Weeknotes #38

What happened this week…

  • Went to the Dotmailer Email Automation Workshop.
  • Finished the competitor analysis presentation for the Ecommerce Working Group.
  • Set up the new ‘Holding Hands’ pin badges.
  • Ordered some wedding favours from other charities.
  • Set up our new ‘Vintage Romance’ range of weddings favours.
  • Set up Defibrillator Signs and Posters for download and pre-order.
  • Went to the RMSP Project Team Kick-off meeting.
  • Began arranging banners for Events sign-up pages on the main website to tell people about the Online Shop.
  • Investigated how to improve advertising for of Fascinators range.
  • Met with Retail Customer Services to talk about bringing them on to Freshdesk.
  • Created the Dechox Customer Survey to learn what products people want next year.
  • Met with the EPOS Projects Team to talk about automating Returns and Refunds processing.
  • Met with the Retail Marketing Team to take about plans for the Love Notes campaign.
  • Met with our Finance Business Partner to begin to unpick the inaccuracies in our reporting.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Launching new Defibrillator Posters and Signs.
  • Following-up on the processes for data transfer between systems for reporting.
  • Meeting with the Social Media Team to arrange a ‘Name our teddy bear’ competition.
  • Starting to use SessionCam to understand the behaviour of visitors to the Online Shop.
  • Launching the new ‘Vintage Romance’ range of wedding favours.
  • Discussing the next phase of using Trustpilot to collect customer reviews.
  • Discussing how to improve our event’s marketing.
  • Developing Customer Personas.
  • Learning more about the AGR system.
  • Setting up advertising for new wedding’s range.
  • Presenting to the Ecommerce Working Group.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • For desktop visitor on the home page, the main banner gets 10% of the clicks, the tiles get between 1.7% (London to Brighton) and 4.95% (Gifts from the Heart). For mobile visitors, the main banner drops to 2%, the Search button gets the most clicks at 15%.

In the not too distant future….

  • The rebirth of the Midas Fix Project.

Weeknotes #37

What happened this week…

  • Arranged a meeting with Topman to learn how they use Qubit and added to our plan for using Qubit.
  • Worked with the My Marathon team to promote merchandise.
  • Updated the projects roadmap for May to October.
  • Switched off advertising for Wedding Favours to save budget whilst we wait for stock.
  • Delivered training to some of the Customer Support Centre team in how to use Freshdesk and what our next steps with the trial are.
  • Wrote the presentation for the Ecommerce Working Group comparing charity ecommerce websites.
  • Clarified some of the marketing plan for Wear It Beat It.
  • Wrote a wrap-up report on the performance of Dechox this year.
  • Had the Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting to discuss barriers and challenges to us achieving our targets this year, and to look at the presentation for the Ecommerce Working Group.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Going to the Dotmailer Automation Workshop to look at ways of using automated emails.
  • Catching up with the current improvements to Magento.
  • Working with the Events teams to promote the Online Shop.
  • Launching the new wedding favours range.
  • Planning some organic social marketing tests.
  • Working on our Personalisation and Testing plan.
  • Doing some events based advertising.
  • Meeting with our Finance Team to begin to improve our reporting.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Comparing the 1st Jan to 20th April 2017 to 2016 we see a 24% increase in Sessions and a 30% increase in Users, but the interesting thing is the increased diversity of where the traffic is coming from; Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, referrals from wedding sites and lots of other websites.

In the not too distant future….

  • How to get more donations through the Online Shop.

Weeknotes #36

What happened this week…

  • Reviewed the performance of our advertising.
  • Improved the product photos for the range of fascinators.
  • Analysed of clothing sales and made recommendations for product development for this year.
  • Signed up for Just Walk to better understand the customer journey.
  • Began optimising category pages for Events.
  • Finalised the new transactional email templates.
  • Replied to some interesting customer service emails.
  • Worked on our Competitor Analysis presentation for the Ecommerce Working Group.
  • Wrote the agenda for the Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Adding more links to the main website.
  • Reviewing the current round of Magento development work.
  • Teaching the CSC Team how to use Freshdesk.
  • Holding the Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting for April where we’ll be discussing our presentation to the Ecommerce Working Group.
  • Meeting with the current/third WIBI Marketing Manager to talk about integrating our marketing efforts.
  • Working on a Testing Plan for Qubit.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Our top ten selling items of clothing (men’s cycling jerseys and women’s hoodies) are only 4.7% of the clothing we offer, but account for 22.2% of income.

