Make It Rain wins Shaun Leane SEO Account
3 September 2010, London
Shaun Leane, UK Jewellery Designer of the Year for the fourth year running, has appointed Make It Rain, the search and social specialist as its SEO agency to support the launch of the celebrity jeweller’s first e-commerce store.
The London-based designer is well known in celebrity circles for his catwalk collaborations with Alexander McQueen and creating bespoke jewellery pieces for Sarah Jessica Parker and Daphne Guinness which have graced the pages of Tatler, Vanity Fair and Vogue.com. The recent launch of shaunleaneshop.com is part of the brand’s web strategy to bring a new range of fine Shaun Leane jewellery to discerning consumers around the world.
Make It Rain landed the SEO account for both shaunleane.com and shaunleaneshop.com following a competitive pitch process. Make It Rain’s expertise in developing online strategy for premium and luxury brands won the brief to build the brand online beyond bespoke commissions, reach a wider audience and to improve the efficiency of its web campaigns through SEO.
Shaun Leane, UK Jewellery Designer of the Year 2010 comments:
“The opening of our online shop represents a great opportunity for our brand as we look to grow our audience, but it’s absolutely critical that we maintain the reputation we’ve earned offline for high-craftsmanship and premium pieces in the online world. Our SEO strategy has to deliver results sensitively for our business and brand and we believe Make It Rain is the most specialised agency at working with high end brands to deliver this on our behalf.”
Justin Hayward, Managing Director at Make It Rain comments:
“Shaun Leane is a talented designer with a niche following of high-net worth clientele. Our expertise in working with premium brands means that the SEO strategy we adopt will ensure the brand maintains its integrity online whilst delivering access to new audiences and new customers.”
Burgess builds business and brand value through SEO
Burgess, the superyacht industry leader, has climbed into the top five Google rankings in just two months, following its appointment of Make It Rain. Burgess has also already seen an increase of 43% in search visits year-on-year since the campaign began in May this year.
Burgess specialises in the sale & purchase, charter, new construction and operational management of yachts over 40 metres and its discerning customers are increasingly using the internet to connect with ultra-exclusive brands. Make It Rain’s brief is to build long-term online brand value and awareness for Burgess through an integrated PPC, SEO and Social campaign that in turn drives business value.
In addition to increasing click-throughs from organic search listings and PPC, Make It Rain is also undertaking a strategic link-building campaign with luxury sites and social channels to support SEO and build a strong foundation for future social media activity.
Justin Hayward, managing director at Make It Rain comments: “Burgess is already the market leader for superyachts and our brief is to enable the brand to achieve the same status in online share. Luxury sector and premium brands are our speciality and we have a great track record in enabling market leaders to outperform their competitors through search and social.”
Lucy Thornton, marketing manager at Burgess comments: “Our brand attracts a select group of international clients that are increasingly searching online for specific, luxury goods and services. It’s critical that they are able to locate us quickly and easily within their search category and Make It Rain is working in close collaboration with us to engage and capture all available traffic through search. We’re really pleased with the SEO results to date and looking forward to expanding the breadth of our online activity to focus on establishing Burgess as the number one superyacht brand for online share in the longer term.”
ThirdForce appoints Make it Rain as sole search marketing agency
Make it Rain has been appointed by ThirdForce, the UK’s leading e-learning provider, to provide all Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) services.
Elaine Kauder, marketing manager of ThirdForce, comments: “The recent dramatic advances in technology and the usage of the Internet, both in the home and on the move, demonstrate the importance of our company’s presence on the World Wide Web. We were looking for an experienced organisation that could deliver an immediate, measurable and cost effective online marketing strategy. We look forward to a fruitful relationship with the team.”
Justin Hayward, managing director of Make it Rain, explains: “As a leader in its field, ThirdForce’s training portfolio reaches a range of sectors, and so, we look forward to implementing an array of innovative online campaigns.”
