In a world full of endless data and information, it’s sometimes difficult to wrap our heads around measuring what matters. Clearly, Albert was onto something.

Image: The Lepolas

For a free tool, Google Analytics (GA) is pretty magical. With little to no setup, you can quickly see which channels are sending you the most traffic, the types of pages that are attracting visitors, and what those visitors are doing on your site once they get there. But as smart marketers, we need to know more.

If you’re reading this blog, hopefully you’re no stranger to tracking traffic in GA, but if you’ve ever wanted to track like a boss, today is your lucky day. Let’s take a closer look at UTM parameters, and learn how to use them to make better marketing decisions.

What are UTM parameters?

A UTM parameter is a tag added to the end of a URL. When users click a link with parameters, unique data about these URLs becomes available in the site’s Google Analytics account. Usually, anything that follows a “?” within a URL is a parameter.

To set up custom campaigns in Google, you can add parameters to the end of a URL. A UTM parameter consists of both a parameter (also known as a “variable”) and a value.

When creating your UTM, there are 3 common variables you should always include (and a plethora of others too):

• Campaign Source (utm_source) Use this to identify the source of your traffic. Common referrers include social media sites like Twitter or Facebook, a specific newsletter edition, or a site where you have some banner ad placement.
• Campaign Medium (utm_medium) This shows the marketing medium you used your URL in, such as an email newsletter, a specific banner ad size, or CPC.
• Campaign Name (utm_campaign) Create a general theme for your content, and use the same campaign name across mediums and sources to compare results. An example could be “videoinfographic” or “founderscorner3”.

So what does a UTM parameter look like when it’s attached to a URL? Here’s an example for a tweet we sent out from Hootsuite about how awesome Thunder is.

Fun Fact/Jeopardy Trivia: The acronym “UTM” was derived from Urchin Tracking Module, which Google discontinued in March 2012.

Where can I see the results?

In Google Analytics, you can quickly see which URLs with UTM parameters drove traffic by visiting Traffic Sources > Sources > Campaigns. When I’m analyzing results, I like to click the “Source / Medium” tab in the Primary Dimension section, and then I select “Campaign” as the Secondary Dimension. This shows me a birds-eye view of the sources, mediums and campaigns that sent the most traffic.

If you have Google Analytics Goals set up, you can also click “Goal Set 1” (FYI: Goal Sets are another soon-to-be-discontinued GA feature) in the Explorer tab to see how this traffic correlates with conversions.

One thing missing from the picture here is the ability to look at “Source / Medium”, “Campaign” AND “Landing Page”. To do this, I suggest setting up a GA Advanced Segment for each major channel you’re testing.

Here’s an example I created for Thunder Scoop, our monthly newsletter (are you on the list?!). As you can see, I named this Advanced Segment “Thunder Newsletter UTM Traffic” and included “Source” containing “Thunder_Scoop” and “Medium” containing “email”. After turning this Advanced Segment on, I can now use “Landing Page” as my Secondary Dimension, and even explore other dimensions like which browsers my visitors are using, cities they’re clicking from, and the screen size they’re using to consume my content. I’m pretty impressed. Are you?

UTM parameters tools

There are several tools that help you create custom UTM parameters with the click of a mouse. Here are a few I like to use.

The most obvious is the Google Analytics URL builder. If you like your vegetables from the Farmers Market, you should probably build your UTM parameters at the mothership.

In addition to a URL Builder, Raven Tools’ Google Analytics Configuration Tool also helps you set up GA goal and event tracking, as well as basic GA tracking.

Since I use a lot of the same UTM parameters and just swap out the campaign name, I really like taking advantage of HootSuite’s Custom URL Parameters feature. Basically, you add presets of parameters you regularly use, and then you can quickly add the parameters to URLs while also shortening the links with a few simple clicks. Makes life easier, and who doesn’t like that?

5 handy UTMs

Since I mentioned I use a few UTMs to promote Thunder on the regular, thought I’d share them here for easy UTM-ificiation.

Social Media Promotion

Use these UTMs for links shared on social networks. Some people choose to lump all “sources” together into one social media bundle, but I’m sure you’re not surprised I like to separate them out for more analysis.

?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=hootsuite&utm_campaign=thunderisawesome
?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fbwall&utm_campaign=thunderisawesome
?utm_source=google&utm_medium=googleplus&utm_campaign=thunderisawesome
?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=liupdate&utm_campaign=thunderisawesome

Email Newsletter

Make sure to track every link in your newsletter. Services like MailChimp give you the option to add automatic GA tracking, but they apply one source / medium / campaign to your entire newsletter. Instead, opt to add each link manually, and track monthly features with the same campaign over time.

