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Oct
07
2008

Reach for Your Business Goals, Not for Numbers

By | News & Notes, Strategy

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soccerrandysonofrobertOne of the top requests we get from clients is to help increase traffic to their business website.  Our first response is to ask what business goal they are trying to attain.  While increasing traffic may be one of many possible solutions, it may not be the right one.  Working on increasing traffic on your website without understanding how it will help you reach your goals is like getting triple-bypass heart surgery before you’ve had a doctor’s diagnosis.

Let’s take a look at an example:

An e-commerce site is spending a great deal of money on Internet advertising and SEO, but is sales have fallen.  Their first reaction is to increase traffic to their website.  What should they do?

Understand your business goals

Is the business goal to increase traffic?  Hardly.  Their business goal is to increase sales.  Increasing traffic may help, but there may also be other issues.  By understanding their business goals, they’ll be able to come up with solutions and ways to measure whether they’ve attained their goals.

Understand the problem

Understanding the problem helps you brainstorm all the possible solutions.  The highest return on investment may come from a mixture of solutions or one solution may not be complete without taking a look at other aspects of the website and business.  After taking a look at their website, their advertising and marketing efforts, this client had a number of different issues to address, including conversion rates, usability, marketing message, and ROI of advertising, which were all affecting their sales and bottom line.

Look for solutions

Now that you have recognized your business goals and understand the full set of issues, you can come up with the right solutions.  In our example, there are a wide range of solutions, of which, increasing traffic was only a very small part.  By creating an Internet business strategy from the set of solutions, the client was able to more efficiently attack the problem.

Measure your progress

This is where the numbers do actually help.  Of course you need to understand exactly what numbers you are looking for.  Just increasing the number of visitors or page views won’t help attain your business goals.  For our example, we had to measure conversion rates, ROI of advertising, time on site, exit pages, etc. to see how we were progressing.  It may seem like a confusing bunch of numbers, but once you’ve gone through this thought process, the numbers you need are much more clear.

Summary

Before you spend big bucks on SEO or Internet advertising, take a few minutes to consider what business goals you are trying to achieve and all the possible issues that you may need to consider to reach those goals.  Just a few minutes of thought can help direct your efforts into the biggest bang for your buck.

(photo by randy son of robert @ Flickr CC)

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Oct
06
2008

Creating an Internet Business Strategy – Implementation

By | News & Notes, Strategy

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gnrimplementationWe’re in the home stretch of our Internet Business Strategy planning, but let’s quickly review the parts of the plan:

  • Executive Summary
  • Methodologies
  • Current Situation
  • Vision & Goals
  • Requirements
  • Implementation

The implementation portion of the Internet Business Strategy planning is not intended to be a full implementation plan.  Once you have your strategy, you’ll need to create detailed implementation plans.  For your Internet business strategy, consider the following for implementation :

  • Lessons Learned – Are there any previous projects we can learn from?  Are there external sources that have implemented similar strategies?
  • Implementation of Sub-Projects – Does it make sense to divide the project into smaller, easier-to-manage proejcts?  How will you divide up the implementation into sub-projects? Who is responsible for each sub-project?  How will the sub-projects be managed in order to move towards a common goal?
  • Phasing and Milestones – What is a realistic timeline for implementation?  Should we divide up implementation into phases? What are the various phases of implementation?  What are target dates for each phase?
  • Budget Plan – What are the budgetary requirements for any phasing and sub-projects?  Are there any opportunities for cost-sharing with other organizations? What are the specifics of our financial processes?  Who is the financial authority for administration the budget? How does the available budget affect the time periods for phases and milestones?
  • Marketing – How will we get the word out about our strategy?  Who is the target audience?  Are there any events we should attend?  What is our marketing budget?
  • Measuring Success and Making Adjustments – What are the critical success factors that should be communicated to our stakeholders?  What performance metrics should we use? What cost avoidance can be expected and how can it be measured?  How often do we assess our progress to determine if adjustments need to be made?

Once you have created your Internet business strategy, you will need to work to implement and communicate your vision throughout your organization.  We’ll cover these topics in future posts.

(photo by qnr @ Flickr CC)

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Sep
30
2008

What are the Requirements for your Internet Business Strategy to Succeed?

