search marketing blog: ambergreen

This years online marketing masterclass was titled, How to Acquire, Convert & Retain Customers Online and focussed on current internet marketing strategies. Ambergreen sponsored the badges, we thought it would be a good idea to try some profile building to an audience of mainly client side decision makers within the online marketing scene. On the whole, it was a good day and I’m sure we’ll get a good return out of it. Anyway .enough about us, if you didn’t go …this is what you missed.

The day was split into the 3 main areas of the online marketing process; Acquire, Convert and Retain and Grow. It was refreshing to hear from brands and their experiences, as opposed to the shameless plugging from Search Marketing Agencies that so often try to sell their services disguised in the form of a case study.

E consultancy Internet Marketing Speakers

Acquire:
Kevin Milnes from National Express
Shiona McDougall from Harper Collins
Martin Hayward of EDF Energy

Convert:
Richard Sedley, Director of cScape
Sarah Blair Gould, E Commerce Manager at Boden
Angus Cormie, Senior Site Manager for Dell

Retail and Grow:
Vanessa Coussens, the former head of E-commerce for Churchill
Jonathan Davies, Head of E-commerce for Eurostar
Lucy Conlan, Senior Marketing Manager for The Barbican

Kevin Milnes from National Express

Kevin Milnes from National Express kicked off the day with a refreshing chat about their successful online acquisition programme that is based around acquiring visitors with a target customer acquisition cost of under £1. He also was open enough to discuss the internal client side issues of where customers come from and how to attribute value from their online marketing efforts in a market that is so often “closed” with a cash sale for a bus ticket. Kevin identified that affiliates had played a very successful part of this process …much to his annoyance!

Shiona McDougall from Harper Collins

Next up was Shiona McDougall from Harper Collins. Shiona gave an interesting insight into the online marketing of book publishing. She talked about the use of social media and reaching specific audiences using the correct language, social media channels and the holistic approach to brand building for specific authors. Again, the realisation that search and online marketing does not work in a vacuum was a common theme throughout the presentation. She revealed an interesting statistic that stated 16% of their offline sales were driven through online awareness. Harper Collins seem to have their act together in this department and if they continue in this vain will continue to be a major player in this emerging market space.

Martin Hayward of EDF Energy

Similarly, the final speaker in Acquiring Customers; Martin Hayward of EDF Energy painted a similar picture of touching specific customers using innovative techniques of brand association. EDF have spent a great deal of energy (excuse the pun) sponsoring events like the FIFA World Cup and the Rugby World Cup using the full itinerary of marketing techniques from using Idents, Microsites, Display Advertising, Direct Marketing, Face to Face, Internal PR and User Engagement competitions to create brand awareness … Interesting stuff! It’s such a shame that their organic search efforts are still in dire need of improvement.

The next set of presentations was based on Conversion. This featured presentations from Richard Sedley, Director of cScape, Sarah Blair Gould, E Commerce Manager at Boden and Angus Cormie, Senior Site Manager for Dell.

Richard Sedley, Director of cScape

Richard from cScape focused on the art of ethical persuasion and produced an interesting insight into Credibility, Social Proof, Story Telling and Timing and how this works within the science of persuasion. He discussed elaboration techniques and decisional heuristics and all in all produced a very interesting presentation from a scientific perspective.

Sarah Blair Gould, E Commerce Manager at Boden

Sarah from Boden was up next. Boden have worked hard to produce a good usable website, interesting sticky content on style guides, fashion trends, customer product reviews and social media to support their online marketing efforts that seems to reaped good rewards. The shopping experience on the Boden site is commendable with colour variants, stock availability and mix and match variants being built into the online shopping experience. They really have paid attention to managing their customer’s expectations and they have produced a pretty good website as a result of this.

Angus Cormie, Senior Site Manager for Dell

The last presentation of the “Covert” section was delivered by Angus Cormie from Dell. As you can imagine, Dell have tried every variation possible in layout variations, A/B spilt testing and multi variate combinations to increase the conversion ratios on their site. Angus discussed the tactical and strategic levers used in the conversion process. Short term tactical levers included, price moves, the positioning of the product mix on the page, promotions, promo end dates, and the extensive use of in site banners to promote and encourage the shopping journey. This varied from country to country where expectations and brand positioning vary extensively. Some of the Strategic levers included video reviews, personalised banners and content in relation to the shopping journey being taken. This included techniques such as A/B and multi variate testing with a policy of reviewing everything every 6 months. I suppose this makes sense when you work in an industry where customer needs, expectations and product pricing move quicker than most … do you remember your 1st Windows 95 computer and how much it cost you?
The last section of presentations felt a bit like the graveyard shift. This was no fault of the presenters or the subject matter, it was just a long day. Retain and Grow, featured Vanessa Coussens, the former head of E-commerce for Churchill, Jonathan Davies, Head of E-commerce for Eurostar and Lucy Conlan, Senior Marketing Manager for The Barbican.

Vanessa Coussens, the former head of E-commerce for Churchill

Vanessa spoke from a holistic approach and talked about ways of keeping customers and growing the relationship further. Her experiences encouraged the audience to use specialists in all areas of the marketing process from finding customers through to retaining them. She highlighted email marketing pitfalls such as using email lists that are over 2 years old and not paying attention to response times on email marketing releases. Another very valid point was the complexity of login or password resetting. I suppose this is why I haven’t used Ebay for the past year and wont be able to until I can find the details of two small transactions they sent to me over a year ago on an account number that is now dead. Ebay …please take note.

Jonathan Davies, Head of E-commerce for Eurostar

Eurostar have extensively used email marketing techniques to retain and grow their customers. From the standard process of up selling and inspiring on the Thank You page after a transaction, through to cross selling after the receipt has been issued and the pre travel, inspirational email 7 days before the journey, Eurostar are on the case. Even after you have returned from your weekend city break, expect a Monday morning email looking for feedback. Those customers that are regular travelers are profiled separately so they are not hit with the usual email feedback process. E mail was also used as a questionnaire for the new High Speed 1 service from South London. The feedback was also used as content for the Eurostar corporate site.

For those who register on the website, quarterly newsletters are sent out as seasonal, destination motivators. Profiled last minute availability emails are sent out, customers who haven’t traveled with Eurostar for over a year are also hit with a targeted email, and even those who choose to unsubscribe are targeted with a small questionnaire on reasons for unsubscribing. All this activity has been supported with the use of accommodation incentives, the Voice Of A City microsite, the Eurostar Tripplanner microsite.

Lucy Conlan, Senior Marketing Manager for The Barbican

Last but not least was a presentation by Lucy Conlan, the senior marketing manager of The Barbican. Lucys job is to bring new customers to the Barbican and retain them. Online techniques have been successful through revamping the site with stronger calls to action and profiled member emailing has worked wonders. They seem to have worked hard to make members feel special, giving them the benefits of booking 2 weeks ahead of the general public. Again, profiled email marketing has been used to target those who hadn’t responded or opened their emails regularly, this has reactivated some users and kept the frequency down for others who prefer a quieter inbox.

They have used the site as a user destination in a similar manner to a number of venues that have become an online experience that represents the vibrancy of the venue itself. It’s a great idea that we will see more and more of in time.

So there we have it …The E-Consultancy Masterclass. Closing speeches were made and a few drinkies were had afterwards in what proved to be a very successful networking event in the early evening

Would I go again? ..

Without a doubt, it was great day.

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