A new approach in 2010

As we head into the New Year, there will be fresh focus on the business outlook than what happened in 2009. A lot of questions need to be addressed first-up, before we get buried in the daily operations - did we achieve the most out of our business analytics efforts in 2009, was the data adequately supportive of our business strategy in 2009, do we have a clear roadmap/plan for 2010, and what relevant metrics and analytics focus in 2010 will help us achieve corporate goals, etc?

Let’s take a moment to know our strategic focus, be it at the corporate level, business unit level, or simply for the team. If we are an analytics shared service team, we need to know the key metrics that will help our business achieve the desired results. If we are a functional team, we need to assess our metrics and sit down with our shared service folks to understand the metrics and outline a process to measure/report/analyze these in the coming months. And if you are a do-it-yourself organization - well, you are over-worked - yet, you need to ensure that your functional success is aligned with analytics goals.

So where should the focus be?

E-Commerce sites may need to look at conversions, CPC rates, click-through rates, etc. Content push sites may need to look at programming efficiencies, click-through rates, repeat visitation, etc. If your goals are a blend of the above, conversions and click-through rates may be more important. Do you have an online video strategy and are the metrics appropriately defined and tracked? What about your social media strategy – are the metrics defined and tracked? Oh, and don’t forget the consumer experience metrics – ease of navigation, bounce rates, engagement depth, etc. will be great success indicators, while A/B testing a great tool to continuously upgrade your site’s experience.

The key will be to understand the business strategy for the year and outline the metrics and analytics approach at the onset – meeting with your leader/executive and setting those benchmarks is very helpful in the beginning of the year and brings focus that helps react to business contingencies. As an example, in 2009, I helped an organization stay on course to beat their OIBDA targets, in spite of the downturn in revenue.

2010 is bound to present much greater opportunities!

The 5 Cs of consumer engagement!

I have spoken a lot about consumer engagement through this forum, but I wanted to share the 5 Cs of consumer engagement - from a Forrester research study. So here they are:

1) Customer experience
2) Contextual
3) Consistency
4) Communities
5) Consumer behavior measurement

Customer experience across the site is a function of business focus, product/service, and objectives for the site and the page. If consumers come to the site to read an article, I would like to see the article be the main focus of the page, however, if the intent was to drive conversion, then that conversion message or the link needs to be clearly visible. That is a no-brainer, a lot of us would argue, but we often tend to ignore this simple rule of "simplicity" by provide a lot more in the hope that we will engage the consumer beyond the first landing. That is where we tend to hurt ourselves ... leaving some white space is OK, and so is to include relevant details from the original promotion, such as, rich media, related articles, products, searches, etc., whatever the case may be! Do make sure not to overwhelm the consumer with information overload and/or cause user-fatigue!

Contextual is simply building on the note above, in that, we need to ensure that besides the leader article on the page, there is other related information, such as, the related topics, relevant ads and any local information - again relevant to the topic. I have seen a lot of sites running mortgage rates ads on the same page as my local weather report. It is not just annoying but also "habit-creating" - that of a tendency to not look beyond my immediate interest, thereby robbing me of valuable engagement.

Consistent goes well beyond the site and the page. Here the goal should be ensure that the site is consistent in look-and-feel, value proposition, products/services with the overall corporate promotions, both online and offline. After all, familiarity and recognition of the brand does breed positive experience and hence better engagement.

Communities is a feature that companies are using more and more, but managing consumer experience and expectations could prove to be tricky. It is imperative to manage our social presence with careful planning in order to prevent any unwanted side effects. We need to define goals for our social media presence and participate and empower users to reach us through our social platform; And, we need to also make sure that we are responding to their voice and capturing the feedback, as needed, which would be a valuable addition to our data set on consumer analytics.

Consumer behavior on the site provides valuable insights about what works and what doesn't. We need to be constantly validating our experience through A/B or multi-variate testing to ensure we are current and responding to users' changing proclivities. I have seen businesses realize 25% to 50% improvements in user response rates by simply changing the color and test of the sales offer, after running an A/B test.

Overall, I feel like the 5Cs capture a good deal of how we can go about improving our user experience. When coupled with a sound online business strategy, operational focus and clear goal measurement, we can better engage our users, improve brand awareness and loyalty, and create real bottom-line value for the business.

Is the business Main Page enabling your consumers?

A lot is invested in creating that spell-binding first impression (our main page, or front door!), but are you doing all you can to ensure that the experience is in line with your consumers' expectations? I wanted to draw our attention to this often hyped, yet overlooked disconnect! Applying this concept to our web site may bring amazing results, not just in terms of conversion (this is unique based on our business goal/s), but also, consumer satisfaction, which drives loyalty and a positive "word of mouth" - all very important considerations!

The primary goal of your "front door" should be clearly defined, keeping in mind the needs of your consumers. Assuming, market research has helped you focus on the consumer need, the next step is to focus on your primary goals? Is it; branding, growing traffic, addressing a consumer need in your niche market, growing revenue, driving traffic to other parts of your site, etc. Once you chose the primary goal, the remainder on the list above can still be addressed as secondary goals, while staying focused on a positive consumer experience. One could also address more than one primary goal from the main page, but that starts to get into addressing a specific need within a niche market segment. A case in point - Google, which meets a critical consumer need for search and achieves several goals - high traffic, positive branding, etc.

So, the strategy should be identify/target a consumer need in the market segment, and tailor the experience to closely match your primary goal(s). Focus on one or the other and you risk losing consumer attention, loyalty and branding - all of which can hurt the business in the long term.