A business doesn’t survive for over 100 years without adapting its strategy to changing consumer demands. Last year, sofa and carpet specialist ScS took a further step online, engaging digital marketing agency Silverbean to remodel its digital offer with a new website built by DigitasLBi. Furniture News asked the experts involved about the challenges behind the redevelopment …
Why was the revision to ScS’ website required?
Sarah Nielsen, head of client services, Silverbean: Any customer’s experience online should be as memorable and personalised as that of a visit to a physical retail store. The heavy investment in the new website and its increased functionality is testament to ScS’ continued commitment to provide customers with the best digital experience possible – by using high quality photography, a smooth navigation and rich content, customers are able to find exactly what they want in only a few clicks.
Neil Hancock, head of optimisation and planning, Silverbean: The new ScS website was launched on 30th July 2014, after an eight-month project, to support ScS’s plans to improve their customers’ online experience. They identified the need to offer a seamless and customer-centric experience both in the offline and online worlds – the introduction of a new, user-friendly site would aid this, while also improving the revenue streams directly from the website.
Jeff Lyall, search marketing consultant, Silverbean: The new site launched in light of increased competition – ScS felt the need to refresh the existing site both in terms of more friendly design and functionality for the user, as well as making the administration of the website and the sales system more efficient internally.
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: The furniture retail market is exceptionally competitive, and nowhere more so than online. As shoppers, we all start the research phase on our laptops and tables. To be able to leverage some gain amongst the big players in the industry it was clear that we needed to completely overhaul the online experience. We previously had a bespoke platform, which was inflexible and unstable. Moving to Demandware has completely changed this – it has provided a huge opportunity for us to offer new functionality to help customers buy. It sounds simple, but often it’s the smallest things that make the biggest difference to online conversion.
What does the new site offer?
Liam Waites, paid marketing manager, Silverbean: A responsive design offers the best experience for each device, which is extremely important as trends show an ever-increasing percentage of searches coming from mobile devices. Additionally, the new filtering functionality offered an opportunity to direct traffic to a more specific landing page, giving a selection of products related to the search term.
“To be able to leverage some gain amongst the big players in the industry it was clear that we needed to completely overhaul the online experience”
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: As part of the scoping phase, we researched how our customers were shopping, and, as such, identified that one of the most important factors in the build was having a fully responsive website – something none of our immediate competitors have. We have also added some really nice little touches around the site to help the customer find what they are looking for, such as the sticky navigation, so you can always get back to the primary category. The new search functionality enables the customer to find the product they are looking for far quicker than on the old site.
How has the site architecture been developed to better facilitate traffic?
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: We had to totally change the site structure as part of the build of the new site. However, this provided a great opportunity for us to consider some of the key decisions that customers face when buying upholstery and flooring, and address these head-on with the new navigation. The new site architecture has also enabled us to create landing pages that we never had previously ranked highly for in our search campaign.
… and the analysis and tracking of visitors?
Simon Cahill, conversion rate optimisation (CRO) and analytics account manager, Silverbean: The redesign has included a focus on the user discovery phase that has made allowances for a range of journeys through the site, be this by size, brand or cost. As well as this, the clarity of core conversion actions has been improved to make the transition from browsing to purchase a very simple process. Alongside the site structure, ScS will be using Google’s Universal Analytics to continually optimise these journeys. This data allows SCS to spot any weaknesses, prioritise these areas for further focus and work to improve performance on an ongoing basis. Through a process of data analysis, creating tests and building target audience relevancy for their campaigns, ScS will be looking to optimise their digital activity into 2015 and beyond.
What key challenges did you face in the site’s development?
Neil Hancock, head of optimisation and planning, Silverbean: The site had many requirements from many stakeholders, which could have resulted in a confusing and complicated user experience. As such, the project management team needed to identify the core objectives and make sure these were always considered when adding additional tools and functionality to the new site.
Jeff Lyall, search marketing consultant, Silverbean: One of the key functionalities of the new site is that it is a responsive design – it is as usable on mobile and tablet devices as it is on desktop computers. For larger-scale ecommerce site such as this, it can be challenging to ensure that the user experience is matched no matter what device they are using. Luckily, DigitasLBi helped make the process as seamless as possible. Another challenge with a large ecommerce site is ensuring that downtime is minimal. With proper planning, the transition over to the new site meant that downtime for ScS was hours rather than days.
“It is a responsive design – for larger-scale ecommerce site such as this, it can be challenging to ensure that the user experience is matched no matter what device they are using”
Daniel Webb, affiliate marketing manager, Silverbean: One of the key challenges with the new site was making sure that the affiliate channel could be as flexible as possible from a promotional standpoint. This meant there were various additions to the tracking that needed to be made to improve on the previous site, as well as the integration of an improved product feed to allow ScS to work with a broad range of affiliates and run numerous promotions.
