From the category archives:

Work

Go Explore! with Salop Leisure

by positiveadmin on November 15, 2010

Leading touring caravan, motorhome and holiday home firm, Salop Leisure, know how important strategic marketing is to their success. That’s why they appointed Positive Advertising to create a new graphic identity, website and marketing campaign – to ensure they stay ahead of the market. To say that the UK holiday market is continuing to undergo a revolution is, shall we say, an understatement. Any company operating in this sector must ensure that their branding and web presence are carefully targeted to today’s more demanding buyers – who expect the same (or superior) levels of comfort on holiday as they enjoy at home. Frankly, if you’re still aiming for the Captain Scott ‘pluck and hair-shirt’ market – you’ll go under.

The caravan and holiday home market used to be undemanding. Hardy souls would buy a green box with no mod-cons and find a friendly farmer, with a bit of space between the barn and slurry pit, to park it. The ‘van’ would keep out most of the weather, but none of the local wildlife. Electricity was not even an option. A family of eight would be fed from a two-ring gas hob and evenings would be spent playing Cluedo under the dim, hiss-and-reek of gas mantle lights – which at least masked some of the stench from the uncomfortably close chemical toilet.

Then we all went collectively soft. Today, standard features include double glazing, central heating, showers, fully-fitted kitchens, double bedrooms with en-suite facilities, plasma TV and Wi-Fi.

Forget the slurry pit! People expect Capability Brown landscaped gardens, a panorama of pristine beaches, dramatic seascapes and mountains. They want the convenience of on-site shops, clubs, entertainment, heated indoor swimming pools, gym and sauna. Even campers no longer expect to rough it. Clean, heated toilet and shower blocks, laundrettes and even mains power hook-ups for tents are now routinely provided. The days of the hole-in-the-ground toilet, and washing from a standpipe in the middle of a field, are long gone.

Our experience, and research in this sector, revealed a younger, more aspirational, market for caravan holiday homes, luxury lodges, touring caravans and motorhomes – but they are a more demanding segment than old-school owners. Manufacturers and park owners are already responding to this changing clientele by creating innovative new products and leisure solutions. The leading retailers must do the same.

Marketing to a younger, more affluent and demanding, staycation generation is a real challenge. They are more likely to respond to a lifestyle approach of ’selling the dream’, so we put the dream centre stage with our ‘Go Explore!’ theme.  Stylistically, Go Explore!’ is about bold images, clean layouts and accompanying aspirational copy. The idea is to inspire people to discover the magnificence of the countryside – from the historic Heart of England to the sparse and remote Mid Wales landscapes and the dramatic, safe sandy Mid Wales coast.

All marketing activities were re-aligned to work together and deliver clear messages:

  • Lifestyle
  • Freedom
  • Flexible Breaks
  • A simplified ‘Road to Ownership’ and Finance

salop leisure about us page

The tools we chose covered the full range of traditional marketing techniques and all the powerful new online tools. Central to the whole effort is a new website. A clean, and clear, Go Explore! themed design with a powerful suite of back office utilities – designed to help Salop Leisure gather information and stay in touch with their customers.

The website, www.salopleisure.co.uk keeps all the critical content above the fold. Copy is set to a fairly consistent word count and is keyword loaded – but not packed. Naturally our SEO consultants have checked the structure and content to maximise organic search engine ranking. Most of the necessary information is loaded onto specially shot video. This keeps the word count down, maximises user interest and adds a level of interactivity that Google loves so much.

The front end is deliberately not over-designed. However, there are powerful search engines for people to locate used touring caravans, motorhomes and caravan holiday homes. There is a search facility to help people find a holiday home park that matches their needs exactly – from the Heart of England to Mid Wales Inland and Coastal.

Pristine beaches, dramatic seascapes and mountains, slurry pit – it’s all down to individual choice.

{ 1 comment }

New Paycare Website & Branding

by positiveadmin on November 14, 2010

For a few years now, we have been looking at the dated graphic identity of one of our most long-standing and valued clients. Finally we were tasked with rebranding Paycare’s print materials: to redesign layout and content in a more modern and cost-effective manner, in order to improve enquiry to conversion rates. The brief also called for a total website revamp. The original identity was created back in the day when Letraset and ‘camera ready artwork’ (ask your dad) were leaving the building and the exciting world of the Apple Mac came swaggering in through the front door. That must explain why we thought, “wow, look we can put graphics and type together – I know let’s stick a couple of apples onto the new Paycare logo”. What can I say, we were young.

