Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Adnan Arnautlija
Ledo is one of the regional companies that has highly successful digital communication. They recently conducted a complete overhaul of their online appearance, they have increased their presence in social networks and turned completely to communication with B2B partners and consumers.
We talked about Ledo’s digital eco-system with Marko Pejnović, digital marketing manager at Ledo.
Media Marketing: In just a few years the Ledo website has become a significant place for finding inspiration and quality content. How did you pull it off?
Marko Pejnović: The key is in extensive research and information in different fields, not only in digital marketing and e-commerce, but also technology, art, economics, pop culture and more. When you determine the movement of macro trends in the world and when you’re on that train, you start to ask yourself what, out of all that, can you use in your business plan, and make concrete steps to improve your business environment. It is important to be well informed, to explore, and then set a strict focus, screen exactly what you need and get rid of all the surplus. This is why we turned off all the mini websites, ten different, distinct brand domains, and ultimately redirected all our users to our “real estate” – the Ledo website. In its ecosystem, with its well-known design and consistent user experience, we provide users with useful information. Along with the new focus we also boosted our SEO juice, and with the frequency of posts we have achieved website vibrancy and provided users with a well-known environment they can easily manage without too much distraction.
We are very pleased with the results, because our research showed that in 2016, 1.2 million people visited www.ledo.hr website, of which 73% of visitors were women. The most common age group was 25-34, followed by 35-44 years. As many as 70% of visitors visits our site on mobile devices, and users mostly view ice creams, read articles, tips and recipes.
Media Marketing: Apart from the Ledo web, which other digital channels do you use to communicate with your consumers?
Marko Pejnović: Apart from the Ledo website, we have the standard social networks, like our Facebook page which has more than 240,000 fans, Instagram with 12,800 followers and the YouTube channel. Ledo as a company is increasingly focusing on the catering industry, so we have quality digital support for the catering segment. The goal is to streamline the ordering process as much as possible and increase sales of Ledo catering products, for which we use the B2B webshop and the B2B newsletter. We have a highly organized and segmented database, we monitor and study the behavior of recipients and customers, and on that basis we form our offer, behavior and upsell.
Media Marketing: Who is working on creating and maintaining Ledo’s digital ecosystem?
Marko Pejnović: We have a small, but efficient and creative team that does most things in-house. We have a wide range of know-how and skills that we improve every day by following communication trends. Even more interesting and challenging for us is creating new trends. We can boast a high degree of freedom, which means that everyday decisions are made quickly, enabling efficiency and the achievement of all set goals.
Media Marketing: What is the process of creating web content in your company?
Marko Pejnović: We have launched a strategic long-term project of content marketing, and we create quick micro content internally and independently. More demanding and serious content is provided through outside production, and we cooperate intensively with the agency Cvoke with which we produce content that provides useful information to our customers. We profiled five blog personas, all defined in detail. On that basis we write articles, formulate sentences and determine the manner of communication. We solve their problems or doubts regarding frozen food and ice creams, we create added value for current and potential customers of our products, we provide entertaining and educational content, because we want visitors to spend as much time as possible with us, and we make short and simple “how to” video clips. All this makes our customers, or more precisely our readers, think about our product with positive connotations, and this newly created connection results in increased sales.
The results showed that our ROI on content marketing is over 51% according to the formula of David Meerman Scott. What we appreciate more than the number of individual visitors is the time they spend on the site, the percentage of scrolls, the percentage of exits and the bounce rate, which tell us in detail how successfully we have turned the number of visits, or quantity, into quality. The structure of the visits has showed that over 69% of our visits come from search, the vast majority of which is organic. So, this is the highest possible quality of visit structure. It proves that investing in the production of high-quality how-to content pays off better than the usual investment in media buying.
The best example of this are the campaigns “Fish 2x a week”, because during the year and a half of the campaign we had an increase in consumption of fish, and the “Vegetable preserves the best” campaign in which research was conducted with nutritionists and in the markets, in order to make a clear and simple presentation of the advantages and benefits of freshly frozen vegetables, compared with fresh vegetables that stand for days in the refrigerator.
Media Marketing: How do you reach your audience? What’s the key to quality reach?
Marko Pejnović: Honestly, anyone can have a good reach if they invest enough resources, but we are really not interested in that too much. We need the reach only for a healthy pool of people who are most likely to respond, and only then does the real story of courting visitors and providing the right information and values begin.
We study, correct, optimize. We probably aren’t among the more popular people in the agency for media buy, because we constantly call them for optimization, corrections and fine tuning. Over several years of systematic work, we now get most traffic from organic search, and we use AdWords and Social as additional support. We also like to make excursions into real native, so we were among the first to recognize the potential of the News bar, with whom we have been collaborating on the wildest sketches for three years now.
Media Marketing: In your campaigns you often collaborate with readers. Can you single out some positive examples of campaigns in which you directly cooperate with them?
Marko Pejnović: It’s about giving voice to consumers and their desires, which are extremely important to us. We investigated consumer preferences in the retro campaign Bringing back the old Ledo ice cream in 2015, where out of a choice of three ice creams, users chose the legendary Silk Milk to be brought back into production, with a whopping majority of 79%, which generated great excitement. Ledonardo also had a great response, so we ran that campaign for three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2014, and each year we had more visitors and more ice cream created by consumers. That was also the main KPI, more than 200,000 ice creams created in 2014. In addition to online, it is important to note that during all three years consumers embraced the winning ice creams in the market as well, which was a double win for the digital campaigns. It is important to point out that we continuously conduct online market research and examine consumer attitudes towards our products.
Media Marketing: You are the third brand in Croatia when it comes to the number of views on YouTube. How do you reach your audience on this channel?
Marko Pejnović: We achieve this through a combination of archival materials, new videos and how-to content, but also by continuously publishing content. To a lesser extent we use YouTube advertising for the initial push. I’m always happy when our how-to tips have 70% of hits obtained through YouTube search, which as we know is the second largest search engine in the world.
Media Marketing: The future of Ledo digital?
Marko Pejnović: In the future, we see a great opportunity for advancement in an even better relationship with business partners, customers and fans. Ledo has recently introduced a CRM system that will allow monitoring the lifecycle of customers and consumers, and monitoring their queries on all channels, whether they come by phone, mail or through social networks. Today’s consumers are increasingly informed and keep an eye on their health and the quality of their diet, and because of the fast pace of life they are also looking for quick solutions, which is exactly what we are focused on. We are also considering a large new wave of AI, chatbots, emotion recognition, adapting offers and campaigns in real time. We strive to develop future-forward creative projects, because the environment is dynamic and change happens fast.