Marketing

Sarah Worsham / Feb 25, 2009

Want Your Statistics To Make Sense? Attach Dollars

dollartheritters Impressions, page views, hits, visits, unique visitors, clicks, CTR, conversions… what do they all mean? Unless you can translate them into how you’re doing business, they’re just numbers… and pretty useless ones at that. While using the Internet to help your business may be relatively cheap, you still should understand what efforts are working and which are not. Most Internet strategies require iterative improvements to get the most out of them – and that means knowing where you’re making money and where you’re not.

Every statistic should be related to the money you’re making. If you’re selling things online, this is a bit easier, since you can track how many sales you’re making and how much per sale versus how many page views, visits, clicks, etc. If you’re using the Internet to advertise your products or services, hopefully you have some way to collect leads online – or at least track that they came from online. Then you should be able to figure out how many leads you get for how many actual sales (your $), which you then can relate to how many page views, clicks, etc. it took to get those.

As an example, many clients think they are doing really well with Internet advertising, but when we take a look at how much money they’re getting per conversion, click, etc., we often find that they’re spending more per conversion than they’re selling their product for. It’s often hard to see this at first glance because people tend to look at overall spending when deciding what’s working. If I spend $500 per month on Google ads, but I make $5000 per month, I might not think that’s a bad return. But if you take a closer look, you may be getting most of your sales from other places, and you’re spending $500/month and not actually making anything from that traffic (if you’re spending more than you’re getting).

We all have a limited amount of time in our day. If you can attach dollars to your Internet statistics, it will help you understand where you need to make changes, what’s working, and how to move forward.

(photo by theritters @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: analytics, business, marketing, ROI, statistics

Sarah Worsham / Feb 24, 2009

Is Your Marketing Evil?

Seth Godin’s post yesterday, Is marketing evil? refreshed a subject that’s come up in my mind from time to time. Seth’s post was about avoiding marketing things that are harmful to people. He also briefly touched upon evil marketing techniques, which I think are important for all business people to consider.

Sometimes the product or service we’re selling doesn’t have any particularly harmful effects, but the way that we’re selling it isn’t as open or truthful as it should be. Tricking customers into buying your product for a quick buck may win in the short run, but it certainly won’t help your brand or reputation. Eventually you’ll run out of rocks to hide behind.

There are also products which are fine when used responsibly by the right people – alcohol is one example that comes to mind. However, some products in this category that may not be as obvious. For example, many online games can become addicting to people so much so that they avoid most interaction with the real world (disclaimer – I play computer games – both online and off. I am keenly aware of addictive qualities of some games). How do you market and sell a product that could be harmfully addicting to some people, especially when that addiction can feed your bottom line through monthly fees? Should you let people know about the possibilities ahead of time? Should you provide help for people who become addicted?

I think the important point is for marketers, business people, salespeople, and anyone else involved in selling a product or service to really consider the impact of both the product and the marketing. Using the golden rule to do onto others as you want done to yourself is a good measuring stick. Or follow Google’s lead and “do no evil”.

(photo by TonivS @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: brand, brand reputation, branding, marketing, marketing strategy, strategy, reputation

Sarah Worsham / Feb 17, 2009

Don't forget the Relationship in CRM

relationshipsolarikon Does your company have CRM (Customer Relationship Management)? CRM used to be about a business process of managing a relationship with a customer, but now it often just applies to a piece of software that stores customer names and some information about them. During this recession, there is an opportunity to actually form relationships with your customers. As Lee Odden from Online Marketing Blog says:

As companies decide where to invest their limited marketing resources, there is a distinct opportunity to focus on investing in relationships: with their customers, prospects, employees and business partners.

So instead of using your CRM to blast out targeted email campaigns, use CRM to form long-lasting relationships with your customers. Reach out to them and see if you can help. Companies and people who connect with their customers will be remembered much more than companies that just sent out lots of advertising. Best of all, building relationships is easy on the wallet – just takes a bit of your time.

(photo by “Solar ikon” @ Flickr CC)

Technorati tags: business, business strategy, crm, customer relationship management, customers, marketing, marketing strategy, online marketing, internet marketing

« Previous Page