By | News & Notes, Strategy

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boullosatrainwindowNow that you’ve considered the methodologies for your Internet Business Strategy, assessed the current situation, and created vision and goals, it’s time to figure out all the requirements.  Requirements in terms of an Internet strategy plan are much broader than normal project requirements.  These requirements need to encompass everything needed by the organization to reach your vision and goals.  Think broadly.

Here are some requirements to consider:

  • Data Requirements – What data and information do we need to attain our goals?  What information do we need for monitoring our efforts?  What content do we need?  Where can we get access to this data and information?  How does the data and information need to be analyzed?
  • Technology Requirements – What infrastructure do we need to support our strategy (network, servers, etc)?  What system architecture is needed (operating systems, web browsers, etc.)?  What applications need to be supported (or purchased)?  Do any of the systems or applications need to work together?  How?  Do we have any legacy systems that need to be integrated?
  • Resource Requirements – What skills and expertise are needed for our strategy?  Are the skills available within the organization?  Will new staff need to be hired?  Are consultants required?  Are there any other resources we can use to meet our requirements (voluntary, part-time, interns)?
  • Standards Requirements – Are there any organizational or external standards that require compliance?  What standards should be required or created in order to assure quality?  How will these standards be monitored?
  • Organizational Requirements – Are there any organizational changes needed to meet our goals?  Are the people resources required spread out throughout the organization?  How will they be organized and managed?
  • Executive Support – What is required to ensure top-level executive support and buy-in?  How will executives be briefed on progress?  What involvement is required by executives to ensure success?
  • Coordination & Oversight Requirements – Who is responsible for coordinating strategy efforts?  Who is responsible for making decisions related to strategy implementation?  Who is the champion of the strategy?  What responsibilities are required and how are they assigned?  Who is monitoring progress and how is progress reported?  Who in these cases does not need to be an individual.  A team may be more effective especially if diverse departments are involved.
  • Policy Requirements – Are there any existing policies that need to be considered and possibly altered to attain our goals?  Do any policies need to be put into place?  Are there any external policies that need to be followed?
  • Staffing Requirements – If we need more staff, how do we justify them?  What qualifications should new staff have?  What support personnel are needed for implementation and supporting new staff?  Can volunteers be used?  Part-time personnel?  Interns?  Are there any professional credentials or certifications that are relevant?  What are the job descriptions for any new positions (or changes)?
  • Budget Requirements – What funding is required?  How will we be funded?  Can we redirect existing funding?  Are there opportunities for cost sharing?  How do we get more funding/money?  How will staff positions be allocated?  How will expenses and profits be allocated?  How can we mitigate any future budget shortfalls?
  • Community & Outreach Requirements – What communications are required to keep implementation of our goals on track?  Who will be responsible for coordinating any communications?  Who needs to be informed of progress?  Are any external organizations or stakeholders involved?
  • Risk Assessment Requirements – What major challenges could affect the outcome of our strategy (both internally and externally)?  How will we recognize risks and overcome them?  What might happen if we do not overcome obstacles?

Gathering all the requirements probably seems very time consuming.  And it is, but if it is done properly it will make the next step, implementation, much easier.  Requirements gathering is a great place to get many people involved.  Many different types of expertise are needed to gather some of the requirements.  Dividing and conquering can save a lot of time and effort and create a much more robust set of requirements.

What other requirements have you considered when strategizing for Internet business?

(photo by nicolas.boullosa @ Flickr CC)

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Sep
18
2008

How to Create an Internet Business Strategy – Methodologies

By | Strategy

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cloudsthejamokerIn the last post in this series we summarized the steps of a internet strategy plan.  In the next series of posts, we’ll go into more detail.  Thinking about methodology or what steps you are going to take to come up with your plan is an important step.  While this may seem like planning to plan, good strategic planning involves all the major stakeholders in the company, which takes good planning to accomplish.

Stakeholders

Who are they and why are they important?  Stakeholders are anyone who has a major stake in the strategic plan.  Put differently, they are people who are affected or affect the plan.  Obviously there could be herds of people affected, so strategy planning focuses on major stakeholders (usually high level managers). Once major stakeholders have been identified, you should also think about who is responsible for what in the strategic planning process and who is supervising the entire process.

