Quick questions before we begin

Does your organization operate beyond the “Brick and Mortar” world, with a digital foot print?

Does a decent portion of your marketing spend go towards one or more of the following channels – Web site, Mobile site, SEO/SCM, Social, Email Marketing, Affiliate Marketing or Display advertising?

If your answer to any of the questions above is a yes/want-to-be, you are a player in the world of the Big “D”,. Digital measurement MUST be a key component of your overall Digital Strategy. The needs and behavior of the customers have evolved over the years. More choices have brought in more options. With the advent of digital media, an array of new avenues is open for the customers.

Customer Journey is no longer the same

The Traditional Customer

 

The Gen X Customer

The above illustrations portray the manner in which a linear and predictable customer journey has now changed into a non-linear, cross-channel proliferation spanning several touch-points, with no particular entry/exit point. Organizations which think  they can forsake customers after purchase cannot make a bigger blunder. The rippling effects of a negative customer experience can be catastrophic for the brand.

While others may look at this big picture and read “complexity”, smart people should be reading “opportunity” instead. Yes, there is an opportunity to WOW the customer at every touch point. Let us explore a prospective customer’s journey on the Brand Wagon.

Your Target Audience - From Strangers to Lovers

 

Every Organization/brand obviously needs to attract potential customers and get them to engage with their site and evaluate their product(s). A positive impression at this point usually leads to a purchase ($$). The next logical step is to make customers loyal to your brand by making them loyal repeat customers ($$$). The buck however, should not stop even here. Organizations need to take this a step further – recruit customers as their brand advocates without a dent in their payroll. Think “Pyramid Effect”. This is the true “Brand Nirvana”.

With all the efforts of the Marketing Gurus of an organization, how does one know how successful those efforts have ultimately been? The answer lies in our ability to MEASURE.  

Digital Measurement – Where Art meets Science

 

Let us talk about this briefly.

Data – Raw facts about an entity – a person/thing. Usually numeric but could be text as well. There is no clear structure.

Information – The output of a rules-based process that massages raw data to add structure in a way that, it can be interpreted. For example –spreadsheets, reports with tables, charts/graphs. With established processes, you can appropriately tag your digital assets so that data can be collected and Churned into information by either custom-developed or  COTS software such as “Google Analytics”, “Omniture “, “Web Trends”, “Facebook Insights”, “HitWise”, “MS Excel” etc.;

Analysis – A systematic procedure of delving deep into available information to understand patterns/trends to get a 360-degree view of the customer. This is more of an art than science and is the hallmark skill of a good analyst. “Segmentation” is a technique of bucketing visitors that meet certain pre-set criteria. Analysts should use segmentation extensively to identify which groups (segments) are the brand MVP’s. In the world of Web 2.0, a holistic approach to analysis needs to include visibility into “Clickstream data” (the What), “Multiple Outcomes Analysis” (the How Much), “Experimentation & Testing” + “Voice of the Customer” (the Why) and “Competitive Intelligence” (the What Else)

Insights & Recommendations – The output of the analysis process is a set of documented findings referred to as “Insights” that highlight the elements that ought to be of interest to business stakeholders. A good analyst supplements insights with “recommendations” – which are very specific and actionable suggestions on changes that can be made to improve ROI/customer-loyalty/brand value.

How mature is your organization’s measurement process? Do you provide just clickstream-based reports, or do you go the whole nine yards towards delivering actionable recommendations based on analysis of multiple channels? Let us talk next about a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs aka “stuff that matters to YOU”) that can reflect the success/failure of your marketing efforts.

Key Performance Indicators

Phase	Sample KPIs	Notes
Attraction	# New Visitors  # Page Views to landing pages #Banner ad impressions/clicks/clickthrough rate #email click-through rate $Cost per lead (CPL) $Cost per click (CPC) $Cost per Thousand impressions (CPM) %Entry rate	KPI’s are business-specific. What is important for one business may not be relevant to another
Evaluation/Engagement	#Views to product details pages Average length of visit Average depth of visit # of followers (FB, twitter) # of Posts %Exit Rate %Bounce Rate # Visits to shopping cart page
Purchase/Conversion	# of Registrations # of email signups # of Downloads % Conversion rate Average Order value Average Basket Size/Value
Loyalty	# Lifetime Visitor Value # Return Visitors % of Return Visitors # of Organic/Bookmarked Visitors
Advocacy	# of Friend Referrals # of FB Likes # of Followers # of Tweets (positive) # of re-Tweets # of Testimonials # of Widget Installs Net Promoter Score (NPS – Voice of the Customer)	Requires the usage of keyword mining tools/techniques as well as manual evaluation

Conclusion

Many organizations (particularly in APAC) are still in the early stages of the analytics journey.  To prove their worth, they will have to bite the bullet and hire experienced strategist(s) and analysts. Tools will come and go, but these people will be your true assets. They will help set the course and steer an organization towards digital measurement success. Hierarchical bureaucracies have long been rampant and are here to stay. However, specific data-backed recommendations, particularly when supplemented with potential revenue/savings that is waiting to be realized are very hard for even tough stakeholders to ignore.