they’d recommend the retailer from whom they had just made a purchase. The report suggests just under 60% of consumers will search for online reviews before buying from a retailer they don’t know. The report also suggests people who read service reviews are more likely to buy.

This approach will help retailers switch customer focus from trying to compete on price to being able to differentiate themselves on customer service.

Those retailers who can grasp this quickest will be best placed to succeed.

Customer data the gold dust of digital

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Greg Lee

It’s been a busy start to 2011 in digital with many brands pushing online and particularly social as the UK’s economic hangover lingers on. Brands looking to increase their presence in the digital space are coming under increased threat from fraudsters and scrutiny from consumers.

As I explored back in February, some brands are faring well in the brave, wild social space, whilst others are leaving their customer data high and dry, for all to see.

March’s story of Tesco selling their shoppers’ Clubcard data for research and analysis should surprise few who have given the commercial purpose of the Clubcard much thought. However, the national coverage of the behind the scenes workings of the nation’s favourite loyalty scheme brings to the fore the less public, even hidden, machine that powers the perfectly pitched promos and ‘BOGOFs’ at your local Tesco store.

In the grand scheme that all that Tesco now provides, the Daily Mail article is a speed bump along a path with which the brand can overcome. However, the lesson to be learnt for the rest of us is that, whatever your size, customers and their privacy, if entrusted to you, must be protected and never exploited. You are the guardian of their habits, preferences and indulgences: your discretion will ensure a trusted, long-term relationship.

Take heed, the value of your customer data is something to be treasured. It seems that 2011 is the year of monthly retail horror stories, do not become part of the neverending Scream franchise.

As Taco Bell proves, managing your social media campaign doesn’t have to be rocket science

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Greg Lee

The beginning of 2011 has brought to light just how volatile branded social media presences can be. On the one hand you have Lush’s unfortunate handling of their recent website hacking, and the resulting tsunami of negative feedback. On the other hand, you have Taco Bell’s equally combustible taco beef filler swell that barely got a mention online. Both stories highlight how brands’ social media strategies, or lack there of, resulted in case studies to learn from.

Lush’s misplacement of presumably thousands of customers’ credit card details highlights the increasingly complex customer relations driven online world. Whilst in itself the loss of more than three months’ worth of online credit card information is grave for any brand, what compounded the issue is Lush’s somewhat lacklustre response to its social media following.

Having identified the hacker’s attack on Christmas Day, Lush decided to see what happened (as if there was ever any doubt of the thief’s intentions) rather than inform its customers of the attack. As customers were informed 106 days after the initial attack, Lush’s official Facebook page offered some support and advice to its disappointed followers.

Indeed, Facebook offered the ideal environment for Lush users to share their horror stories of calls from the bank and suchlike – it seems the hackers were actively using the stolen information for their own January sale shopping. It is not yet clear why Lush chose to not limit their website sooner as they have now done by relying on PayPal’s evidently safer transactional systems. Perhaps the lure of a January revenue kick-start to 2011 proved to be too tempting.

Taco Bell, conversely, were honest and timely in their response. Faced with the breaking news that their taco meat contained a little more than just pure beef, Taco Bell grabbed the bull by the horns and addressed the issue.

It may have come as little surprise that their menu contains a little filler (read: oats and water, essentially). However, Taco Bell took the issue very seriously and immediately jumped on Facebook to reassure their fans of the facts; resulting in an appreciative and overwhelmingly positive reaction, the likes of which Lush can now only dream of right now.

These two differing outcomes to breaking, negative news illustrate the importance of having a social media strategy in place. What’s clear is that customers expect real-time responses when using channels such as Facebook from informed spokespeople. Do you have your emergency PR / crisis management strategy prepared? Facebook offers people, consumers, advocates and brand ambassadors the perfect soapbox when your brand is doing everything right. But when things go wrong, you need to ensure you have systems and processes in place to communicate openly and honestly with customers, which in turn will help to negate the impact.

Leapfrogg

The digital marketing agency for premium brands and retailers

Author Archives: Greg Lee