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Brief
Bensons for Beds is the biggest bed specialist in the UK, with over 200 outlets. However, what could have been its largest store – its website www.bensonsforbeds.co.uk – was not realising its potential. In 2007, Bensons had commissioned a supplier to rebuild its site, but the project had run for 12 months and still not gone live. So Bensons decided to find a new digital agency. “We first noticed Coolpink because of the impressive work they had done in designing DFS’ website, which regularly ranks top in Sitemorse’s website benchmarking surveys for the retail sector,” says Simon Williams, Marketing Manager, at Bensons. Therefore, Coolpink was hired to rebuild the site – with the caveat that it had to be completed in 12 weeks, so Bensons could capitalise on its key Christmas trading period.
Strategy
To begin with, Coolpink embarked on re-designing Benson's current website with a key emphasis on usability, improving a falling conversion rate and generating more sales. The company subsequently also planned and managed Benson's online marketing strategy to drive qualified users to their site in line with a set cost per acquisition.
Execution
Coolpink started with small test budgets and worked to tightly defined cost per acquisition (CPA) targets to prove the effectiveness of paid search and online media campaigns, and encourage Bensons to divert money away from other channels like regional press into digital.
Results
Within a month of launch, the new site had demonstrated its worth with a 27 per cent increase in year-on-year January sales. It was an impressive result, given sales from their stores were slightly down on the previous year. It also meant Bensons saw a return on its investment by early 2008.
As a result of the online marketing strategy, 2008 to 2009 figures are showing that sales are up by 22 per cent on the previous year. “In the current retail trading climate, it is even more crucial to squeeze the most value from our marketing spend – and so far, digital has proved to be one of the most accountable and effective in delivering results,” says Williams.
The Bensons website is now its largest ‘store’ and the most profitable. Flushed with success and with more allocated budget from Bensons, Coolpink is currently developing Bensons’ site further after conducting some usability studies and expects it to achieve an additional 20 per cent sales conversion when it launches in Q2.
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