Whittard Success Story

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Tea and Coffee specialists, Whittard of Chelsea engaged digital agency, I Spy to drive additional revenue generation through online channels.

With a unique heritage spanning over 100 years as a specialist tea and coffee retailer, Whittard holds a familiar and welcoming space on the high street. However, with marketing traditions firmly established via a mix of offline channels, Whittard found a need to establish a presence in the natural search space. With minimal budget allocated to paid search, the organic listings were an obvious and important channel for generating cost-effective online revenue.

Actions:

To fulfil the complex strategy and aims of the campaign, thefollowing actions were undertaken:

• Use of innovative link-building techniques to encompass the new exotic flavours of the hot beverages that Whittard pioneer. Whittard pride themselves as being at the forefront of the market with regards to the new and exciting flavours, and I Spy’s strategy amplified this message
• Interaction and stimulation of growth with an audience across other multimedia & social channels which in turn helps build link equity for the website resulting in optimum positioning.
• Ensure that all regional and geo-based terms were optimised efficiently on Google maps for all retail outlets to boost ‘real estate’

Aim:

Lacking a comprehensive and proactive strategy online and ranking only for specific product terms, Whittard had to try and integrate this new channel into their existing and highly successful marketing campaigns.
• To own the tea and coffee market in the digital space
• Increase traffic generated from natural search by 20% YoY
• Capitalise on the significant traffic growth opportunity through increasing natural search rankings for ‘coffee’ and ‘tea’

• Drive more traffic and revenue from the channel - on average 50% of total traffic was attributed to organic search, so this aim was imperative

Strategy:

I Spy used the following steps to ensure that all client aims were met and exceeded:

• Develop and implement an innovative link-building programme
• Establish the brand on social media platforms and multi media channels, ensuring its heritage and brand were not diluted to further build link equity
• Introduce the full scope of Whittard retail properties across Google Maps

Results:

To fulfil the complex strategy and aims of the campaign, the following actions were undertaken:

• As a direct result of a fully comprehensive strategy and highly successful relationship, I Spy were able to fully exceed the expectations of the campaign objectives by:
• Increased Revenue generated from natural search by over 60% YoY
• Whittard now rank position 2 for both ‘coffee’ and ‘tea’ after being outside the top 20 in Google. (Wikipedia is ranking number 1 for both)

“I Spy generated over a 40% increase in traffic YoY from Natural Search”

I Spy and Whittard:

With weekly internal meetings held by the account team at I Spy to ensure all tactics were successfully being deployed, the Whittard team aided the process with close correspondence to help make the campaign a success. I Spy also provided in-house training on the concept of natural search optimisation for the Whittard team to ensure all knowledge could be shared efficiently. Consistent reporting and feedback also helped build and maintain a strong relationship which enabled the project to go from strength to strength.