AUSSIE Home Loans attracts more than 75 per cent of its business through its website.

AUSSIE Home Loans attracts more than 75 per cent of its business through its website. Six years ago, that figure was 2 per cent. What changed? Plenty.

Aussie's traditional bricks-and-mortar business has been able to recognise a significant shift in consumer behaviour and how they go about obtaining information.

''Consumer behaviour was changing and the way customers were wanting to interact with our products and our brand has changed significantly. So much so that our marketing techniques were not going to work in that environment,'' says Aussie's marketing and product general manager, Stuart Tucker.

Tucker attributes its online success to optimising its search results, building a better website, improving the content, online advertising and providing tools such as an online calculator and ''request an appointment''. The request-an-appointment tool on its website has improved the customer conversion rates to the tune of 18-45 per cent in two years.

This year, Aussie is embarking on a digital campaign that includes social networking sites such as Twitter. It has appointed a digital agency, Amnesia Razorfish, to achieve its online goals.

Tucker says Aussie spends millions of dollars in its online strategy and advertising and stresses it's an ongoing investment.

''One of things about online is that it's always changing and it's not about sitting still,'' he says. ''It's now a dedicated percentage of our marketing budget and is really part of our business now.''

A lot of website tracking is done through Amnesia, which measures all click-through rates and traffic coming in through online advertising. Amnesia also helps Aussie take advantage of social networking.

This year, Aussie engaged in an interactive campaign that featured its mortgage adviser, Duane Brown.

He was encouraged to skydive and consumers were to guess where he would land in Australia by using Google Maps.

Finance bloggers also got involved in the campaign when they were asked by Amnesia to hide a code on their site, and whoever found it had the opportunity to make more guesses as to where he would land.

In addition to Twitter, the campaign also used YouTube and Facebook. The campaign certainly grabbed the attention of consumers.

''Through the website we can prove the quality of the customers and business that we're getting,'' Tucker says.

Last time Aussie ran a campaign, half its appointments were booked through the website, Amnesia founder Iain McDonald says. It just shows how people are changing in their interaction with companies, he says.

''It has been a dramatic increase for them in terms of sales, based on the fact they've continuously optimised. In the last three years, their business has really changed.''

McDonald advises that it is important to test what works on your website. For Aussie, Amnesia tested everything from its banner advertisements to forms used on the website.

''It just doesn't jump from 2 per cent to over 75 per cent in a night. We do small projects to help build it up,'' McDonald says.

''Their business has completely changed, now 75 per cent of their business is coming from digital, which is probably something that many people wouldn't expect from a traditional bricks-and-mortar company.''



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