For a long time we marketers have relied on buying expensive advertising and begging the media and analysts for coverage of our companies, products and services. We’ve basically interrupted people with our messages in the hopes of generating interest from buyers (who usually ignored us anyway). The Web has profoundly changed this practice.

Smart marketers now communicate with buyers through content rich Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, ebooks, and other online media that buyers actually want to consume. The products and services offered by tuned in companies resonate with people who willingly buy without being coerced. But how do you get to this place in your marketing?

To answer this question and more I’ve asked David Meerman Scott to join me for today's author series show. He’s written a new book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” and I think it should be on every marketers' shelf.

If there was one key concept shared out today it is that you are what you publish -- and to borrow a phrase from the world of higher education this is equal to "publish or perish". It's all about what you put online and if we've heard anything over the past two shows the role of the Web site is essential (see my last post on having a bad Web site).

What can you do today to start implementing the new rules? David had some great tactical advice which includes:

1. create a Web site based on buyer personas and not your company ego (a common theme here folks -- it's not about you, your products, or services).
2. publish online press releases using the content based on your personas. Write the release for them not to boast about you.
3. Get onto the social networks that match your personas. Just because Facebook is all the rage right now, it may not be the right place for you. Go where your buyers are, not where the hype is at.

Tons of other great ideas including a brilliant metaphor about the Web being like a city. I haven't heard this before and it refreshed my thinking about how to incorporate online media into my own marketing efforts.

-- David Kinard, PCM

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Whether or not you believe in the notion that a bad Web site is worse than none at all, it's hard to argue the merits of a well developed site and its resulting effects in lead generation, sales conversions, or improvements in overall customer experience. In fact, my guest today feels that when done right, even subtle changes can produce double-digit increases in online conversion rates and revenue growth.

Today's show was all about the content on your site and discussing strategies with me was Mark Wachen, managing director of Optimost at Interwoven. Interwoven provides a services platform that helps companies manage their Web content (I am sure I am doing them an injustice in that short description, so you can go to their Web site for more info).

I asked Mark what he felt were the first steps a marketer should take to begin a content-based optimization process. He offered a few ideas:

1. Set up key goals for your site and Web activity.
2. Identify what the value of a conversion is for your company.
3. Use the right tools and methodology to guide your optimization.

Seems pretty simple, right? Actually, in my experience the top two are going to be the hardest. Talking with marketers from all over the country I continually find that many do not have goals for their sites. They simple toss pages onto the Web and hope for the best. It still baffles me in a Web 2.0 world how many companies make their ABOUT US page the most important (e.g. first nav link) on their site.

Anyway, this was a great show to get you started on your journey to optimizing your site -- not in the keyword or search engine marketing sense, but in the ability of your pages to create customer experiences that drive results for your company.

-- David Kinard

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Right on the heels of attending the AMA workshop on Marketing Dashboards, I got another dose of excellent ideas from my guest today -- Randy Brandt of Maritz Research. We spent time talking about developing a core customer metric.

Dont' get this wrong -- we're not talking about a new metric, a new silver bullet, or a new blue pill to swallow. This is about creating an optic into your customers' experience satisfaction and loyalty scores which are driven by multiple metrics and data points (or on the rare ocassion, just one). In the program, Randy explained how to develop a definition of what your core customer metric could/should be.

Your first steps...well, that is the simplest question to ask, the easiet to answer, and the hardest to do (in my opinion). You've got to start with something Randy calls "business blueprinting." Though he didn't coin the term, Randy describes it as starting with the business outcomes you're trying to manage and working back from there. He strongly encouraged everyone NOT to take a "one size fits all" approach. Your core customer metric is not going to be anyone elses.

Maritz Research has also started a new online forum for those interested in talking and learning in a community around the topic of core customer metrics. You can go to corecustomermetric.com and join in the "fresh discussion" on what is best to measure, and how to do it.

-- David Kinard

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Okay, the AMA workshop on Marketing Dashboards 2.0 lead by Alex Eldimir and Pat LaPointe of MarketingNPV was a huge help -- and that is just from day one. As the chronic multitasking person I am, I was redoing my company's marketing and Web dashboards in real time while learning from these two guys. End result -- I sent the new formats to my VP and he enthusiastically approved them. I could go home right now and the workshop would have been worth every penny...but there's one more day!

The afternoon session consisted of going through about 50+ different metrics we could use in evaluating our marketing performance -- everything from share and revenue, to leads and acquisitions, to an emerging metric in innovation. We also got a really helpful tutorial in how to create a dashboard for those elusive things known as our brand and company reputation.

Tomorrow we dive deep into analytics, knowledge aggregation, dashboard adoption, and how to build the plan. I'll have to jump on a plane right after so I am not sure I'll be able to post tomorrow, but nonetheless, this was an excellent workshop.

If you have the chance to attend the next workshops on this topic, be sure to do so. They're April 2-3 in Philly, adn April 17-18 in Chicago. Time and money well spent!!

-- David Kinard

Posted by David Kinard at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is a great line in Alice in Wonderland where Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions. The cat asks Alice, "Where do you want to go?" Alice replies "I am not quite sure." The cat responds, "Then it doesn't really matter where you head." (And for the purists in the world, that summary was an approximation of the conversation only.)

Anyway, in the world of marketing dashboards we've been encouraged to ensure we start top-down to align our activities and reports. One of the complaints of top management is that they don't know if we see the bigger picture, or that they can't interpre the bigger picture from all the little pieces we report out.

Already I've received a simple but highly sophisticated roadmap (hey you BSC-ers out there...it's very similar!) that will help to report the larger context of your marketing efforts. Another display separately captures the short-term priorities and long term priorities. So for an organization that is sales driven and lead captures are critical, but you understand the importance of linking brand to lead generation, this model id's that you're able to focus on both and their relationship.

-- David Kinard

Posted by David Kinard at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A marketing dashboard is a collection of critical metrics organized by logical family which provide diagnostic and predictive insights to measure performance and support resource allocation.

Okay, pretty good definition, but I would challenge the predictive nature of a dashboard. I would much prefer the word suggestive. I have yet to see a dashboard metric that was futuristic. They're more or less latent measurements or current status reads...not predictive.

The other main question I have is the critical metrics notion. Who says what those are? Are they relative to the organization or are there a few that are common across industries or companies?

-- David Kinard

Posted by David Kinard at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am in Denver, CO at an AMA workshop on marketing dashboards. The presenters are the bright and highly practical Alex Eldimir and Pat LaPointe of MarketingNPV. I've had both on the radio program before.

I am excited to be here as this topic has been on my radar screen for some time. Already I can tell that this is going to be a hands-on session and focused on putting ideas into practice. My big question for the two days is to figure out for my business how to develop the investment formula of if I put x into something what can I expect as y.

More as the two days progress.

- David Kinard

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