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: We set an aggressive timeline for launch – this would have been achieved had we not experienced data integration problems along the way. Other than that, one of the biggest challenges for me was working out in Amsterdam with DigitasLBi, while trying to run the end-of-life site and a team back at head office.
What targets do you plan to hit?
Neil Hancock, head of optimisation and planning, Silverbean: The new site has been designed to be customer-centric, offering a high-quality and enjoyable interaction with the ScS brand online. The improvement in user experience and addition of useful user guides are designed to support the business’ overall goal of increased customers and revenue, both in-store – through localised content on the website – and online.
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: The site was expensive to build, so we have set some aggressive targets over the coming months and years to pay back the investment. However, in the two months since the site was launched, we saw an encouraging response in the figures. We are now working through an optimisation programme to make the site work even harder, while ensuring the functionality we create retains the goal of ensuring the customer finds it easy to buy online.
Which brands do you work with, and what are the challenges/benefits of working alongside them digitally?
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: One of our key USPs is that we sell some of the best-known furniture and flooring brands in the UK, such as LaZBoy, Parker Knoll and Royal Wilton. However, branded products are a premium, so the challenge is to explain the quality to help the customer understand the price point. This is one of the key areas I will be looking to optimise over the coming months with the help of DigitasLBi.
To what extent does ScS engage in social media, and can you highlight and discuss the impact of any key campaigns?
Ethan Martin, social media executive, ScS: ScS engages extensively in social media, because that’s where we find many of our customers. We also use social media to increase our brand awareness and also to develop the relationship between our customers and our brand. Key campaigns, such as the #SofaCelebrations campaign play an important part in helping us achieve our social media goals. For example, the #SofaCelebrations competition required the involvement of our followers, and as such we needed to provide an incentive for people to interact with our brand.
What other digital activities has ScS engaged in over the last 12 months?
Liam Waites, paid marketing manager, Silverbean: To reflect a seasonal demand the annual budget has been focused around the key trading periods (Bank Holidays), allowing us to maximise return through meeting increased demand and aggressively bidding when conversion rate is naturally higher. Social marketing also played a role in the recent #SofaCelebrations campaign, increasing reach in the target demographic during the key times of football matches.
Tim Pike, search marketing executive, Silverbean: The #SofaCelebrations campaign was a major digital activity that wasn’t just applied on social media, but across SEO, PPC, and affiliate marketing. This campaign achieved significant reach and exposure – 3.1 million people on Twitter, alone – by using user-generated content in conjunction with the World Cup in June. This competition-style campaign provided ScS with a very positive sentiment on social media, authoritative backlinks to the site, and a chance to engage with their audience online around a world-famous event.
“The #SofaCelebrations campaign provided ScS with a very positive sentiment on social media, authoritative backlinks to the site, and a chance to engage with their audience online around a world-famous event”
Daniel Webb, affiliate marketing manager, Silverbean: Much like PPC and other performance-led services, the affiliate channel works to try to maximise sales and return during key sales periods and significant short-term promotions throughout the year, by making sure the sale message is promoted consistently across the affiliate channel in line with offline advertising. It is during these periods that most of our budget will be allocated to ensure the best possible ROI. During the #SofaCelebrations competition we used the affiliate channel as a means to drive large volumes of traffic to the competition page, encouraging entries. This is a slightly unusual way to use the affiliate channel – however, in this case it worked well and the brand received significant exposure.
What digital plans does ScS have?
Sarah Nielsen, head of client services, Silverbean: ScS recognise that customer purchasing habits are evolving. As their digital agency, we help shape their online marketing strategy to meet those customer needs in the changing landscape – from creating multi-channel campaigns and competitions to engage with their audience across social media, to developing geo-targeting solutions so that when a customer needs store information on the go they get it straight away.
Neil Hancock, head of optimisation and planning, Silverbean: The new website launch is part of a larger digital strategy intended to improve the visibility of the site and increase the customer experience and revenue streams online. The new website also opens new opportunities around additional digital marketing tools and techniques. ScS is very enthusiastic with the possibilities and potential of their new website to continue to grow their digital strategies.
Ethan Martin, social media executive, ScS: In terms of social media, our plans are to continue growing our social networks whilst at the same time building relationships with our consumers and target audience. This will strengthen our consumers’ relationship with our brand, increase brand awareness and hopefully drive sales, which is the ultimate goal. In addition to this, I would like to see more opportunities for user-generated content, as this further builds relationships with the brand.
Sarah Oldroyd, head of digital, ScS: Now that the new site is live, the real fun – and hard work – begins. There is so much we can do as a direct result of having a scalable platform. I for one cannot wait to further enhance the features and functionality already on the site. It’s a very exciting time to be at ScS!
This article was published in the January issue of Furniture News magazine.
