What are your business objectives?

According to Avinash Kaushik*, they should be:

Doable
Understandable
Manageable
Beneficial

When fleshing out your business objectives, they must be rational. Expecting to realize a 20% increase in revenue in the first month is not only “dumb” in the truest sense of the word, but is completely unrealistic. By using the “DUMB” construct, you can devise objectives that are within reason, and are specific toward reaching your overall brand strategy. Goals must be centered on creating awareness, cultivating interest, generating desire, and stimulating action.

Business Specific Goals

Depending on the type of business you have, these steps will all be different. Make sure they are specific to your business. This requires identifying the key performance indicators (KPI) that track progress in the realization of your business objectives.

These KPI’s Must Also Be Realistic.

Awareness Phase:

Create an analytics report that measures Visits/Unique Visits

Interest Phase:

Create a report that measures page views, number of pages viewed, and time spent on site.

Desire Phase:

Create a report that measures specific item landing page visits, and if you have one, a membership enrollment page, and a wish list creation

Action Phase:

Create a report on shopping cart fulfillment and conversions would be appropriate.

Satisfaction Phase:

Results in a completed Conversion report, and a positive comment on the feedback page.

Why Analytics Are Important

These analytical reports are positive aspects of solid business goals. They would be useless without setting realistic targets to measure progress, or indicate problems to be addressed. Analytics reveal the good and the bad. Capitalizing on the good, and rectifying the bad are all part of setting business goals.
When creating a strategic marketing plan, creating analytics reports to monitor all facets of that plan is a good business practice. The ability to adjust keyword strategy, content composition and keyword placement, replace poor performing landing pages, correcting and eliminating broken internal links, and ultimately, increasing conversion rates are all segments that are correctable, and being aware of their existence is a direct result of monitoring analytics reports.

* Digital Marketing and Measurement Model: Web Analytics. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/?utm_source=analytics academy&utm_medium=text lesson&utm_campaign=lesson 2.4

Analyzing Your Clickstream

The clickstream tells the story of your search engine strategy. Are your keywords attracting the audience they were intended to reach? Are the landing pages that visitors reach providing the content searched for? Is the bounce rate for the landing page the result of poorly placed keywords, or does it represent a visitor who did not have the time to view the content but bookmarked the page for future viewing.
After landing on your site, did the visitor explore and enjoy the experience? Did they view more than the one page? Did they find the information they sought and moved around for a while?
More importantly, does your site provide a truly inspired user experience? For most website developers, the architecture is the point of emphasis. For the copywriter, the content presented is important. For the marketer, the number of sales completed is the focus. For the visitor, the quality of their experience while on your site is central.
Web analytics is the Rosetta stone for unlocking the key to a successful website. Be it an ecommerce site, an information site, a blog, or a news aggregation site, understanding the behavior of the visitors who reach your site can be divined from the clickstream data compiled with your analytics platform. That behavior reflects the quality of your site.

Key Performance Indicators for a Fast Start

Using carefully selected data can create a picture that tells the story of your website’s performance. The key is in choosing the right measurements that provide the insight for optimizing your site. That is where your analytics specialist comes in. He should be able to create specialized reports based on the relevant data.If you do not have an analytics specialist, you can learn to run the application yourself.

Nine Key Measurements:

1. Total Visitors. This measurement tells you if your website is showing up on search engine results pages.
2. Unique visitors. This measurement shows the number of visitors who found your site and did not come back. This metric shows one of two things, the visitor landed on your site by accident, or the keywords she used did not accurately reflect the content on your site.
3. Return visitors. Tells you how many visitors returned after an initial visit.
4. Bounce Rate. This measurement tells you how many visitors landed on your site and left immediately. This could be seen as a negative measurement, but if that same visitor shows up in measurement number 2, then it can be a way to target visitors who may have initially landed on your site, saw some value, but had no time to explore and bookmarked the page for future viewing.
5. Entry page. This metric tells you what page the visitor entered your site on. It is a way of testing your PPC ads, and keyword strategies.
6. Source of traffic. This metric tells you where your visitors are coming from. This report can help with your keyword strategy and PPC placement.
7. Time on site. This tells you how valuable and relevant your content is. If a visitor is spending quality time with your content your on the way toward having a productive site.
8. Number of pages viewed before conversion. This metric shows how your content is convincing the visitor of the value of your offer.
9. Conversion rate. This is the most important metric. Without conversions there is no revenue.

