This was achieved by carrying out a content review before coming up with a fresh design supported by a complete copywriting overhaul, ensuring that the website articulated the key services and company values of Multifurnish with precision. Our client also wanted to feature a selection of their products by means of an Offers page, this could be updated as necessary and would provide users an insight into the types of product available and the competitive prices offered. Multifurnish.co.uk was to display content that is current as well as manageable by the client.

Further to an offers page being created, Multifurnish Ltd discussed with Big Eye Deers the possibility of running a Groupon deal. Will blog re the national deal we ran for Multifurnish soon. It was a great success!

In order to improve Search Engine Optimisation, the new Multifurnish website has been crammed with keywords and phrases associated with the commercial furniture services; future marketing campaigns for Multifurnish Ltd will also involve very targeted Pay Per Click campaigns targeting both commercial and private clients.
We feel that the new Multifurnish website reflects the company well and gives Multifurnish an assured and professional presence online, which is vital in supporting our client for occasions of potential clients being directed to the URL or to new visitors who’ve found the website either through search engines or via promotional deals run on platforms such as Groupon.

1. BE HIGH MAINTENANCE
Financial reward and brand awareness can be achieved both for Merchants and Groupon alike, but there is plenty of opportunity for error unless you approach the operation with the mentality that everything could go wrong unless you morph into a militant jobsworth suffering from OCD.

2. SORT YOUR PROFIT MARGINS, STOCK & SHIPPING
If you’re going to sell around 1000 units at a profit margin of £10, that’s a nice 10k in your back pocket – but only if that profit is calculated AFTER Groupon’s cut and shipping costs have been covered. Some merchants find themselves losing money on every item sold, which clearly can only be described as an epic fail to the maxarama. I’m no billionaire business mogul, but it’s a no-brainer that a small profit is fine if you’re selling high volume, and larger profit is needed if your product is more niche. Ultimately, don’t get rushed into agreeing any terms or percentages with Groupon. Respectfully, they are sales people who want to make as much money as possible from each deal, just like you – so get your negotiating hat on and take your time working out what will be financially viable to you, taking into consideration that the deal could be a huge success or generate little interest. Also, ensure you have everything set up with your supplier in advance to avoid any stock issues. Once customers redeem their vouchers they’ll be expecting to receive goods within the delivery terms stated. Sort out your stock, profit margins, shipping methods and terms in advance of even picking up the phone to Groupon, it’ll stand you in good stead.

3.SET UP THE DEAL PROPERLY
Consumers will be reasonable if you uphold promises communicated to them. Meticulously copywrite terms & conditions which manage customers’ expectations, don’t rely on Groupon to produce a contract which is accurate based on what’s been ‘mutually agreed’ over the telephone. They are usually working to a template; go through your contract with Groupon with a fine toothcomb. Also vital is to thoroughly go through the Ts&Cs Groupon provide to the customer – the slightest human error such as a typo could mean hundreds of customers being sent to the wrong URL to redeem their voucher, or for example, customers thinking they can order from your website when the orders will actually be done by phone. It is your responsibility as a retailer to make sure every step of the purchasing and delivery process is correct, after all it is you who knows your business inside out, not Groupon – and once you’ve signed that contract, all liability lies with you, nobody else.

4. WORK YOUR MAIN IMAGE – IT”S NOT JUST A PIC
Your chosen product needs to be presented in the best light possible, but without false advertising. Studio photography, edited and cropped professionally is perfect, but to reduce volume of complaints or returns it’s best to represent the product as realistically as possible.

Also try and give your product as neutral backdrop as possible, this can sometimes be out of your control if you’re working with stock photography – but be aware that products shown ‘in situ’ (such as a mattress in a bedroom or sofa in a lounge) have the potential to eliminate different markets. E.g. a young couple will be instantly put off by any image featuring brass ornaments or flowery carpets in a living room and click to the next deal, whereas the white sofa featured in the same picture may have appealed to them had it been in a more neutral setting.

5. COPYWRITING CAN MAKE OR BREAK SALES
Groupon have a house style applied to each and every deal featured on their site. What is requested from the merchant is a product description and some blurb about the company, Groupon write the introduction copy and a bit of a creative sell at the end normally. Be aware that this allows rooms for misinterpretation. For example, you may be selling a luxury 2000 pocket-sprung mattress, and a copywriter will take this information and produce a sentence such as ‘this incredibly springy mattress is…’ which conjures images of hundreds of springs sticking out after 2months i.e. not good.