?utm_source=Thunder_Scoop_May_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thunderissmart

Press Releases

Sometimes, we use press releases to announce big news, like new client relationships and awards. Make sure to coordinate with your PR team or agency about UTMs. If anything, this supports their work, since you can closely monitor the traffic from press releases and see how well the announcement converts.

?utm_source=PRWeb&utm_medium=advancedrelease&utm_campaign=thunderispopular

Banner Ads

If you’re doing any kind of advertising banner advertising on a site, please tell me you’re using parameters to quickly see which ads perform better.

?utm_source=sel&utm_medium=468x60fullbanner&utm_campaign=thunderloathesbannerads
?utm_source=sel&utm_medium=240x400verticalbanner&utm_campaign=thunderloathesbannerads

Sweepstakes and Promotions

If you’re running any special giveaways on a third party app, make sure to use parameters to evaluate campaign success. My previous UTM parameters post touched on this, as well as the ability to add call tracking information to UTM parameters.

?utm_source=woobox&utm_medium=fbtab&utm_campaign=thunderlovesprizes

Challenges with UTM parameters

With great power comes great responsibility, and the same can be said for UTM parameters. Here are a few challenges and solutions associated with these handy tags.

Inconsistency

Challenge A big advantage of using UTM parameters is the ability to compare stats across sources, mediums and campaigns. However, if one character is off, GA will treat the two parameters as unique tags. Parameters are also case sensitive, so make sure to keep things consistent, because having a “Twitter” and “twitter” source really screws up your data.

Solution Keep track of parameters in a centralized doc that you can refer to over time.

Ugly links

Challenge In case you haven’t noticed, these UTM parameters add a lot of extra characters to your URLs. Besides looking ugly, it’s also inconvenient when you’re trying to keep things under 140 characters.

Solution Use a URL shortening service like bit.ly, ow.ly or goo.gl, since UTM data still passes through short links.

You can’t track internal links with UTM parameters

Challenge Each time a link with a UTM parameter is clicked, a new visit is generated, therefore inflating the number of website visits, and skewing other data.

Solution Use event tracking or site search to track internal campaigns with GA.

Miscellaneous UTMs

Challenge Did you know anyone can add UTMs to your links? It’s kinda like an awesome Easter Egg.

Solution Browse through your GA Campaign data, and have a good laugh.

Pinterest Don’t Care

Challenge Pinterest strips UTM parameters from links, regardless if you add them before pinning.

Solution According to some, you can edit the link and add the UTMs in, but keep in mind that most affiliate links are rejected by Pinterest, so UTMs might not fly under the radar either.

U(TM) Complete Me

While there are a few drawbacks to using UTM parameters, most will be completely delighted by the detailed metrics available at one’s fingertips. Adding tags to your links helps you determine which channels and promotion efforts are the most successful, which leads to more informed campaigns. Woohoo!

Have you had success tracking campaign success with UTM parameters? Please share in the comments!

C-Suite Doesn’t Trust Marketing

A 2012 report from The Fournaise Marketing Group states that 80% of CEOs don’t trust the work done by marketers. In fact, 75% of these CEOs think that marketers misunderstand (or misuse) the term “ROI” while 90% trust the opinion and work of CFOs and CIOs. That’s a potential spread of 165% – not so good for marketers!

At a high level, this isn’t very comforting but it also makes sense in that “marketing” is still elusive and hard to quantify, while technology and accounting are clearly definable practices with clear goals.

In a SEOmoz post by Eric Pratum on the opinions of multiple experts about measuring social media, I think Ian Lurie summed this reality up nicely in a statement he made about social media ROI: “We can’t really track social media ROI because we’re not dealing with computers, we’re dealing with humans who can be swayed by their environment.”

Social Media Value is Much More Than a Click

Another inspiration from Eric’s post is the reminder that it’s imperative to educate executives about the significance of social media to a brand’s online presence and how it simply isn’t as trackable as a paid click via Adwords. Furthermore, the ROI of social media is much larger than what is captured via referring clicks and shares. These represent a slice of the overall impact at best.

With this in mind, I’ve attempted to create a social media model that is organized around the most important part of the ROI equation – the return, aka “sale.”

