Helen Rapp

Digital marketing, mobile, social

Helen Rapp header image 1

Finding the best solution: Motors.co.uk

January 17th, 2011 · work

As part of my role at motors.co.uk I looked after the car search on 40 Northcliffe local newspaper websites. In early 2009, we did a deal to power the car search of another four local newspaper groups, adding a considerable number of extra sites.

I needed to find the most beneficial way to deliver a used car search for each of the new sites. Just linking through to the main motors.co.uk site wasn’t an option as the newspaper groups all wanted a proper, co-branded search experience, and it had to go live fast. This meant it had to be easy for us to build and really easy for the newspaper web teams to implement. An added complication was that the space available was fixed, and was different for each group.

Reading Chronicle car search

I came up with a way for us to only produce one version of the search menu and only four different templates. When the user clicked search, they were taken through to the main motors.co.uk site with a parameter tagged to the end of the url which allowed us to display the newspaper logo and change the default postcode, giving the impression of a local experience. To make the most of all these new newspaper links to the main site, I had the developers add an extra field for a text link, with the ability to change the anchor text without needing resource on the newspaper’s side.

All the newspaper sites went live on time, despite exceptionally tight deadlines, and although most of the technology behind motors.co.uk has changed since I left, the solution is still in place.

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Extreme segmentation: Orange games

January 16th, 2011 · work

Segmentation on the Orange games pageContent selected to suit user profiles and buying habits. New games launched twice-weekly.

Over 400 page variations based on customer profile, sex and handset.

Launches communicated to registered users through weekly, personalised SMS messages and through social media.

Most profitable customer segments prioritised.

Generated over £8m/year

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User experience: motors.co.uk search results redesign

January 16th, 2011 · work

As a classifieds site, it was vital that the car search facility and search results on motors.co.uk were as effective as possible at prompting clickthroughs to car details pages and generating enquiries to dealers.

During Autumn 2008, I started looking in detail at how the motors.co.uk search menu could be improved. I undertook on-site user research and found that many users were dissatisfied with the level of detail they could go into with their searches.

Most of the negative responses were from users dissatisfied with our search options:

“Did not find what I was looking for, a few more search options would improve the site Age Range, Model Spec Number of doors would help a lot”

“I could choose most options but choosing more would have shortened my search.”

“Would have found it easier to search all manufacturer within price range rather than individually”

I worked with the design and development agencies to make some overlooked options more prominent and added new options that users had requested. The changes were met with an immediate and positive response from users and we saw a small increase in calls to dealers.

Following on from the refresh of the search menu, during the  spring of 2009, I led a project to improve the user experience of the search results.

After looking at heatmap data (generated by Crazy Egg) and researching best practice from competitors and other classifieds sites in other verticals (e.g. property, jobs) I came up with a design that gave users the information they needed more quickly and produced more enquiries to dealers.

Old search result

Motors.co.uk old search result

Revised search result

Motors.co.uk revised search result

As a result of these changes, calls to dealers increased significantly and users taking part in the on-site survey reported greater satisfaction when using the site.

“Very easy to set up your search for the price range and cars you are interested in”

“It found relevant results and displayed them logically”

“The search engine was very helpful and I found what I was looking for very quickly”

“I’m really impressed at how good your website is and how all the info is so easy to get”

“Very easy to use, very informative. Excellent”

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Social media: motors.co.uk

January 16th, 2011 · work

While at motors.co.uk I launched social media presences for the brand on YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.

Motors.co.uk YouTube channel

We were already producing a considerable amount of video content for the site so it made sense to push the same content out to YouTube.

Our YouTube presence both boosted motors.co.uk’s overall search engine rankings and gave us the opportunity to be seen by car buyers right at the start of the consideration process when video reviews are of particular interest. In order to improve the brand experience I negotiated Partner status with YouTube. By March 2010, our YouTube videos had had over 1 million views – over 10x more than AutoTrader.co.uk’s channel.

Motors.co.uk Twitter profile

Our Twitter presence was intended to be as useful for car dealers as it was for consumers. I posted interesting editorial content from the site, responded to car dealers’ enquiries and monitored mentions of both motors.co.uk and competitor brands. While Twitter was primarily a brand engagement tool, it also generated acquisition of both car dealer clients and consumers selling their cars privately.

Motors.co.uk on Flickr

Flickr was used as a public image repository. During 2008-2010, the motors.co.uk Big Blue Wheel toured shopping centres. Local people would have their photo taken with the Wheel and then voted online for the person who would become the face of motors.co.uk in their area.

We needed a web gallery solution quickly to allow participants to view the photos and vote for their favourite. Rather than taking resource away from core projects, I found a gallery generator using the Flickr API, uploaded the photos to Flickr and added the gallery code to WordPress pages.

On leaving motors.co.uk, I trained the editors and my marketing colleagues in the use of social media, including how best to engage with followers and when to respond to mentions of the brand.

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Microcopy

January 28th, 2010 · web

Microcopy on Twitter

I’m a huge fan of microcopy for providing useful inline help for users, reducing perceived risk and subtly giving a website personality. For the last few months I’ve been collecting nice examples and uploading them to this Flickr group.

It’s not surprising that most of the examples are from social networking sites, web apps and ecommerce sites. It’d be great to see more sites taking advantage of microcopy to improve their interactions with users.

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