In the not too distant future….

  • Email automation workshop with Dotmailer to look at opportunities for improving our email journeys.

Weeknotes #35

What happened this week…

  • Finalised our targets for this year.
  • Began advertising Fascinators.
  • Attended Catalysts of Change and heard how companies like Topman are using personalisation.
  • Attended Internet Retailing Expo and heard what John Lewis have learned about mobile shopping.
  • Organic posts to BHF Events on Facebook.Started our product development plan for clothing.
  • Set up the Silver Pulse Line Pin Badge to take back-orders.
  • Produced the Online Shop Annual Analysis Report for 16/17.
  • Had another weddings photo shoot to get better images of our Fascinators.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Setting up Google Ads for ‘Charity wedding favours’.
  • Finalising the transactional email templates.
  • Arranging to visit Topman to learn how they are using Qubit to personalise their website.
  • Writing our strategy and plan for personalisation and optimising customer journeys so that we know how we’re going to use Qubit.
  • Adding links to the main website to drive more and better traffic to the Online Shop.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Over the last twelve months, we had 373,500 visitors, 44% of which left the site without looking at a second page, which leaves 250,500 visitors. Of those, 11,815 placed an order. That means 238,685 visitors (potential customers) didn’t find anything they wanted to buy

In the not too distant future….

  • The personalisation and optimisation of the Online Shop.

Weeknotes #34

What happened this week…

  • Lots of analysis of sales, orders, units, returns, refunds, categories, departments and stock from the past twelve months to understand the ecommerce performance.
  • Met with Community Fundraising to talk about working together on the Pedometer Challenge programme to sell more pedometers, and the Celebrations site to create a more cohesive offering for our weddings business.
  • Started talking about using Qubit for personalising and optimsing links between the main website and the Online Shop, including some quick wins of showing related merchandise on event sign-up confirmation pages.
  • Worked with the PR team to develop a case study around a supporter using our wedding favours at their wedding.
  • Set up Facebook advertising for the Online Shop to drive more potential customers.
  • The Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting where we discussed the projects roadmap and agreed our strategic priorities for the next twelve months.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Our Facebook advertising is going live to target potential wedding favours customers.
  • Arranging finance transfers to give the Fundraising Team the money we made for them.
  • Analysing the past year’s performance data for the Online Shop.
  • Going to the ‘Catalysts of Change’ retail technology event to learn more about how to use Qubit for personalisation.
  • Attending the Internet Retailing Conference to find out what’s new in the ecommerce industry.
  • More photos of our range of Fascinators.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Comparing March 2017 with March 2016, we’re 5% up on Sales, 2% down on Orders, and 48% up on Units.

In the not too distant future….

  • Annual report of the performance of the Online Shop.

Weeknotes #33

What happened this week…

  • Tested Instagram and Facebook ads for Wedding Favours.
  • Launched Fascinators, Men’s accessories and Evening Bags on the Online Shop.
  • Updated our Email Communications Plan.
  • Had another weddings photo shoot.
  • Reviewed our new transactional email templates.
  • Started analysing sales data for the previous year.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Setting up advertising campaign.
  • Documenting drop-ship processes for RMSP.
  • Discussing the challenges of ecommerce reporting to the Finance Team.
  • Reviewing our Roadmap for April.
  • Analysing and reporting on the Gifts From The Heart range sales.
  • Working with the Events Team to raise awareness of the Online Shop.
  • Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting.
  • Meeting with Community Fundraising to discuss the Pedometer Challenge.
  • Meeting with the Digital Optimisation Analyst to discuss how to use Qubit to personalise user journeys on the Online Shop.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Of 525 products that sold on the Online Shop over the last twelve months the highest volume ten lines accounted for 51% of the total volume.

In the not too distant future….

  • Going to the Internet Retailing Expo.

