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Daniel Laws

Tips to Move Towards Big Data & Enterprise Solutions Part 2

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Last week, I released my Tips to Move Toward Big Data & Enterprise Solutions that focused on your organization internally.  This week’s 5 Tips to Move Towards Big Data & Enterprise Solutions are focuses on projects and customer outcomes from the data.

1. Think Data Quality & Security

In this day and age, it’s critical that you think of data quality and security for the long-term.  What’s the point of having data if it’s not worth a damn?  Work to implement data quality testing and regular data quality checks to ensure that you’re collecting as well as filtering to the necessary databases or solutions.

With all of the privacy issues and customer concerns, you’ll need to create data security policies and procedures.  I would advise that you openly display your data collection polices on your website as well.  The IAB is a great resource to help you self-regulate online behavioral advertising and how you use data.

2. Start small with a project

Rome wasn’t built in a day and Cesar didn’t build it by himself, so start with small projects.  This will help get departments to collaborate and build relationships.  It will also help to identify issues that would adversely impact larger projects so that you can develop a plan to solve the issues. Small projects will be the building blocks of long-term solutions for big data and enterprise solutions.

In my experience, if you can show proof of a successful small project, it will help the decision-maker to see the value and provide justification for universal data as well as the implementation of enterprise solutions.   Tie the small project to brand or high-level strategic goals and objectives, and it will improve your level of internal support.

3. Focus on High Value & Good Customers

The small projects should focus on high value customers.  It’s recommended that you look to answer questions about high value customers, such as who they are, how they interact with your brands, what marketing tactics are critical to conversions, etc. Again, align this information back to your organization’s goals & objectives to gain internal support.

4. Focus on Insights & Outcomes

The high value customers generally account for a large part of revenues, so focus on insight and outcomes that align with revenue generation. Think about what causes high value customers to complete an action or task.  Sometime that data can help you develop hypotheses that can later be validated with surveys or focus groups.  It’s recommended that you connect the quantitative and qualitative data but it needs to be simplified so everyone internally can understand the value of the data.

5. Don’t Measure Everything, Measure what Matters to the Project/Customers!

I’d heard many people say, “Measure everything,” and I understand the thorough process behind it.  If you’re looking to move toward big data & enterprise solutions, I would recommend only measuring what matters for your specific project.  How do you ensure that you’re capturing the data that matters?  It starts with a measurement plan that aligns goals, objectives and KPIs for your project.

Conclusions

This list of tip should help to get your organization on the path toward “Big Data and Enterprise Solutions” but it’s not the end all, be all document.  It should get your thinking about internal, external, and the politics that comes with navigation across business unit to develop value for marketing and your customers.  Let us know what type of progress your organization is making and send us your recommendations to expand the list.

Tips to Move Toward Big Data & Enterprise Solutions Part 1

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With all of the talk about “Big Data”, I thought it was about time that I provide you with a few recommendations to get your organization moving to leveraging large amounts of data. The beauty of having big data is that you can be statistically confident when testing.  Small businesses don’t always have the luxury of this when looking to get a large sample size.

After years of working for organizations such as Liberty Mutual, Sovereign Bank, Idearc Media, and numerous clients (Comcast, Merck, Helzberg Diamonds to name a few), I want to share what I’ve learned about Big Data.  Below are my top 10 tips for big data or developing enterprise solutions that can make a difference:

1. Leadership & Way of Life

You’ll need leadership that’s focused on the facts, invested in people/technology, and constantly pushing for better customer value.  At this time, leadership will need to put up or shut up every step of the way.  Prove it to your customers and employees with actions based on big data that’s part of the organizational goals & objectives!

2. Integrate and Simplify Solution Platforms

Simplify and integrate solutions for optimum efficiency as well as consistency of terminology.  Use solutions that are designed and configured to work together; otherwise you’ll spend time and money trying to connect the dots instead of analyzing the information.  This shouldn’t be limited to digital information, but should include CRM, calls, web analytics, testing, advertising, etc.

3. Invest in Time & People

Spend the time to do the research on big data solutions, recommendations from the field, retailers, etc. Big Data is still young, so this will be a continuous process and the technology will evolve.  You’ll need to educate people to evolve with the technology and methodology in order to analyze different types of data sources and integrate new technology. A statistician and developer will most likely be your number 1 priorities. The statistician is the numbers guru that will make sense of things, and the developer will help connect the information to solutions with APIs.

4. Consistency of Language & Terminology (classification) across the company

Everyone across the organization must use the same language regardless of their geographic location, and the definitions must be documented.  You should think beyond metrics and include meta usage as well as tagging. If not, you’ll run into issues integrating the data and people understanding what reports or dashboards are showing.