Hindsight is a great thing. Remember when you first started out at work; the keenness, how precious the work was to you? Blood sweat, tears, then more tears. Finally your first successful project is complete. Then, many years later, you come across that early work and cringe in embarrassment at the blindingly obvious errors and ham-fisted techniques employed. It’s been a splinter under our collective skins – but at last we have taken a sterile needle and removed the irritation.

Simplicity
We did what we should have done the first time around – embraced simplicity. We reduced the colour palette and introduced modern typography. We finally got rid of the apples and devised a new strapline – replacing the vague ‘Here to help’ with a more specific ‘Everyday Health Cover since 1874’, with it’s reassurance of experience and tradition. We did not abandon graphics altogether. An apple tree and birds feature as visual signifiers throughout. Each is slightly adapted for the product range, so that the Paycare Family policy features nest-building birds, whilst the over 64s policy (Paycare Gold) features owls in the apple tree.

We re-examined every step in the encounter to conversion process and streamlined all paperwork (and online content) to help get prospective customers onto the road to conversion quickly, reducing the amount of work and number of steps required to get there. We changed paper stock, print processes, layout and folding regimes that added clarity, but saved on production costs.

Changes to the Website
Paycare’s initial website, in line with many at the time, has limited functionality. However, the possibilities to operate as a commercial tool were not as common back in the day. In order to compete, it was vital to rebuild the website around the core points, establishing consistency between print materials and online information.

  • We built in the same step-by-step conversion process as in the printed documentation and made the individual policies an easy to understand process, right through to paying online.
  • We de-cluttered and made sure that the website and print materials were integrated in function, design and appearance.
  • We introduced an intermediary service – giving third parties the opportunity to re-sell Paycare products in return for a commission.

As per usual now, SEO consultants crawled the content; keywords were incorporated rather than packed – so the copy amazingly still makes sense to a human reader. Video has been commissioned to cut down on explanatory copy and show visitors how to claim and download information and forms. The new website will be live before the end of the year.

{ 0 comments }

JT Hughes integrating E-mail Marketing & Landing Pages

by positiveadmin on November 13, 2010

html mailer examples

Not only is email marketing quick, targeted, trackable and extremely cost-effective, but it is supremely good at linking to content-rich and dynamic landing pages – with conversion tracking tools and linked, dedicated and monitored phone lines. This is something that traditional paper marketing and press advertising could not hope to achieve. Take Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and SEAT dealer JT Hughes. It’s traditional for car retailers to offer motorists a ‘Winter Check’ service during the quiet autumn quarter. Until the last few years, we would have created display ads for the local press – and hoped for the best. Now of course our efforts are more targeted. Take a look at how it works.

J T Hughes staff have worked hard, with a little gentle prodding from us, to collect email data from every customer interaction. The result is that we can now reach thousands of interested people through email marketing.

This example is a nice, simple mailer, plugging a Mitsubishi ‘Winter Check’ and MOT offer with clear calls for action. In that it’s no different from a paper mailer – although the downloads are trackable. But look more closely and your will see three new car offers. Each ‘click here’ takes the visitor to a dedicated microsite landing page (see the Targeted Landing Pages article for more information). Here details of the offer are included, together with a JT Hughes test drive video, book-a-test-drive contact page, download a model specific brochure and a link to the new JT Hughes YouTube channel – packed with even more content.

Phone numbers are dedicated, and call monitored, so we can see if there are any problems or weaknesses from the enquiry being received to completion process. Email traffic is tracked and checked. Of course all the stats gathering has another great benefit – it proves to the client exactly how much traffic we generated for them, exclusively though the campaign. Cost to enquiry and cost to conversion are clear. There’s no hiding place, or wriggle room, for either the agency or client.

Integration is the key to success. The result was a record take up of ‘Winter Check’ and an increase in enquiries on the featured models.

{ 0 comments }

Pages: 1 2 3 4 Next