MORE TH>N - creating conversations

As a leading UK insurer, MORE TH>N competes for some of the most devilishly competitive search engine keywords like ‘car insurance’ to drive traffic to their site; how could they use social media to increase their brand profile and search engine rankings? iCrossing (Spannerworks), MORE TH>N’s search marketing agency, had recommended being useful to identify communities of people who care about specific causes which were indirectly related to insurance but not linked specifically, they were more concerned with creating conversation around the things that people care enough about to insure. This tied in with MORE TH>N’s current interest in all things green to form a content strategy.

Translated

Having devised the strategy, the iCrossing social media team approached NixonMcInnes to help them deliver on it. Initial brainstorming sessions lead to the idea of building a separate website on a sub domain of the main insurance sales site. Built using a fast and flexible, state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability and not subject to the usual constraints of heavy weight corporate IT, this site could provide MORE TH>N with a place to experiment with creating dialogue with their customers in a new and interesting way.

Created

Working closely with our friends at iCrossing, Roberto Hortal and his team over at MORE TH>N, we developed a brand identity for the new platform, named Living. We created a bespoke look and feel for the site which is clean and clear in its presentation. We then installed and added social features to encourage people to share and comment on content. Additional relevant content was sourced from the wider web with the integration of a feed from blog aggregator Megite. The Living platform allows a team of journalists to publish original content and link out to other interesting blogs and articles on the web creating conversations around home and motoring topics with an eco slant. It is anticipated that further themes will be added and developed over time as MORE TH>N react to customers needs - something that is easy to do within the flexible and easy to use WordPress platform

Delivered

The site now receives 5,000 visitors per month, however during the floods of summer 2007, a dedicated flood advice section was added to the site, and almost instantly, MORE TH>N was ranking on Google for ‘flood advice’, offering genuinely useful content to customers and driving sales as well as strengthening their brand. The site has also been featured in The Financial Times and Revolution Magazine.