I want to mention there have been some big strides in calculating the ROI of social media metrics. Several recent outstanding posts delve deep with explanations of trackable metrics and corresponding equations; two I’d like to call out are Courtney Seiter’s 30 Social Media Metrics That Provide Real Value and Angie Schottmuller’s Social Media ROI: 14 Formulas To Measure Social Media Benefits. I won’t even begin to touch on what they’ve already done so expertly. I’d like to take a somewhat different angle and try to explain social media ROI to a C-level person who probably won’t have the time or interest to dig too deep into metrics but thinks social media is valuable enough to give it at least 5 minutes.

What’s that ROI Equation…for Social Media?

Let’s go back to those CEO’s and their mistrust of marketers’ use of ROI. I think it’s fair to say that if someone is talking ROI in the same breadth as accountants, then growth in fans and engagement alone aren’t want they want to hear in terms of ROI.

For a little backgrounder, lets look at the traditional ROI equation:

ROI = (Revenue – Costs) / Costs

Revenue = Sales
Costs = Labor, time, materials and other “costs” required to support the activity to generate revenue

For social media ROI, I’d like to throw in cost savings too as part of the equation, so that the revised equation looks like:

ROIsm = ( (Revenue + Cost Savings) – Costs) / costs

Revenue = Sales
Cost Savings = Costs that are avoided because social media was used rather than another activity
Costs = Labor, time, materials and other “costs” required to support the activity to generate revenue (here, social media)

Creating A Social Media ROI Model

With the goal to create something that is useful in the abstract, following is what I arrived at as a potential ROI model for social media. I don’t pretend that this will cover all circumstances of social references and costs. My intention is really to create a framework that can be used for estimating the ROI of social media in general.

The model is organized according to how close a specific social activity is to a sale and then provides an “informed” estimate of what the direct and numeric impact might be. To help illustrate, it’s organized like a dart-board target: The bullseye (or center) is the actual sale and every circle around the bullseye is a social media activity that impacts the sale. How close the activity is to the bullseye reflects its impact, with Circle 1 closest to the sale and each extending circle gradually less significant. It’s the same idea as scoring a game of darts.

Circle 1 – Conversion

This conversion is from someone who clicks directly from a social media profile like Twitter or Facebook and then makes a purchase on the website. This assumes the conversion happens on a website and includes last and assisted click conversions.

The value of this social activity can be expressed as:

Activity	Attributable To Sale		Value		Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue
Purchase/Sales	100%*	X	Sale ($100)**	=	100% Or $100***

*Attributable to Sale: This ratio reflects the direct impact the activity has on the sale; it’s 100% here because the visitor is clicking through to purchase.

**Value: The value is the revenue from the sale. Here, I’m using $100 as an example of a product sale price.

***Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue: This is the direct impact the activity has on the sale. Using the $100 sale price example, I’m also showing it as a dollar value.

Circle 2 – Customer Service / Retention

Now we’re moving further away from a direct sale. These activities reflect the impact on revenue and cost savings of customer service via social media. I’ve broken it down to three parts to reflect the values of (i) customer retention (by keeping a potentially disgruntled customer), (ii) new referral customers (via happy customer who recommends company to someone else – one of the most valuable and elusive sales channels) and (iii) operational savings of using social media for customer service versus offline resources.

The values of this social media activity can be expressed as:

Activity	Attributable To Sale		Value		Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue
(i) Customer Retention	68%*	X	Sale ($100)**	=	68% Or $68
(ii) New Referral Customers	75%***	X	Sale ($100)	=	75% or $75
(iii) Operational Savings	95%****	X	Cost of phone customer service ($7.50)	=	7.13% or $7.13

*Attributable to Sale: This ratio reflects the direct impact the activity has on the sale. A study by Dan Kennedy shows that 68% of customers who leave a business do so because they feel unappreciated or unimportant. Turning that around via proactive customer service could potentially result in a 68% contribution to social media’s impact to sales. (Note: This study is from 2006; I’m still on the look-out for other studies for this figure.)

**Value: The value of the activity whether it’s a direct sale or operational savings.

***New Referral Customers: The 2011 Edelman TrustBarometer study found that 75% of customers who trust a company actively recommended them to a friend/colleague. That indicates 75% of happy customers will be a company’s sales force, leading to a potential 75% impact on revenue.

****Operational Savings: This is the savings from using social media for customer service versus phone-based customer service which is more expensive. A 2012 Gartner report indicates that social media customer service costs 5% that of traditional phone customer service. Here I’ve used the average of $7.50 per customer service call (from Emily Yellin, author of “Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us”). Multiplying 95% (phone-based customer service savings) by $7.50 (average per customer service call) results in a net savings of $7.13, or 7.13% (again, assuming a $100 product sale).

