We are pleased to announce that we will be working with leading Care Home Furniture specialist Dayex, to help drive their digital business forward.

Dayex, based in Salisbury, UK, are a market-leader in this growing space, and Regroup will be working on SEO and PPC strategy.

The Dayex web site can be found at http://dayex.co.uk/

We are pleased to announce that we will be working with Experiential agency Kommando in the coming months, to help drive their customer-reach online via SEO.

Kommanda is a fast growing Experience agency with offices in Glasgow and London.

We are happy to announce that we will be working on promoting http://workingforscotland.org/ in the weeks and months leading up to the Scottish Referendum later this year.

Working for Scotland is a collective of businesses and professionals, committed to Scotland staying part of the UK.

Regroup will be overseeing SEO and PPC activity.

We are happy to announce that we have been selected to work with the leading Childrenswear retailer – Trotters – http://www.trotters.co.uk/

Trotters is celebrating its’ 25th anniversary imminently, and to build on this heritage Regroup will be working on developing customer acquisition and engagement strategies online to further establish this distinguished brand online.

We are happy to announce a new client-win; http://www.frombritainwithlove.com/, who sell high quality, all British-made products from around the Isles.

Regroup will be managing PPC and SEO.

This blog post is part of a new series of articles that we will be publishing on an ongoing basis, showing Western Brands succeeding in terms of digital marketing initiatives targeting a Chinese audience.

The first in this series shows how Harrods are capturing the Chinese market via digital channels:-

i). Sina Weibo
Harrods is currently active in engaging with a Chinese audience on Social Media channels.

For instance:-
In the run-up to Christmas last year, Harrods launched its Harrods Christmas Treasure Hunt campaign on Sina Weibo, targeting in-store Chinese tourists. The campaign involved their iconic green men hiding three Christmas gifts around the store labelled with the Sina Weibo logo. With the help of a printed Chinese-language store guide, Weibo fans and store visitors were tasked with finding each of the three locations in-store to then upload photos of themselves with the Christmas presents.

One winner was chosen to receive all three luxury gifts: a Harrods Steiff bear, a bottle of Laurent-Perrier Champagne, and an Aspinal of London luxury leather travel collection specially monogrammed with the initials of the winner.

The followers were given one clue per day on Harrods Weibo page – http://www.weibo.com/harrodslondon until the winners were selected on Christmas Eve.

Harrods have nearly 40,000 followers on Sina Weibo, and are highly active in engaging with their audience on this channel.

The campaign was aimed at both Chinese visitors to the UK as well as the significant existing UK-based Chinese population and was supported by leading Weibo travel influencers to extend brand awareness to future visitors to the UK.

Harrods is known for its early adoption of Chinese digital marketing tools: it was one of the earliest UK retailers on Weibo, and in September 2013, became the first major UK retailer to launch an official presence on WeChat.

These marketing efforts are likely to be highly beneficial to the retailer: Chinese visitor spending has already grown by 123% this year – and is expected to keep climbing.

ii). WeChat
Harrods was the first UK retailer to establish a presence on WeChat; the Instant messaging service based in China. WeChat has a user-base of over 600 million and growing.

Harrods launched on WeChat at the tail-end of 2013 and used the channel initially to give away prizes to consumers who signed up to chat with the retailer. The prizes were selected from Harrods special-edition Archive Collection.
Each of the items in the Archive Collection had a scannable QR code. Consumers who scanned the icon were brought to the download page of Harrods smartphone application where they were able to view an augmented reality video.
WeChat has a group chat feature prompted by QR codes that bring together multiple consumers who have scanned the same code for a conversation, allowing Harrods to tap into a local discussion.

iii). Mobile Apps
Harrods also recently launched its Harrods magazine and its luxury timepiece magazine iPad application in Mandarin. The apps include interviews with designers, behind-the-scenes content, photo shoots and beauty tips from leading luxury brands.

iv). In-Store Initiatives
To attract Chinese customers, Harrods has recruited over 70 Mandarin speaking in-store staff, produced Mandarin store guides and recently expanded the tax return service space to help Chinese customers process tax return forms.
Recent sales figures show that watches, jewellery, fashion and accessories are most popular with Chinese shoppers at Harrods; hence Harrods has put in considerable efforts to ensure a good portfolio for these sectors, including securing some exclusive items and special edition goods from partner brands.

Details have been announced this week for the Affiliate Management Days taking place on 13-14 May at Chelsea FC, London, UK.

Full details are now available at www.amdays.co.uk. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) commissioned a survey recently on the worth of Affiliate Marketing in the UK, stating that £14 billion in sales was generated via price comparison, voucher, cashback, loyalty and product review websites. It is estimated that on average advertisers get a 14 to 1 ROI from this channel – little wonder it is growing so rapidly.

AM Days London 2014 will focus on key affiliate management techniques. The 2 day event will be headed up by renowned affiliate expert, Geno Prussakov who is already recognised as the ‘go-to’ source of information and inspiration for advertisers, agencies, and affiliate programme managers.

AM Days London 2014 will cover the following topics:-
• Affiliate recruitment techniques
• Communication with affiliates
• Affiliate marketing analytics
• Affiliate marketing fraud
• Role of affiliate networks
• Landing page & conversion optimization
• Compliance policing & enforcement
• Legislative issues & challenges
• Mobile and affiliate marketing
• Tracking & multi-channel attribution

To take advantage of the Super Early Bird Rate and save up to £500, register before 21st February 2014 at www.amdays.co.uk/register

Danny Sullivan, the SMX Chief Content Officer and Editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, will head up the SMX London 2014. Danny is one of the best respected figures in Search Marketing and seldom visits the UK so SMX London 2014 is a rare opportunity to get up close to this search luminary!

“SMX London is an amazingly vibrant event.” Said Danny Sullivan “In 2014, there is so much going on in our space. We will make sure our programme is crammed full of cutting edge, up to the minute, actionable content.”

The full programme is to be released soon and registrations received before 7th February will receive the Super Early Bird rate with £500 off the full rate.
http://searchmarketingexpo.com/london/register

We are happy to announce that we will be working on the SEO push for the launch of the new accounting for contractors web site:- http://www.rbsca-contractors.co.uk providing dedicated accounting services for freelancers, contractors and SMEs.

Regroup were in attendance at the Think Digital event at Google’s European HQ in Dublin last month.

It was a fascinating event, with a number of key takeouts that we thought worth sharing, namely:

• YouTube – Google understandably are banging the YouTube drum currently – the World’s second biggest search engine and social media channel (after the un-named one!).
• The advertising models to reach the YouTube audience are becoming ever more sophisticated and impressive. TrueView ads format is a key focus.
• We found it very interesting how Google reaffirmed the importance of YouTube as a key channel to drive brand search volumes.
• Google+ – Is clearly not going away, despite some commentators suggesting otherwise.
• Google+ is still very much in its’ infancy, but image resolution and hangout are key features being pushed, to eat into the Facebook market share.
• Mobile – One of the opening statements at the event is that mobile and tablet internet usage will overtake desktop by this time next year. A bold statement, and believable too. But highlighted in our mind, how ill-equipped many companies and brands are for the impending dominance of mobile.

All in all a great event, so thank you Google. The Peter Hinnsen presentation was worth the trip alone.

Click here for more information on Google Think Digital :-http://think.events-google.com/