ThirdForce is an established provider of technology enabled learning solutions and services deployed in more than 30 countries. Working with over 2,500 customers across all major industries, our e-learning and e-assessment solutions have reached over 17 million learners.
SMX London 2010 | Day 2 Highlights | Part 2
My favourite session of SMX London Day 2 was “Social Media: Give It Up!” (your best tips, not the channel!) featuring Kevin Ryan (Motivity Marketing) as moderator with speakers: Chris Bennett (97th Floor), Parks Blackwell (Range Online Media) and Melissa Campbell (Distilled).
Chris kicked off proceedings and outlined the benefits of using infographics for viral marketing/link bait. He said that marketers get hung up on text and video but infographics can be incredibly successful. One piece they created was featured in the national press and generated 30,000+ completely natural backlinks. Another good point Chris made was that virals like these create a link profile that can never be 100% replicated. He recommended submitting pieces to Stumble Upon, Digg and Twitter.
He also recommended offering to provide guest virals to high profile content sites. They are often glad for the user engagement these pieces provide and will gladly provide a followed link.
He validated what had been mentioned by Rob Kerry (Ayima) on Day 1: cross domain 301s don’t seem to be passing the authority they once did. I’m not 100% convinced on this one myself – I have data which suggests otherwise – but the effects may be more pronounced in particular sectors.
His other top tip was keeping a rolodex of Social Media users who regularly link to or promote your content. That way you can build reaching out to them into your comms plan.
Next up was Parks Blackwell who took us through her approach to Social Media strategy and engagement. Said there was real value, particularly for luxury brands, in reaching our personally to disgruntled customers. This can be prefaced online with a simple : “Sorry to hear that, somebody will contact you directly to help resolve this.”
She also recommended having a variation on strategy for each channel : “Twitter is its own beast.” Amen to that.
I also liked her tip to look within for your social media coordinator. A good customer service rep who is au fait with social channels can make a scalable difference to customer sentiment online in comparison to fielding calls and enjoy themselves doing so. A win-win situation.
Melissa Campbell was up next and took us through some of the salient points from UK legislation applicable to Social Media marketing. This included the much maligned Digital Economy Act. She said impersonating a consumer was a big legal no-no and could lead to high profile embarassment. She did state however that while some of the approaches you take may trangsress the boundaries, the biggest risk comes from causing offence. As, if your activities are reported to the industry body you are likely to be investigated and the full scale of any transgressions will be uncovered. So behave yourselves out there!
Melissa had some issues with her PPT which interrupted her flow, so in the interests of fairness here’s a link to it.
Kevin Ryan threw some contrary statements into the mix to close matters, asking the panel to prove the improvement to a company’s bottom line or conversely the opportunity cost (to C-level executives) of doing nothing. Chris et al mentioned improved natural rankings leading to increased revenue as an ROI. I would add the potential to retain customers who are openly declaring: ‘about to cancel my subscription’ or ‘at the end of my tether’ as something very measurable.
So, that was it for “Social Media: Give It Up!”, a practical and informative session with Chris Bennett’s talk the undoubted highlight.
SMX London 2010 | Day 2 Highlights | Part 1
Bullseye – Reaching Your Ultimate Consumer was the 1st session for us on Tuesday.
Eli Goodman, Comscore was up first and took us through a whole heap of stats, worthy of note was the data on European search usage – Spain up over 50% YonY to March 2010, showing that the market is really maturing, men aged 25-44 were said to be the largest group in that country. Interestingly the UK has the highest number of searches per searcher indicating a high level of sophistication and the importance of understanding your user’s click paths.
Martijn Bertisen of Google was up next and spoke about real-time insights – Google tools include: YouTube Insights, Insights for Search, Keyword Tool, AdPlanner, Search Options and Insights for Audiences (coming soon). Really plugged Wonder Wheel – understand how Google view topics semantically, the related synonyms and sub-topics. It really helps with keyword targeting and understanding searcher behaviour he said.
Moved on to AdPlanner – you can segment by ‘keywords your audience searches for’ and then your target demographics. This allows you to see the sites where individuals with the desired intent are likely to spend their time.