5. Leverage Statistics

Leverage your statistician’s experience and expertise with testing that drives business success. In college, most of the business programs required statistics, and it’s time that you start using it!

 Here are a few ideas that I would recommend:

  • Correlations can show you whether and how strongly pairs of variables are related.

  • Probability can be used to measure and predict when an expected event is likely to occur in the future (conversion).

  • ANOVA tests can be used to determine impact the changing a single or two factors has on a measured outcome (a headline has on the CTR).

  • Regressions analysis can be used when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables (marketing surveys)
Part 2 of the Top 10 Tips to Move Toward Big Data & Enterprise Solution will be available next Wednesday, September 19. For the most part, this first half focused on your organization internally.  The next 5 tips will focus more on demonstrating the value.  Stay tuned for the next part!

Keyword Research to Improve Email Marketing Effectiveness

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In the internet marketing environment, we have access to a lot of information about our existing customers as well as prospective customers. Keyword research provides information on terms and phrases that are relevant to a specific audience, but demographic and geographic information should also be leveraged to improve effectiveness of email marketing campaigns and promotions. By leveraging and testing keyword research, you can create more targeted campaigns, be more efficient with your message, and improve overall conversion rates.

Segmentation of Email Campaigns based on Keyword Research

The segmentation of email campaigns beyond demographic information can include segmenting by sales process, customer lifecycle, etc. You can use keyword research to align with your segmentation strategy and deliver keywords-rich content to relevant demographics such as Female/Male or by State. Several keyword research tools such as Ispionage, SpyFu, Ad Intelligence, Google Insights, and Google Keyword Tool can provide valuable insights into keyword trends by age, geographic locations, and other demographic information.

Keyword Targeting with Subject Line Testing

Email Marketing is still an effective tactic which should include keywords that are consistent with your SEO campaign. Implementing relevant and targeted keywords that are not only consistent with your products/services, but also with your demographics and geographic locations, will help to improve open rates, click-through rates, sharing of emails, lead generation, lower cost per acquisition, and increase profit margins. The most interesting opportunity for keyword insertion into Email Marketing is within the subject line and content of the email. The ability to implement keywords into the subject line should improve your open rates as long as the keywords are relevant to the desired target audience. In some cases, email software providers can implement subject line testing to improve the open rates and test new keywords within the subject line (as seen in the Image Below).

Content Strategies by Segmentation

Based on the information that’s available for keyword research, you can develop and test content strategies based on keyword research and trends. For example, Table 1 above shows the keyword “home mortgage loan” for females between the ages of 25-34 as being consistent with the audience. By implementing keywords and content, the likelihood of the content being read, as well as its click-through rates, social media sharing, and conversions, will increase.

More Insight into What Works by Segment

If you’re running a SEO or Pay per Click campaign, it’s important to leverage this information and not “reinvent the wheel.” Some of this information is accessible via Google Analytics, WebTrends, Omniture, etc., but you need to differentiate what works and what does not. Don’t just stop at the conversion itself. Look into the segments, subject lines, and content that are leading to quotes, leads, and sales. It is recommended that you simplify the reporting to more clearly align the campaigns, keywords, segments, and content strategies with completed actions on the website or within the email campaigns themselves.

A/B Testing (Split Testing) to Convert More Online Customers

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What is A/B testing (split testing)?

A/B testing, or split testing, is a marketing testing method by which one baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response or conversion rates. An example would be to test two different subject lines of an email campaign. A/B testing has been implemented for direct mail and within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails, landing pages, or even entire websites to improve performance. You can also extend A/B testing to PPC advertising copy, alternative keywords, or PPC keyword match types.

How can my business or marketing department apply A/B testing?

You should always be testing ways to improve the sales process to reduce your cost per acquisition and to improve your customers’ experiences. I would recommend that you start with the “low hanging fruit” that could have the greatest impact on revenue or the customer experience. For example, an A/B test could be a simple as testing the color of the calls-to-action to improve the click-through-rate.

A/B testing can be applied to marketing tactics to improve sales or lead generation at a lower cost. In general, it’s easier to implement A/B testing with digital advertising because of the ability to make changes quickly and optimize the process. The findings from digital advertising can also be carried over to traditional advertising.

A/B Testing Best Practices

If you’re new to A/B/ split testing, here are a few best practices:

  • Define your goals. Clearly state what you hope to accomplish.

  • Determine how you plan to accomplish your goals. Keep it Simple!