Embrace the Data

By focusing on these key performance indicators, your web analytics platform can be a very profitable tool. The key is to simplify the number of reports. Once you have gotten a feel for the program, you can begin to refine your analysis. Web analytics can be overwhelming to anyone who has no experience with the platform. Taking baby steps can turn a novice into an expert. And there is plenty of free information available for you to learn from. So, instead of wondering why your website performance is poor, set up an analytics program, and take the guess work out of managing your online business.

Brand Persona & Identity

The brand persona garners credibility and familiarity with the consumer, thus increasing the authority of the brand message. Brand personas serve to differentiate the brand from competitors and, the brand persona is a useful tool that disables the inner cynic that lives in every consumer.
The first step in developing a credible brand identity is to understand the consumer you are trying to reach. Demographic and psychographic research is necessary for identifying the market segments that are most likely to need or want your product.

Bonding With Consumers

Once the ideal consumer is identified, developing a relationship with the consumer requires cultivating “a sense of natural comfort and fit, a feeling of emotional connectedness and bonding, a deep integration with a consumer’s core values, a heightened level of desire and interaction, a commitment to it’s long-term use, attitude valence and strength”(Batra, R., & Bagozzi, R. 2012).
Developing a connection with the emotional attraction that is associated with strongly held values, provides intrinsic rewards, and creates an emotional bonding with the consumer, and is the goal of creating a brand identity (Batra, R., & Bagozzi, R. 2010). Once consumers are attached to your brand, they become fierce advocates and ambassadors.
For instance, take Apple; Apple fans and ambassadors are viscerally connected to the brand. They are price insensitive, are more apt to upgrade to a new product offered by the brand, and will defend the brand fiercely. Apple brand advocates and fans are engaged in “frequent, interactive behaviors with” the brand (Batra, R. & Bagozzi, R. 2012).

Developing Consumer Generated Content

Consumers who identify with your brand will also engage in word of mouth promotion for three fundamental purposes: social, emotional, and functional (Lovett, M. J., Peres, R., & Shachar, R. 2013). Word of mouth (WOM) advocacy is better characterized as consumer generated content. Advocates use social media to promote their preferred brand. Creating fans and ambassadors who use social media to cheer for the brand are the most cherished of consumers. A positive comment or brand review is just a click away.
For those brand advocates who engage in word of mouth (WOM) behavior, “The main social driver is the desire to send signals to others about one’s expertise, uniqueness, or social status; the emotional driver is the need to share positive or negative feelings about brands to balance emotional arousal; and the functional driver motivates people to provide and supply information” (Lovett, M. J., Peres, R., & Shachar, R. 2013).

Conclusion

So, creating, developing and promoting a brand identity must be able to attract dedicated fans and advocates, provide quality and utility that stimulates “Brand Love,” and create a relationship with the consumer that facilitates the consumer’s desire to enjoy, promote, and protect the brand. Creating a brand persona that attracts these important consumers creates a groundswell of brand awareness that draws the casual consumer into the anointed throng of brand advocates.

Barra, R., & Bagozzi, R., P. (2012). Brand Love. Journal of Marketing, 76(2), 1 – 16. doi: 10.1509/jm.09.0339
Lovett, M. J., Peres, R., & Shachar, R. (2013). On Brands and Word of Mouth. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 50(4), 427 – 444)

Strategy formulation involves understanding a firm’s analytical capability, the innovative capacity of the firm’s culture, the buy in of marketing managers, and the support of upper management (Ramaseshan, B., Ishak, A., & Kingshott, R.J. 2013).

It also requires understanding external environmental factors like competitiveness, changes in technology, and product alternatives in the market (Ramaseshan, B., Ishak, A., & Kingshott, R.J. 2013).
Implementing the strategy requires constant control and evaluation, a credible strategy, and marketing managers to commit to the strategy while allowing them the autonomy to carry out the strategy (Ramaseshan, B., Ishak, A., & Kingshott, R.J. 2013).

Finally, implementing a strategy is dependent on the performance of the firm, both strategically, and financially (Ramaseshan, B., Ishak, A., & Kingshott, R.J. 2013).

Addressing the internal cohesion requires adopting internal principles that are “firm specific” and “uniquely reflect a firm’s strategy and context rather than simply emulating other firms or theories” (Challagalla, G., Murtha, B.R., & Jawarski, B. 2014). This allows for consistency between the marketing strategy and marketing activities, because “marketing activities are often diffused throughout the organization (Challagalla, G., Murtha, B.R., & Jawarski, B. 2014).

