Digital case study: John Lewis’ Secret To Digital Marketing Success

With a history spanning 150 years (this year is the big anniversary), John Lewis has gone from strength to strength. Diversification has helped with both the longevity and continued success of the UK-based company and is the key to its success. Like many big corporations, the John Lewis Partnership has embraced digital marketing strategies – and its paid off in spades. Against a difficult retail climate, the high street giant announced impressive figures as last year closed. What is the secret to John Lewis’ digital marketing success? It’s actually quite simple and by no means a secret – it has put mobile at the heart of its strategy. Here are some of the main areas John Lewis has focused on within mobile:

Mobile shopping

Online shopping has been acknowledged as an essential part of retailers’ business strategies for quite a while now but the importance of mobile is a recent addition to this. As eConsultancy says, a consumer is less concerned with which device they are using to purchase from; they are more concerned with a consistent experience, regardless of the platform. John Lewis is the perfect example of a company that has invested in mobile marketing – on Christmas Day of last year, 75% of the company’s online traffic came from mobile devices.

Click and Collect

Combining on and offline shopping methods may hold the key to John Lewis’ financial successes in recent times. Click and Collect is a service that many businesses have introduced. It involves online purchasing and in-person collection of products, cutting out the middle man by eliminating delivery. In the case of John Lewis, the Click and Collect system was up 60% last year from the previous 12 months. The app also features a barcode scanner so that customers can check online stock of an item they see in store. Combining the on and offline experiences seems to be working well for John Lewis.

Speed

Time is of the essence for any consumer. Everyone wants to receive their product as soon as humanly possible and mobile is a huge advantage here. Everything from loading time on a mobile device, to the amount of steps it takes from selection to transaction, to how long it takes the item to arrive will be reflected on future purchases by the customer. While John Lewis wasn’t a top scorer for speed (six out of ten), the other things to consider are how quick and easy it is the find what you want on the mobile site; something John Lewis is quite good at.

Overall, pumping resources into mobile marketing is an investment in the future of your business. As John Lewis shows, embracing digital marketing can make your profits and consumer interaction shoot up.