Weeknotes #32

What happened this week…

  • Confirmed our advertising budget plan for next year.
  • Started building the integration between Magento and Dotmailer to automate sending emails to customer.
  • Designing banners for My Marathon.
  • Planned lots of development work for Magento.
  • Working with the Events Marketing Teams to promoting the Online Shop to event participants.
  • Began testing advertising for wedding favours.
  • Investigated issues with Amazon payments.
  • Had a really good wedding favours photo shoot.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Product Development planning meetings for the weddings range.
  • Developing our product range strategy.
  • Building automated email journeys in Dotmailer.
  • Confirming our new transactional email templates.
  • Launching fascinators on the Online Shop.
  • More work with the Events Marketing team to integrate event sign-ups with advertising.
  • Doing some work on our competitor analysis.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Comparing the last seven days with the same time last year, the number of users was up 17%, pageviews up 69%, time on the site up 30%, and bounce rate down 5.6%.

In the not too distant future….

  • Our plan for driving growth in 2017/18.

Weeknotes #31

What happened this week…

  • Sent marketing emails to BHF Supporters to promote our Gifts From The Heart range for Mother’s day.
  • Met with the PS&S Team about moving Publications to the Online Shop.
  • Set traffic targets as part of our KPI’s and Reporting for next year.
  • Planned testing for our Weddings proposition.
  • Started to explore who data flows for Ecommerce Finance Reporting.
  • Had our first Ecommerce Product Development meeting to begin to shape the offering for the Online Shop in a broader way.
  • Began planning our advertising budget for next year.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • A photo shoot of our wedding products.
  • Finalising our advertising spend for next year.Making improvements in Magento to provide our customers with a better experience.
  • Building our plan for product range development.
  • Adding more links to the main website to build awareness of the Online Shop among  the core supporter segment.
  • Working with the Events Marketing Teams to promote Online Shop products to event participants.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • The best selling item of clothing this year was the Women’s Branded Hoodie selling 167 units across four sizes

In the not too distant future….

  • A new range of wedding products.

Weeknotes #30

What happened this week…

  • Wrote the Ecommerce Success Criteria for the ongoing trial of Freshdesk and delivered some introductory training.
  • Designed all of the new transactional email templates.
  • Set up Low Stock Notification emails for the Gifts From The Heart range.
  • Designed the email for the Gifts From The Heart range. 
  • Went to the Digital and Customer Experience Away Day.
  • Started talking about having Publications on the Online Shop.
  • Wrote requirements for changes to Downloadable Products on Magento.
  • Met with our Logistics company.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Discussing expanding our range of Wedding products.
  • Shifting focus on the Online Shop from Dechox to MyMarathon.
  • Sending emails to thousands of people about the Gifts From The Heart range.
  • Setting up Freshdesk for Ecommerce.
  • Product Development session to discuss introducing new products for the Online Shop.
  • Discussing having publications on the Online Shop.
  • Working on the integration between Magento and Dotmailer.
  • Testing Digital Pop-up Shop by taking payments and placing orders.
  • Planning the advertising tests for Wedding product development.
  • Setting traffic KPI’s for the Online Shop.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • The New Visitor/Returning Visitor split for Converters is 50/50. This means that half of the people that place orders do so on their first visit and half come back for further visits before placing an order.

In the not too distant future….

  • A Returns and Refunds control centre in Magento

Weeknotes #29

What happened this week…

  • Thought about RMSP reporting.
  • Added product filters to the Cards pages to help customers find the right card for them.
  • SiteCore Training and Facebook Advertising Training so we can be more self-sufficient in our marketing.
  • Marketing Planning for email, social, and advertising for campaigns, events and weddings.
  • Qubit Training to learn about our new personalisation and behavioural targeting system.
  • Ecommerce Monthly Management Meeting to talk about projects, challenges, objectives, marketing, and vision.

Read this week…

Doing next week…

  • Getting ready to push MyMarathon.
  • Planning a Wedding Favours photo shoot.
  • Working with the Running and Walking Events teams to feature the Online Shop in their customer journeys.
  • Planning Social Media Marketing and Advertising.
  • Sending our Mother’s Day email to promote our range of gifts for Mother’s day.
  • Going to the Marketing & Engagement Directorate Away Day.Setting up lots of links to the main website to test assumptions about customer journeys and how to improve experience.
  • Meeting with our Logistics company.

Interesting stat of the week…

  • Dechox Sales over January and February this year are 51% up on the same period last year.

In the not too distant future….

  • Digitising pop-up shops.