Ultimately, the strategy must develop product awareness; grow interest in the product, animate consumer demand, and convert a sale. In view of the various channels that are available to reach consumers, brand identity and messaging must be cohesive.

Approaching firms with a credible multi – channel marketing strategy that complies with the attributes mentioned above is part of engaging in the Internet marketing environment. Having knowledge in the multiple areas for reaching consumers is essential for success in the field. The ability to understand the firm’s culture, brand message, and market identity are necessary for implementing a firm specific marketing campaign.

References:

Ramaseshan, B., Ishak, A., & Kingshott, R.J. (2013). Interactive effects of marketing strategy formulation and implementation upon firm performance. Journal Of Marketing Management, 29(11/12), 1224 – 1250. Doi:10.1080/0276257X.2013.796319. Retrieved March 30, 2015

Challagalla, G., Murtha, B.R., & Jawarski, B. (2014). Marketing Doctrine: A Principles – Based Approach to Guiding Marketing Decision Making I Firms. Journal of Marketing, 784 – 20. Retrieved March 30, 2015

The first, an ideal world of limitless information at your fingertips, free to search millions of websites for any topic you find of interest.

The second, a world of government surveillance, ad tracking, and privacy concerns.

From a marketing perspective, any opportunity to place ads in front of potential customers is a good thing. For web surfers, the intrusion on website viewing by popup ads, banner ads, and automated ads that crawl across the page can be annoying.

Finding that the ads presented are based on programs that track your online behavior, can be downright scary. As Americans, We are naturally leery of government surveillance of our communications. Is it acceptable that something we find dangerous from our government is acceptable for corporations that may be manipulating our behavior solely to increase their profits?

This behavior is not new. Back in 1957, it was alleged that advertisers inserted messages in ads that were too subtle for the conscious mind to interpret. That the report was later found to be a hoax, and the author admitted as much, did little to deter the feeling that subliminal persuasion is still suspected of being in use according to some.

That advertisers and marketers would engage is tactics that attract customers is not doubted. When and where these tactics are acceptable is still up for debate. When we address this subject, it is helpful to look at a similar practice, telemarketing. This form of advertising created such a negative response from consumers, that the FCC implemented a National do not call registry.

With the advent of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), is there a need for an Internet style do not track list? More importantly, is the tracking of our online behavior a threat to personal privacy, or just the cost of accessing the Web? Is a tradeoff between privacy and access a necessary condition of online life?

Balancing the needs of consumer privacy and competitive pressures to succeed presents a conundrum for marketers. Finding a balance that provides information to consumers without becoming so intrusive that it provokes a negative response is tricky. Allowing consumers to opt-out is a good start. Providing consumers with knowledge about tracking programs might lessen the intrusive feeling such programs elicit. Presenting third party ads that have no relationship to a consumer search may have negative consequences, increase bounce rates, and provoke the consumer to use your competitor.

Finally, the fact that Internet access is a contract between the consumer and the ISP, gives pause to the idea that all Internet activity is a private act, and thus afforded Fourth Amendment protections. This would be a salient argument if the Government controlled Internet access. However, since access is contractual, privacy claims are limited. A balance between online vendors and consumers that secure sensitive personal information, and allowing consumers to decline or opt out of tracking is an acceptable compromise. Divining demographic data from Internet activity is just the latest avenue for market research. Acclimating consumers to behavior tracking by making the process transparent and allowing consumers to decline inclusion should provide a balance that meets the need to both sides.

Content That is Relevant

First, relevant content is just that, content that provides the visitor with answers to their query. A searcher looking for information on exotic, beachfront vacation spots will not be happy if they land on your site and it is a blog about Civil War reenactments. Your content must be optimized with keywords that accurately represent the concept of your website. You must write for your audience not the search engine.

Content That is Authoritative

Second, authoritative content is just that; content that has external links and comments that extoll the level of information provided. In-depth posts on subjects that visitors are looking for, or white papers on issues important to them, are examples of authoritative content. This does not mean you have to writ an encyclopedic tome on the meaning of life, but you need to present your content with the certainty that it will be accepted as factual.

Content That is Well Written

Third, your content must be well written. This is a no brainer but poor writing is constantly present on numerous websites. Good writing is essential for attracting visitor, holding their interest, and hopefully, gaining their trust as a reliable source of information. If your goal is to sell a product, then convincing them to a conversion with your content is the objective. If you are developing an information site, being seen as a reliable source of news and information is your goal, and converting subscribers is the goal.

