I want to take a moment to celebrate the Middle of Lidi. It’s something I can’t help but swing by whenever I happen to run in to a Lidl. Most weeks there’s stuff I never knew I needed or wanted until I’ve seen it down that magic aisle and to sweeten the deal, the prices are just so surprisingly cheap!
The point I’m trying to make here is the reason why the Middle of Lidl is so damn enticing and effective is because it’s as if all Lidl stores have been built around it. Almost everyone who walks in to a Lidl store will at least brush their eyes past it. It’s always seasonal, often well stocked and more importantly, it feels digitally centred too.
Every email I get telling me what’s coming up in the Middle of Lidi matches up to what’s down the aisle. The same can be said for the free magazines you get on the way out too. It’s ultimately a pretty slick operation.
So, tell me Lidi, what has happened with your Christmas campaign?
Lidi are pointing potentially 100s of thousands of readers to a broken page
Ouch. It happens to the best of us, but a global Supermarket brand entering it’s busiest period in the calendar? I’m not sure Lidl can afford to make this sort of mistake.
For context, I’m an avid reader of the Good Food magazine. Lidl are currently running a full-page ad on the rear cover of this month’s mag:
However, there’s one small problem.. The web address? It doesn’t work.
If you can’t fix it immediately, at least measure the impact
get it, the wheels of a corporate and enterprise tech stack often turn slowly. There’s a chance that the fix that Lidl need to get this ad working properly may not be something that can be done at the drop of a hat.
However, to at least bump this fix up the queue as much as possible, measure and communicate the impact and estimate the potential losses here.
- How many times has this broken link been accessed so far?
- What was the conversion rate from last year’s Christmas campaign for direct traffic to the key landing page and how much revenue did it generate? Using those figures from last year can help you to estimate potential losses accrued from this issue and bump the fix up the queue.
Use the same Christmas URL every year for maximum impact
For Christmas of 2017, Lidl appeared to use a different URL for their festive campaign (according to The Guardian). During these peak shopping periods, links and article features can quickly stack up.
To get off to the best start, rank higher and index faster, using the same URL every year really can pay dividends here.
If that’s not possible, then 301 redirecting the old 2017 Christmas URL, (which has some links from Mumsnet and The Guardian but now 404s) can help kick-start this year’s Christmas campaign when it comes to SEO. A quick screenshot of the 404 error for 2017’s Christmas landing page:
You’ve an opportunity to bounce back from this, don’t miss it
Ok, so Lidl have cocked-up. There’s not a lot that can be done to change that, but what Lidi can do is cease the opportunity to put it right and in doing so, kick their Christmas campaign in to high gear.
How about a discount code or a freebie when spending over £50 for those that access the /christmas URL for the next 48 hours?
Sending an email to loyal customers making them aware and offering a small token of compensation perhaps?
Or, ‘fessing up to the mishap in next month’s Good Food mag and again giving readers a tasty incentive?
To prevent this from happening again, Lidl must communicate better
I’ve no idea how much it costs to run a full-sized ad on the back page of the Good Food mag, but I do know that it’s likely to be a uncomfortable about of money. This is likely to be an expensive mistake that Lidl have made and it could probably have been prevented by having teams and departments communicate just a little better.
It’s cliché as heck, I know – but it’s ever so important. Communication is essential. SEO teams need to stop working within impenetrable silos and content teams need to consider the fundamentals of SEO and UX before launching their cornerstone campaigns.
Need someone who can get content and SEO talking? I’ve the perfect team
Rise at Seven is an epitome of an agency that wholeheartedly embraces what happens when content and SEO are fully intertwined and are absolutely on the same page. If you’re reading this, Lidi, you should absolutely go and talk to those guys.
How about them apples?
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