The opening keynote was presented by Karen Breen Vogel from Clear Gauge. She explained to the conference audience why it’s important to set up and use a good measurement system on the Web.
Financial people don’t care about your marketing tactics, activities or campaigns.
They want measurable results. It’s all about ROI.
The traditional marketing funnel:
Acquire > Engage > Convert
Visits > Interaction > Leads
When you do e-commerce, ROI is very clear.
But, most organizations/institutions are trying to start a relationship on the Web: to go from anonymous visitors to known prospects.
First, make sure everybody on campus agrees on the definitions (leads, etc.)
In the new emerging model, buyer initiates the process (with his/her community).
Buyer does research, discover, compare, qualify & negotiate then contacts the seller.
“It’s not about driving traffic. It’s about driving the right traffic, engaging your visitors, achieving business value for you and your customers.”
Measure whether or not your visitors have been successful
Traffic Stats (visitors, hits, etc.) > Visitor path analysis (GA, keyword, path) > Key performance indicators (what really matters) > Financial valuation > Predictive analytics
How to drive optimal business results
- Don’t go run to get tools first
- Establish ownership
- Tie to goals of the business
- Develop process for defining visitor success milestone points
- Create key performance indicators.
- Then, get the tools,
- Train
- Get attitudinal data – ask visitors what they wanted, what they did (surveys, online focus group, usability testing, social network data) > the cost is very inexpensive.
Your business goals are either making money or saving money.
So, what should you do?
- Focus on the success of your customers
- Put visitor behavior into a business value / financial context
- Define KPI
- Determine baselines for each KPI
- Get some attitudinal data
- Use your tool to report to your business context specifically
- Do this before spending money on media or web redesign/development