Important to get your facts straight and remember this is space for the big sell! Although Groupon need the contract signed before their copy is written (this doesn’t allow for any authority on copy approval before you sign on the dotted line!), Groupon are accommodating and if you request a change to their copy before the deal goes live, they will pass on requests to their copywriters. The key to working well with Groupon is not to leave everything until last minute. If your deal is going out at 4am on a Thursday morning, 5pm on the Wednesday is not the time for amends to the copy.

6. BEWARE OF ANY ‘LAST MINUTE!’ OPPORTUNITIES
Sometimes companies drop out of running Groupon deals at last minute before signing on the dotted line, other times Groupon may be struggling to find a product worthy of a national deal. Either way, if you find yourself being asked by Groupon to step in last minute to set up a deal, be aware that you’re reducing the amount of time allowed for yourself and Groupon to go through the logistics and get it all right. Yes, it’s tempting, the prospect of earning thousands of pounds profit overnight, but if the deal isn’t set up with precision (which takes time and consideration) you may find yourself dealing with a sh*t storm afterwards. This could come as a result of a number of things, from misinformation about the product, problems with your supplier, errors in the Ts&Cs, the list goes on…

7. MAXIMISE MEGA TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE – WOOHOO!
As financially rewarding as direct purchases through Groupon can be (if set up properly), a secondary benefit can, in my opinion, far outweigh revenue generated from deal sales – this benefit being masses of people checking out your website.

To maximise potential traffic to your site, my advice is to simply feature your website address within the main image used. Whatever you do, only provide Groupon with the absolute final image that you want used in the deal – if they request “any pic, just so we can see the product” do not send it over, there is a risk that this may get used. Make sure that the image you provide is perfect, professional and has your website address featured visibly. Moreso, make sure your website looks stunning and its functionality faultless…

8. GET MORE SALES – NOT JUST GROUPON SALES
An independent business that normally trades offline could see their traffic go up in the thousands from a single email campaign. Why not recognise this as an opportunity to really showcase your services/offers/prices… the product or service featuring on the Groupon deal may not be quite right for a customer, but if they visit your website for consideration, you have a secondary sales opportunity, which arguably could be as effective as the Groupon deal, bearing in mind that any sales generated outside Groupon will have an increase in profit margin now Groupon aren’t taking a hefty cut.

9. SORT YOUR SYSTEMS OUT
Once your deal has run and all purchases have been made, Groupon provide you with an excel sheet documenting orders. This details the customers’ data, which for example could include name, address, tel, product ordered, size, colour – all pretty straight forward, yeh? Not if you’re using a third parties for stock and shipping and don’t have a simple and effective administrative system in place. All it may take is 12 orders getting mixed up but before you know it you’ll have irate or confused customers on the phone, emails, notes and a neglected spreadsheet, a factory with 12 products ready to be shipped but in the wrong size or colour, and a shipping company with the wrong delivery details – and no way of tracing back which orders are intended for particular customers or which 12 customers in your spreadsheet those products belong to. You may assume that this is basic stuff, but I can’t stress enough the importance of having one person who controls all incoming orders, passes them on for shipment (with a reference number) and marks them off once shipped – with all information being channelled in to one mother excel sheet. Any queries or customer complaints/issues should also be logged on this mother excel sheet. If you don’t have the in-house resource to do this, hire a virtual PA or a temp who’s obsessed with organising stuff and setting up excel sheets, dish out your £700 for 2 weeks admin support, for the time it’ll save you in refunds and complaints or time wasted trying to sort out any mess, that £700 will be well worth it – and if you’ve made 15k profit in a single deal then it’s just common sense to budget for the support to ensure that profit stays high and doesn’t get massively dented with exchanges or refunds.

10. DON’T BE THICK
So yes, we’ve all gasped and relished in tragic stories such as that of the cake maker who almost went bust after Groupon bargain hunters ordered 102,000 cupcakes – but there is a simple solution to this, when discussing your product/discount and deliverable with your account manager at Groupon (everyone gets one, they’re basically target-driven sales people who oversee everything) … limit the deals available to match the amount of product or service you are able to supply – it’s not rocket science. Groupon deals are what you make them, it’s up to you to set the rules but most importantly for you to adhere to them, and for this to happen takes pre-planning which is always better than dealing with an aftermath.