Planning to Plan

Will the strategic planning process be handled internally or by consultants?  Does the process need to completed by a certain date? Are there other strategy plans that this fits into (IT, finance, human resources, etc.)? Should the planning be split into phases?  What are the roadblocks to the process (internal politics, resources, budget, etc.)?  What are the factors for success?  Are there any collaboration tools to help the process?

Strategizing

How do you identify quick opportunities for success?  How will you identify opportunities for improvement?  How will you come up with solutions?  What time limits will you impose on the planning process (strategic plans that take too long can have situations change thereby changing solutions)?  What are the realistic goals for the business?  How will you market your strategies?

Monitoring

A key factor to the success of strategic planning is being able to monitor the solutions.  Once you’ve come up with solutions you are going to implement, figure out what to monitor to make sure those solutions are working.  If they aren’t working, how can you change them?  Also important to consider is who will be responsible for monitoring solutions and making decisions about what needs to change (if anything).

Summary

You’ll notice that there are a lot of questions to ask (and try to answer).  Strategic planning is  thinking about the questions that need to be asked and then trying to answer them.  Asking questions helps to develop an understanding of the challenges facing the organization.  Once the challenges have been identified, it becomes easier to come up with solutions.

So far the Internet strategic plan is no different from an overall strategic plan.  A good Internet strategic plan should involve a most of the organization and follows similar methodologies.

Next we’ll discuss how to analyze your current Internet situation.

(photo by The Jamoker)

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Aug
18
2008

Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Campaigns to Attain Business Goals

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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Sadly enough, too many advertisers initiate PPC campaigns without knowing what the end goal is. A word of caution: Traffic is not an end goal! …PPC campaign effectiveness is judged by its impact on the company’s bottom line, and the return on investment. Campaign optimization is measured by an increase in CTR and improved quality score. – Ask Enquiro – Key PPC Best Practices (Part 1 of 4)

I’ve had many clients who ask me to increase the traffic to their website by helping them optimize their Google AdWords (PPC) campaign.  Often the client is already getting pretty good traffic to their site through the AdWords, search engines and direct traffic – the problem is that all the traffic isn’t helping them attain their business goals – increased leads and sales.  In these cases taking a look at the landing pages and the usability of the site can often give clues as to why the traffic is not converting to sales/leads (we’ll cover that in more depth in a future post).  Most importantly, think about what the business goals are for your PPC advertising and maintain consistent wording on ads, landing pages and through out the site.  To measure effectiveness of your PPC campaigns, think in terms of business goals – conversions, sales and ROI.  The Ask Enquiro article has good information to help you run effective PPC campaigns.

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Aug
15
2008

Pricing Online Ads

By | Internet Advertising

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Futuristic Play @Andrew Chen has an interesting read: Internet Advertising Bureau and Bain on pricing in online ad markets.  One point for publishers stood out:

Need to better support the value of premium inventory – through more innovative offerings and/or reducing units available

Too often websites get greedy about making money and put ad placements all over their pages (what I like to call the “porn effect”).  Putting too many ads on a page is detrimental to all the advertisers because they have to fight for share of voice (SOV) or attention.  Visitors are more likely to ignore ads entirely if they are lumped together (they subconsciously know that area of the page is just “ads”).  It may seem a bit non-intuitive but creating an ad inventory – or set amount of ads and ad spots can help you increase their value.  As your traffic grows, more advertisers will be interested in advertising on your site.  If you sell out of spots, you’ll be able to raise the prices of your ad spots.  Selling out of spots also entices advertisers because it infers that your site is a valuable advertising placement.

If you have ads on your blog or website, what has been your experience with creating an ad inventory?  What about on other websites that you visit – what are your thoughts about their advertising?

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Aug
13
2008

What is Rich Media Anyway?

By | Internet Advertising, News & Notes

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Easy task, at a first sight: defining what exactly can be considered a ‘rich media ad‘. It is, of course… a ‘rich media ad’, as in a display ad taken one step further. Surely, this is not a definition. But it was pretty much all I could gather – from people who work in the online advertising industry and especially agencies. – Ad Operations Daily – What is Rich Media in an Online Advertising Context?

You may have heard of rich media when reading about how to advertising your business website.  Ad Operations Daily has some good information on what classifies rich media and we also covered the topic in:

Rich media ads can be very effective (and usually more expensive) in advertising your products and services, but understanding what rich media is and is good for will increase your return on investment (ROI).