  • What are you testing & why?

  • What is the variation you are testing (color, position, ad copy, etc.)?

  • Define the control and your variation for testing.

  • What are your expected results & reasoning?

  • Measure & Analyze the results through the sales or conversion process.

How do you apply A/B Testing to Internet Marketing Strategy?

You can leverage A/B testing based on geography, psychographics, customer lifecycles, etc. You want to develop realistic goals based on your target audiences. At first, I would recommend being targeted with your approach and limiting the test to a single market. It’s important to identify the greatest impact on the conversion process or sales process by modifying the internet marketing strategy slightly. Be sure to focus on all the results from the beginning of the process to completion and to communicate the results. Think about the effect the testing will have on saving time, money, and creating efficiencies.

Conclusion

If you haven’t started A/B testing, you’re wasting time, money, and missing opportunities. As marketers, we should always be testing to maximize performance and to reduce costs. Testing goes beyond just a subject line or ad copy. It requires focus, consistency, and planning. In addition, you must think about usability, branding, layouts, the purchase process, etc. There are numerous tools such as Web Optimizer, Visual Website Optimizer, or Test &Target to get started.

Increase Productivity and Leverage SEO/SEM Beyond Search for Enterprise Search Solutions

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What is Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search (ES) is typically defined as the practice of creating content from multiple enterprise sources, such as databases, intranet sites, and/or directories that is searchable to defined audiences. Enterprise Search differs from traditional web search by indexing data or documents from sources such as file systems, emails, or document management systems. ES has the ability to use access controls to limit the content that is available to user types.

How can my business use Enterprise Search?

Businesses of all industries and sizes can leverage Enterprise Search to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer services. Enterprise Search can help your sales team effectively and efficiently find product information (Product updates, features, and benefits, for example) to help them in their sales process. It also helps prospective customers quickly identify information related to products or services on your website. According to Google, customers that deploy an Enterprise Search solution report an increase of conversion rates by 25%. Enterprise Search solutions offer improved customer services and cut costs by providing relevant information to customers faster.

What Enterprise Search Solutions are available for my Business?

  • Google Search Appliance: Search Box with similar algorithm as Google for intranet, employee directories, internal databases, etc.

  • Google Site Search: Integrated into your company website to find product and service related information

  • Google Commerce Search: Integrated into your e-commerce website for a better shopping experience

  • Open Source Solutions: Constellio, Apache Solr, etc.

  • Other ES Solutions: Vivisimo, Attivio, SharePoint, IBM, etc.

How can my business apply SEO insights to Enterprise Search?

Enterprise Search can incorporate SEO/SEM insights to provide query suggestions, related queries, dynamic navigation and synonyms for a better user experience for customers, and create internal operating efficiencies. Your business can also leverage meta data that aligns to web related searches and business information. Enterprise Search provides an opportunity to use the insights that are generating leads and sales to save your company time, money, and develop internal efficiencies.

Tip for Considering an Enterprise Search Solution

  • Be sure to choose the correct Enterprise Search solution base on your business goals and objectives.

  • Consider the impact of Enterprise Search on your intended audience.

  • Target your Enterprise Search on your intended audience.

  • Target your Enterprise Search solution and configuration according to your audience.

  • Test configurations, query features, and designs to maximize its benefits.

  • Measure the impact on revenue, internal efficiencies, and sales.

Conclusion

The power of search goes beyond search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. In general, we associate “search” with the customer finding us within the search results. As marketing professionals and business owners, we need to consider what happens when a prospective customer lands on business website. We work to create strategies to increase brand awareness and reduce our cost per lead, but we still need to identify opportunities to increase productivity, reach new customers, and improve customer service. Enterprise Search provides us with the ability to leverage our findings from SEO or SEM to take advantage of these opportunities to better serve customers, create efficiency, and increase sales.

Conversion Attribution: Give Credit Where It’s Due

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In the Digital Analytics space, we are all obsessed with identifying marketing tactics that perform the best and drive the most return-on-investment via conversions. We seek to track all sorts of checkout funnels, application submissions, and newsletter sign-ups and do our best to identify what search phrases and traffic sources ultimately led visitors to those actions. But one of the most common mistakes of many analysts and marketers is to only pay exclusive attention to the assets that led to a conversion in a single session. Many people fail to realize that the conversion process can often span several sessions before a valuable action is taken.

That’s why it is important to consider conversion attribution: Did converting visitors visit the website prior to making the purchase or submitting an online application? If so, how did they initially find your website? There are countless gems that can be found in looking at these factors.

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