Josh Smith from facebook: facebook’s reach is akin to a major television show. Advertisers can target by keywords in status updates – ‘looking for holiday’, a new gym etc. facebook holds this data for 30 days for adtargeting or you’re tagged with that keyword for 30 days, it wasn’t clear which.
He said it’s important to think about personas – a company targeting young men from market towns who like to fight targeted users with mispellings in their profiles – controversial but true. And it worked!
Robert Barnard from Decode up next and said that 35% of Generation Y (15-29) have less than 10 online friends they interact with regularly, despite the received wisdom to the contrary. He showed an interesting chart showing that for Generation Y the number of online friends dips when they become young couples and rises again considerably when they become young parents.
He also said that we need to understand online behaviour in terms of stunts vs. sustainability, your 1 hit YouTube wonders like OK Go (little commercial success) vs. Lady Gaga (phenomenal brand).
Those were the main takeaways from the session for me. It was kind of insightful but fairly basic. Luckily there was much more meaty stuff to come later in the day so stay tuned for more filleted chunks.
Superyacht Brand Burgess appoints Make It Rain
We’re really excited to win another prestigious client!
Burgess has appointed Make It Rain as its sole search agency to provide all PPC and SEO services.
Burgess is the superyacht industry leader with 9 global offices including Monaco, Miami and New York, uniquely specializing in yachts of over 40 metres. Burgess guides it clients through every aspect of the yachting experience including sale and purchase, new construction, management and charter.
With a noticeable shift from traditional industry channels, Burgess are placing increased emphasis on search engine optimization and pay per click in 2010 following a recently refreshed website. Lucy Thornton of Burgess said “We had great chemistry with the team at Make It Rain and were impressed by their understanding and integrated approach to search marketing.”
Make It Rain Managing Director, Justin Hayward said “ Burgess is a premium luxury brand and the leader in its field. We’re excited to be chosen as their online partner, which reflects our agency focus of working with best of breed brands. We’re delighted to be working with them in 2010.”
About Burgess
Founded in 1975 with 9 offices globally, Burgess is the superyacht industry leader. Burgess has been involved in the sale of many of the most significant yachts afloat, while their new construction division is currently managing the build and development of a diverse range of superyachts. Burgess’ first-class charter service offers a portfolio of the finest yachts in the best cruising destinations around the world. The superyacht credentials of Burgess are unmatched in the industry, ensuring that clients enjoy the highest level of customer service.
Make It Rain wins Best Western Hotels Search Account
We’re excited to announce that hotel brand Best Western has appointed Make It Rain as its search agency following a competitive three-way pitch including incumbent Bigmouthmedia and Greenlight. Make It Rain will provide all PPC and SEO services to Best Western Hotels.
Best Western are placing particular focus on pay per click and search engine optimization in 2010 with the imminent launch of a completely new and re-vamped website. Jason Munslow, Interim Head of Ecommerce and Distribution for Best Western commented “Make It Rain showed great understanding of our brand and the travel sector and we believe they are the right agency to maximize our competitiveness against the many aggregators and other hotel chains”
Make It Rain Managing Director, Justin Hayward said “ Best Western is a great brand with huge potential to increase market share by advancing their search marketing. We’re delighted to be working with them in 2010.”
About Best Western
Best Western is the largest group of independently owned and managed hotels in the UK and worldwide. Member hotels maintain their independence, charm and personality, while benefiting from being part of the Best Western brand. Hotels benefit from sales and marketing activity available to them by joining with like-minded independent hoteliers.
Econsultancy SEO Buyers Guide 2009
A starting point for many clients for choosing a prospective SEO agency has become the Econsultancy SEO buyers guides.
These are extremely useful as a quick side by side check for working out which agency would suit your project and culture best without getting them all into pitch.
This edition has 31 suppliers and we’re happy to be included as a featured supplier. It makes for some very useful reading if you’re thinking about your next SEO partner, so go and check it out.