Remember the Goal

Whatever your intentions are for your website, finding and attracting visitors is the goal. By presenting content that the Google algorithm reads as meeting its standards will go a long way in enhancing your search engine results. Remember, you want to write to tell a story. That story should be aligned with the audience you are trying to convert. Write for the user’s intent, not yours.

After the headline, the most precious part of your website is the content. To draw visitors to your site, to convert those visitors into satisfied customers, and maintain them as dedicated fans and ambassadors, you need to develop compelling content.
First, you must understand what your audience wants. This simple premise is where businesses succeed or fail. It is also the most overlooked aspect of most marketers. Once you understand what your audience wants, its all a matter of conforming your message to that audience.
That does not mean you try to sell Brussels sprouts to shoppers who are looking for pistachio ice cream. As the old saying goes, you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. And consequently, you can’t sell products to a market that has no need for it.
So, you have a product or service that you are convinced will change people’s lives; now what? You have to craft your offer in such a way that the audience looking for your product or offer hears it, and can find it. Craft your offer so that your audience hears about it, is excited about it, and is compelled to take action.

Understanding Your Audience

Well there’s nothing hard about that you might be thinking. Trust me, until you understand your audience and can think like they do you are looking at failure. Researching your audience is the next step. This requires defining the personas that fit your audience. And the way you define your audience is through research. In today’s world of social media and Google, researching your audience is as easy as visiting a website.
Once you have defined your audience, you must frame your story so that it fits the worldviews and understandings of your audience. You tell your story in a way that relates to the worldview of the audience. Framing develops a connection with the audience. It gives your audience the sense of familiarity that cultivates trust and confidence in your product. Framing your content to meet your audience’s needs is the key to content that sells.

References:
NetGains Marketing (Identifying Your Customers)
http://www.netgainsmarketing.com/blog/identifying-your-customers-the-four-personas

Usability refers to the ease with which visitors are able to move around and through your website. Ideally, it is “whether a product is efficient, effective, and satisfying for those who use it.”
For website design and development, it comes down to “factors that contribute to the perceived trustworthiness of an eCommerce site.”

Understanding this concept, and addressing the characteristics that make a website “usable” should be the number one requirement for any web design project. Usability is the one characteristic that can make or break your website.
Think about it. Once a surfer lands on your page, you have less than five seconds to capture her attention. If your site is properly configured, this task should be completed thoughtlessly.

A website properly configured for usability should “strike a unique balance on each project between business goals and context, user needs and behavior, and content.”

For the user, their experience should comply with the following:

• Useful, the “content should be original and fulfill a need”

• Usable. “Site must be easy to use."

• Desirable. “Image, identity, brand, and other design elements are used to evoke emotion and appreciation."

• Findable. “Content needs to be navigable and locatable onsite and offsite.”

• Accessible. “Content needs to be accessible to people with disabilities.”

• Credible. “Users must trust and believe what you tell them.”

Adhering to these guiding principles will insure that visitors to your site will visit, browse, enjoy, stay and most importantly, return.

References:

http://www.usabilitybok.org/what-is-usability
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/07/building-trust-on-ecommerce-home-pages.php
http://semanticstudios.com/user_experience_design/

http://www.usability.gov/what-and-why/user-experience.html

The Findability Problem

For some reason, this topic is constantly overlooked. This could be a catastrophic oversight because: “The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build.” Understanding this fundamental premise and imparting the idea throughout your development team could be the difference between success and failure. The concept of providing consumers with the information they seek depends on both “External findability … building initial brand awareness and ensuring accessibility from external search;” and “On-site findability … concerned with the ability of a potential customer to find what they are looking for within a specific site.”

How to Incorporate Findability into Your Site

The process for making a site “findable” needs to be internalized by all members of the development team. Because of compartmentalization, development teams may not be able to see the link between their contributions and the findability of the site. In order to insure that all members of the team are focused on incorporating findability into their work, creating small working groups where different departments can exchange ideas and address the relationship between their respective areas and come up with a process where the different objectives, can be melded into the overall goal of the site; marketing the company’s goods and services. Incorporating Web Standards is a first step because “Web standards foster the right practices that will allow search engines to successfully read and rank pages in a meaningful way.” Using Web standards can ensure that all members of the development team are on the same page. It also diminishes the opportunity for jealousy and resentment where one department may have a more pronounced role than another. Standards provide an atmosphere for cooperation and teamwork. When all members are aware of and focused on goal, developing a successful website is possible.