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Five brands hoping new click-and-collect services will deliver profits

Click-and-collect is now a must-have delivery option for online retailers as consumers expect to be able to pick up their purchases at a time that is convenient to them.

In 2013 around 70m deliveries were made through click-and-collect, a figure that’s expected to grow to around 82m by 2018.

In recent weeks UK retailers have been pushing ahead with new initiatives aimed at giving customers even more choice when it comes to collecting their purchases.

Here’s a round up of several businesses that are aiming to increase profits using click-and-collect.

Four reasons to admire the #LidlSurprises campaign

Earlier this month Lidl unveiled its new £20m brand campaign aimed at altering the public’s perception of its products.

It marks a step change in the company’s marketing strategy, as it had previously relied on door drops and leafleting to get across its price message.

Lidl will now focus on TV ads and social as a way of communicating with its customers.

The campaign comes as the grocery chain is plotting a £220m UK expansion that will help it to further capitalise on its already soaring sales figures, with revenue expected to reach £4bn in 2014 up from £2bn in 2010.

All the activity is centred around #LidlSurprises, with TV, print and in-store promotions all sporting the hashtag.

We’ve all been reasonably impressed with the campaign at Econsultancy (Ben Davis in particular), so I thought I’d elaborate on what makes it so impressive.

Red Bull vs GoPro: taking content marketing to the extreme

It’s the big one. The bout to beat them all: ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’. ‘The Thrilla in Manila’. ‘The Brawl for it All’… These will all seem like mere ‘Fisticuffs in Magaluf’ when this contest is over. 

In the red corner, unsurprisingly… Red Bull, with its commitment to broadcasting the most extreme of escapades to a worldwide audience, including a whopping 3.7m YouTube subscribers and a high concept strategy of putting thrills and spills before energy drink sales.

In the blue corner, strapped head-to-toe in tiny cameras so viewers can witness every single punch in glorious high definition clarity… GoPro, with its intimidating dominance of social video, constant gracing of the top ten biggest brands on YouTube and an effortless ability to marry its products perfectly with its content.

Two giant brands. One arena that can barely contain them both and one glorious winner, turkey-trotting over the shattered bones of its crushed opponent. 

I am but the lowly referee, cowering to avoid the blows, but too fascinated to look away. So let’s take a glance at these titans in the content marketing and social worlds and see which will be crowned the ultimate champion.

Ding ding…

Incentivizing your retailers to drive brand advocacy

When brands focus their attention on advocacy strategies, it usually revolves around turning their best customers into brand advocates.  

After all, word of mouth is a powerful force. However, your sales teams and employees are, more often than not, the greatest brand ambassadors for your company.

Who better than the people closest to your product to share your brand message?

The key to cultivating advocacy from the inside out is to ensure your employees feel invested in your brand’s success. There are many ways to convert your employees from passive sales associates to true brand advocates that help ensure the success of a campaign.

10 revealing mobile stats you may not have seen

You might have seen these mobile stats if you have delved as deeply as me into Ofcom’s August 2014 Communications Market Report.

However, I have delved deep indeed to bring you stats on smartphone usage, public WiFi usage, retailers’ mobile traffic, SMS volume and more.

These stats are UK only, but some of the trends can be extrapolated to other nations. Enjoy!

Paperback vs. ebook: the staging ground for a generational battle

The recent Hachette and Amazon standoff got me thinking again about the e-reader. 

Of all the transformations of physical media to digital, I can’t think of one that has rumbled on and divided audiences like the paperback to ebook. 

Arguably not CD to MP3, maybe because people could still burn CDs from iTunes (the move to subscription music was more gradual) whereas people can’t print their ebooks on a whim. 

Arguably calls to SMS to messaging apps, DVDs to streaming, physical games to computer games, these were easy transitions.

Six inspirational B2B case studies from The Digitals

It’s awards season here at Econsultancy as the entries detailing inspirational case studies from a huge range of companies continue to roll in.

The Digitals 2014 are designed to showcase the finest work from the global digital and ecommerce community, but not just from individuals, we want to put the whole team centre stage in order to celebrate and truly reflect the collaborative culture of our industry.

You have till 24 September 2014 to enter, and in order to give you inspiration for your own entry we’ve rounded up some of the best B2B case studies we received in 2013.

For more advice on how to write your entry, read David Moth’s 10 tips for writing a stand out awards entry for The Digitals.

Would training turn store staff into in-store marketers?

With new technologies like iBeacon, the in-store experience offers a rich seam of customer insight for retailers to mine, but ensuring shop-floor staff are trained to interpret those insights and act more like marketers is vital.

Google drops authorship markup from search results: reaction

Having removed author photos from the SERPs in June, Google has now gone the whole hog and removed authorship altogether.

Under the authorship scheme, writers could add the rel=author markup to their bylines, linking them to Google+ pages.

Indeed, this is probably the only reason why some people joined Google+, as the carrot of improved CTR and perhaps rankings was dangled in front of them. 

Google’s John Mueller gives the reason that this author information wasn’t so useful for users, and even distracted from those results. 

So, what do SEOs think about this decision? Read on to find out… 

What is growth hacking and do you need it?

Just when you think you can know everything there is to know about digital marketing, someone slaps you in the face with a new phrase.

During my first year at Econsultancy I’ve been making a point of writing beginner’s guides to any new terms or phrases I find particularly baffling, or that I might suspect other people may find baffling too. Today I’ll be looking at growth hacking. 

Of course the phrase ‘growth hacking’ isn’t actually that new. 

Let’s check Google Trends for the term. That’s always a fun job…

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