I look forward to running more deals for our clients, with the right planning and attitude, there is a lot of money to be made in the space of 24hrs… it just has to be executed properly.

Hope this has been of help on some level.
xx Jenni “I love Groupon & am not ashamed to say it” Davies

I don’t think the Irish Pony drivers had the marketing push they deserved, Cardiff can be proper lame for not letting us know what’s going on here, it’s always a case of us going “Oh, there’s a food festival tomorrow is there? Tidy!”. Last night had a nice crowd (plenty of nodding heads and a token OAP hippy over-enthusiastically reliving his LSD days) but a proper campaign would have packed out the place. Watching my plastic bag-covered Youtube idols sing and dance like they’d just stepped out of Southern Exposure 1994, I got every penny’s worth of my ten bucks ticket money. All good.

Loved the multimedia footage showing on the screen behind, they make really cool vids that work well both online and as a backdrop for live sets. I also relished the live art element introduced by means of  mental stuff like Willie O’DJ spinning the decks dressed up as their local politician  Willie O’Dea. I particularly liked the bit where he pulled his trousers down to reveal saggy pants, but that’s just me.

They’ve got a supercute website feeding in from youtube, facebook and twitter, with an events calendar (basic but does the job), links off to youtube etc. and a blog integration. The site also links off to bigcartel from a ‘buy stuff here’ link (not currently working, mind, get onto the Magento gypsy web gurus!).

I actually love their site, wouldn’t mind it getting punk’d by BED (but I would say that, wouldn’t I!)… be good to see full screen vids, have bigger better image galleries, more scope for user interaction e.g. for fans to be able to check in, comment, upload pics relating to specific gig dates. I think their e-commerce should be fully integrated too. I like the store we did for Atticus, maybe summit along those lines:

… yeh, an e-commerce site but pumped full of multimedia content too, with merchandise, CDs, downloads, plastic carrier bags, spastic hawks,  “I Wanna Fight Your Father” branded t-shirts, signed worn pants… the world’s their lobster!

Functionality similar to what we did for Placebo would be groovy – like a gigs page which not only shows gigs/dates/locations but allows fans to write gig feedback, upload photos or add memorabilia.  Few pics below, but best bet is to check out and have a play yourselves on Placeboworld.

Would be really fab if the landing page had a personal video message from the Rubberbandits that looked like a live stream, or an interactive game about a Horse Outside, and a ‘Design a carrier bag’ corner, where you can create your very own Rubberbandits carrier bag to put over your head (to come with a strict warning against putting plastic bags over your head, of course.) Going off on one now.

So, here’s a few pics from last night … and to any cool bands, artists, mentalists or moguls out there who are thinking about doing cool stuff online, bring it on – there’s nothing we like better than getting stuck into super-rad all-singing all-dancing multimedia multi-purpose, full-on functionality drenched websites that give the user a real experience. Don’t get a site, get a hub, make a channel baby! And breathe. I LOVE RUBBERBANDITS. That is all. So here’s some pics. Tidy.

Non-profit
With our capacity limited strictly to 100 we had to ensure that each and every individual who signed up to the event would be fully committed to coming on the day. Many companies approach achieving this by charging in advance for tickets. Due to THINK DIGITAL being an exciting adventure rather than a money-making venture, we didn’t want to charge, so instead decided that all proceeds go to a nominated charity. Prince’s Trust Cymru was the obvious choice, the reason being that we are continuously inspired by its achievements, and young people need our support now more than ever with 1 in 3 school-leavers across South Wales unable to find employment. Last year, Prince’s Trust Cymru helped nurture, train, encourage and enhance (both personally and professionally) in excess of 3,000 young people, with this year’s figures increasing further. A donation of £10 per attendee was requested to secure entry, and we’re delighted to have raised around £1,000 for Prince’s Trust Cymru which we’re told will be matched by the government, meaning THINK DIGITAL has meant an additional £2,000 of funding towards helping young people in Wales (did you know: it takes approx £1,000 to help 1 person through Prince’s Trust). We hope to continue to donate to this incredible charity and would like to thank every person who donated.

