Marketing and eCommerce
This year our strategy continues to focus on driving customer response through our online platforms, whilst keeping the customer at the heart of the business.
Our YouGov surveys, which we have commissioned every year for the last seven years allow us to monitor our brand awareness. Our most recent survey conducted in April 2013 used a larger, more statistically robust sample size of 1,312 respondents in London and 2,149 for the rest of the UK. The survey showed our prompted awareness to be at 80% in London and 41% for the rest of the UK, both nearly three times the level of our nearest competitor.
For unprompted brand awareness, our recall in London was 55%, and 20% for the rest of the UK, both of which are over six times higher than our nearest competitor. These surveys continue to prove we are the UK’s brand leader in self storage, (Source: YouGov, April 2013).
Online
The website continues to grow in strength, with online prospects now accounting for 83% of all sales leads where details are first recorded on our operating system. Telephone is the first point of contact for 10% of prospects and walk-in enquiries, where we have had no previous contact with a prospect, represent 7%.
We have by far the largest online market share of web visits to all self storage company websites in the UK. In April 2013, our online market share of web visits was at 38.7% and the next nearest competitor was at 14.5% (source: Experian Hitwise).
The Big Yellow website continues to evolve and we are constantly improving the user journey and prospect conversion throughout the site. Web analytics allow us to remove barriers to conversion in the web journey and to test new web page designs which can help increase conversion.
Mobile
Web traffic from mobile devices accounted for 35% of our total web visits in March 2013. This is a significant increase from 19% in March 2012. Mobile devices include both smart phones and the growing use of tablets and we ensure our website and email communications are optimised for all of these devices.
Green Page
We have created a unique, interactive web section which tells the story of our “big green commitment” to our web visitors and existing consumers. This online page, found at bigyellow.co.uk/green, highlights the initiatives we have taken with our buildings and operations to ensure we remain an environmentally sustainable company.
Online customer reviews
Consistent with our strategy of putting the customer at the heart of our business, our online customer reviews generate real-time feedback from customers as well as providing positive word of mouth referral to our web visitors. We ask our new customers to rate our product and service and these reviews are then published on the website.
Although we are currently improving our platform and the process of capturing customer feedback, the customer reviews published on the Big Yellow website to date indicate we are consistently delivering a very high standard of service:
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- over 8,100 reviews have been published
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- over 62% have awarded a score of 5 out of 5
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- our average overall rating is 4.7 out of 5
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- our average customer service score is 4.8 out of 5
In our view, real time customer reviews which have been independently and externally obtained are much more persuasive to prospects than scripted testimonials. In addition, we also gain real time insight from customers who feedback by publishing Google reviews and from monitoring mentions of Big Yellow within the social mediums of Twitter, online forums and blogs. We use this feedback to continually improve our service offering, for example longer opening hours on Sundays. In addition, this programme reinforces best practice in customer service at our stores where customer reviews and mystery shop results are transparently accessible at all levels.
Driving online traffic
Search engines are the most important acquisition tool for us, accounting for 73% of all traffic to the website. We continue to invest in search engine optimisation (“SEO”) techniques both on and off the site. This helps us to maintain our number one positions for the most popular and most searched for terms such as “storage” and “self storage” in the organic listings on Google.
The sponsored search listings remain the largest source of paid for traffic and we ensure our prominence in these listings is balanced with effective landing pages to maximise site conversion.
This year, we have also continued with online display advertising on websites which are contextually and geographically targeted to our core audience groups. This activity performs both a direct response and branding role.
Efficiencies in online spend are continuing into the year ending 31 March 2014, ensuring the return on investment is maximised from all of our different online traffic sources. Online marketing budgets will continue to remain fluid and be directed towards the media with the best return on investment.
Social media
Social media continues to be complementary to our existing marketing channels. With over 23,000 ‘likes’, our Facebook channel allows us to keep engaged with our target audiences, keeping the brand front of mind and allowing a forum for their feedback and dialogue. Twitter is used to get our marketing messages talked about by different audiences and also allows us a further avenue for our customers or prospects to get in contact with us. The Big Yellow You Tube channel is being used to showcase our stores to web prospects through a video store tour. We use both domestic and business versions to help prospects experience the quality of the product without the need for them to visit the store in person.
PR
We have also used PR stories in the year to help raise the awareness of Big Yellow and the benefits of self storage generally. PR surveys and stories based around renting your spare room out during the Olympics, storing fashion collectibles and dealing with house guests at Christmas have allowed us to communicate the virtues of using self storage in an interesting way within press, online media and through radio interviews nationwide.
Sales promotion
We have continued our sales promotion offer throughout the year of “50% off for up to your first 8 weeks storage”. Our Price Promise is also used to match competitor’s prices if the product is comparable. Pricing is dynamically generated and takes into account customer demand and local competition.
Budget
During the year the Group spent approximately £2.8 million on marketing (4.0% of revenue), the same amount as the previous year. We have increased the budget for the year ahead to £3.0 million with a focus on driving our revenue through delivering more prospects to the website.
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