The Case Study
Case Study
New Bond Street Pawnbrokers was founded in 1999 by David Sonnenthal. NBSP provides loans to a high-end clientele using luxury collateral items like classic cars, diamonds or rare books.
In 2018 NBSP parted ways with NBSP’s long term serving digital marketing agency and employed Pufferr to achieve David’s vision of tackling the demographics and customer behaviour challenges by becoming the best and most innovative high-end pawnbroking company online.
The Results
- Website traffic up by 510.38%
- Leads from Google ads up by 93.46%
- SEO traffic up by 129.10%
- Social traffic up by 9359.09%
- NBSP has the highest revenue growth rate in its history
The Research
It was essential that our strategies were dictated by customer behaviour, hence we kicked off the campaign with a comprehensive piece of research including:
- Competitors research: websites, social channels, SEO strategy, Paid Search Strategy and Budgets, test calls, interest rate checks and visiting actual premises
- Conversations with existing and new customers
- Previous two years analytics i.e. traffic, channel mix, market share, conversion rates, demographics to name just a few
- Brainstorming session with the team underlining the brand identity and values of the pawnshop
Findings:
- People are still spending time on Google, but more and more time is being spent on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook or Quora.
- They want things faster and more convenient, no contact forms…Livechat was often mentioned
- 60% of them used voice or owned a voice powered device i.e. Google Assistant on Mobile, Google Home, Alexa
- 40% of them mentioned the dated first impression of the website
The Website
We re-designed the website, tripled its size and re-defined all funnels in line with our new digital strategies, described below. This included creating engaging pages and FAQs for all products, optimized for SEO and Google Ads.
We re-launched the blog with a clear content strategy, also aligning it with our social media strategy.
We employed a professional film crew, rented a luxury mansion, drones and various high-end items (i.e. Andy Warhol paintings, Jaguar car, fine watches) and shoot two professional presentation videos presenting the business and the pawnbroking process.
The Digital Marketing stuff
We reviewed and improved the SEO and Google Ads campaigns
We defined and implemented new website and social content marketing strategy
We launched campaigns on channels untapped by competition i.e. Quora, Facebook, Waze, Twitter and Snapchat ads, Instagram influencers, and Programmatic Display campaigns.
We developed state of art Machine Learning Algorithms (Gradient Boosting Machines, Linear and Deep Learning) to analyse thirteen metrics of website engagement, and fine tuned the SEO and Paid Search strategies.
The Tech
As our social traffic increased we received a large number of messages and lost several leads in the process. In response, we built state of art Facebook and Twitter chatbots.NBSP operates from 10 am – 5 pm. This restricted customers’ ability to get in touch in the evening. In response, we developed a state of art Website Chatbot.
We identified voice search as a future disruptive trend. In response we built a Google Home Action, and an Alexa Skill. We also re-developed NBSP’s mobile app to better align to its brand identity.
The VR App
We believe that Virtual reality has the potential to revolutionize how customers experience brands.
As adoption takes off we decided to take the lead within the industry, and developed a Virtual Reality app, replicating the mobile app funnels.
Of course, launching and evaluating a VR ads campaign is within sight…
The Results
* Website traffic up YOY by 510.38%
* Leads from Google ads improved by 93.46%
* SEO traffic up by 44.88%, social media traffic by 6784.35%
* New visitors improved by 512.20%
Most importantly, as NBSP’s campaigns continue to mature our long-term strategies pay off.
For example, a three months trend shows a significantly higher improvement vs. the YOY improvement i.e. Google ads conversions up 294.81%, click share up 20.53% (while average cost is lower by 81.39%), SEO traffic up 128.93%, social traffic up 9359.09%.
The Awards
National Pawnbroking Association Store of the Year Winner
UKBA Insurance/Banking & Financial Services Award
Drum Awards Winner: Creativity & Innovation, Business Transformation, Best Digital Campaign and Best Use of Technology
….and many more
The Future
We applied for early access to the first blockchain decentralised social media platform, Akasha. We believe that blockchain has the potential to disrupt current social media models and we are keen to explore the opportunity, with a focus on “attention based models”.
We are also developing a Pawnbroking game to further engage our audiences atr different levels within the funnel.
Why Pufferr?
No-nonsense approach
Kick-ass team
Respect
Our Books