With tickets being secured through donations to Prince’s Trust Wales on a page set up though Justgiving.com we offered total transparency to prospective attendees who wanted to see how many people were coming and who they were. We feared in the early stages that because this was our first event there was a risk that nobody would come and we’d leave ourselves vulnerable to visibility of low ticket sales! Luckily, and to our absolute delight, within the 4 weeks leading up to the event all 100 places were snapped up by local businesses, with 95% of those booked online. As a side-note, we’re not sure whether to offer tickets on a first come first served basis for the next event, the jury is out!

Our audience
We had tailored a bundle of speakers and topics to suit local businesses, from solicitors to TV companies, florists to cake makers, yet noticed soon on that a significant amount of tickets were being reserved by other digital agencies, web designers or marketers in Cardiff. This alarmed us at first, as we were really unsure of how the dynamic would be on the day; all our advice was being channelled to help business owners rather than other digital agencies. But with no control over who wanted to kindly donate/sign-up/show their support, we bit the bullet and decided that the show must go on as planned, and not to change the day’s concept or be influenced by the apparent shift in our audience. It was time to give a warm welcome to all!

The big day
Playing host to the first ever THINK DIGITAL event, Kuku Club in Cardiff provided an intimate, ambient, warm and welcoming environment for us to inhabit. With its oriental lighting, beautiful decor and sparkling service, it really was a fantastic place to launch. Despite a few technical glitches such as lack of lighting on the speakers and a 6ft screen which fell flat on the stage as I welcomed attendees to the event, everything went swimmingly…

Event speakers, Liberty Marketing’s Gareth Morgan, Strategist Elliot Reuben, Cool Social Media guy Carl Morris and Big Eye Deers’ Steve Flanagan each did a 10-15minute presentation, covering a multitude of topics including Search, User Experience, Social Media, Google Docs, SEO and Marketing… information was going down well and attendees seemed to be engaging with our key messages (hopefully there was something for everyone!).

Feedback
Putting on a digital event of this kind in Cardiff took a leap of faith; with so many different types of events ranging from networking to workshops, seminars to functions, we really had no idea if there was a demand for this type of format. Following the event, many of its attendees hung out and chatted with others in the room and from what we could glean, the feedback was really positive. But we all know how polite us Welsh folk can be (“ooooh, it was lovelyyyyeeeeee mun!”, so we decided to conduct a survey which would allow guests to anonymously tell us what they really thought!

The lowdown

“Good event. well done ”

“Fantastic event. Something very much lacking in Cardiff.” “Would be great if future events had a little more focus as I’ve found they can get a bit similar if not. Brilliant first event though.”

“Excellent first event. Well done. Learned a lot. Got the synapses firing. Met some cool people.”

“It was a really positive, interesting event which is different from anything I’ve ever been to and draws in a different crowd.”

“A Q&A session would have allowed for a little more depth and I’d certainly hope that future events will get deeper into the subjects.”

“Big success overall all!”

Our survey says, future events could do with the following:

- Same amount of speakers (4)
- Same venue, with technical tweaks (screen, lighting, seating)
- Focus on presentations/learning over networking
- 15 minute presentations
- Q&A Session after each speaker
- Topic specific (opposed to generic) presentations

Importantly, constructive feedback wasn’t amiss, with suggestions on seating plans, lighting and topics to consider for future events.

All in all, we’re absolutely thrilled (to the maximoss!) with the turnout for THINK DIGITAL and feel hugely grateful and chuffed that such a cool bunch of people come along. So, a huge thank you to all the business owners, marketers and entrepreneurs who christened THINK DIGITAL. The next steps are to evaluate the event, look at what worked and what can be improved on, establish what areas/topics/subjects/themes will give the most value and then set a date, ready to be saved into diaries ready for 2012. OoooOoOoOoh, 2012 is nigh! Keep an eye out on twitter.com/tdcardiff for the next event’s date to be announced.

Thanks again, until next time!

xJenni

http://theworststuffever.com/post/11740543793/the-best-typo-ever

Some fantastic companies from Cardiff coming, and with all your donations, we’re up to around £920 raised for Prince’s Trust Wales. Kinda wishing we’d sorted a raffle ‘n that too, on reflection…

I think this first event is going to be super, and we’ll hopefully be doing lots more in the future. Really looking forward to meeting everyone and getting feedback. Will be fab to collaborate with even more companies for future events. That is all. YEEEHAW. xJenni

@tdcardiff
@big_eye_deers