Circle 3 – Engagement

Moving further along, this reflects the impact of social media engagement (e.g., likes, comments, retweets, etc.) on sales. These are not direct visitors to a website but rather the engagement that happens on social media channels as reflected in comments, shares, likes, etc.

The value of this social activity can be expressed as:

Activity	Attributable To Sale		Value		Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue
Social Media Comments & Interactions	63%*	X	Sale ($100)	=	63% Or $63

*Attributable to Sale: A 2012 IDG Research study shows that 63% of consumers are more likely to buy new products and try new services if they read positive social media comments about them. This can be interpreted to indicate that active engagement with consumers via social media might have a direct impact of 63% on sales.

Circle 4 – Audience Growth

I’ve placed social media Audience Growth after customer service and engagement because both of those speak to a higher level of customer interaction than increasing fans, followers and other social activities. Here, the goal is to quantify the impact audience growth has on sales in general via the impact on sales of (i) Social Media Click-Through Traffic and (ii) New Facebook Fans (which cautiously could be extrapolated to Twitter and other social channels too).

The value of this social activity can be expressed as:

Activity	Attributable To Sale		Value		Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue
(i) Social Media Click-Through Traffic	1.2%*	X	Sale ($100)	=	1% Or $1
(ii) New Facebook Fans	24%**	X	Sale ($100)	=	24% or $24

*Social Media Click-Through Traffic: Optify’s 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report found that 1.2% of social media website traffic resulted in a conversion. This is a B2B study but the B2C impact is most likely the same or slightly higher. This results in an impact of 1% to total revenue or $1 given our $100 example.

**New Facebook Fans: A 2011 Hitwise study demonstrated that 1 Facebook fan is apparently equal to 20 additional visits to a retailer’s website over the course of a year. Multiple that by the 1.2% conversion rate for social media website traffic and we can see how 1 new Facebook might have a 24% impact on total revenue.

Circle 5 – Impact On Search

It’s well known that Google has been tracking social mentions since at least 2011. While many sites are seeing bumps in rankings from an increase in social mentions, finding a correlation between social mentions and rankings isn’t easy. Meanwhile, Google has clearly stated that it’s influencing search results based on Google+ activity. Even so, following is an attempt to estimate the direct impact of social media to rankings to conversions. I imagine as we all see more empirical data and studies, this figure will change considerably.

The value of this social activity can be expressed as:

Activity	Attributable To Sale		Value		Total Revenue Or Impact On Revenue
(i) Increase In Google Rankings	28%*
(ii) Increase In Search Traffic	27%**
(iii) Increase In Search Conversions	.1%***	X	Sale ($100)	=	.11% or $.11

*Increase In Google Rankings: SEOmoz’s 2013 Ranking Report is reportedly in the works so in the meantime I’m relying on Will Critchlow’s excellent post from 2012 in which he walks through his analysis to prove a correlation. In the end, he couldn’t find a definitive correlation but he also didn’t refute the link between social mentions and rankings either. Even so, I’m going to go out on a limb and use the figure of 28% which is the sum of 21% for Domain Level Link Authority and 7% for Page Level Social Metrics (both from SEOmoz’s 2011 Ranking Factors).

**Increase in Search Traffic: Optify’s 2011 study, How The New Face Of SERPs Has Altered The CTR Curve, shows how the click-through rates increase from 8.9% on page 2 to 36.4% on page 1 of Google for a net gain of 27%. For sake of this model, I’m making the gross assumption that the majority of sites will increase in rankings to page in Google.

***Increase in Search Conversions: This figure comes from 28% (Increase in Google Rankings) X 27% (Increase in Search Traffic) X 1.45% (organic search conversion rates from Optify’s 2012 B2B Marketing Trends study), which equals .1% or $.11 given the $100 example.

What’s the Outcome?

Tallying together these figures results in a potential return of 338.24% from social media activities.

Keep in mind that this is an abstract, or industry, estimate. Also, factoring in costs would be required to get a true ROI. Likewise, these figures do not reflect scale and volume which vary according to specific campaigns and companies.

Don’t Stop…Drill Down to Get Specific ROI Metrics

To get a more precise picture of a company’s social media ROI, I highly recommend visiting Seiter’s and Schottmuller’s posts on social media ROI.

Bonus: Another exercise of great value is to calculate the Customer Lifetime Value of your sales, and customers. Avinash Kaushik has a fantastic post on this topic from several years ago. It’s still highly relevant and becomes even more so as social media greatly amplifies the recommendations and referrals of customers.

What are your experiences and thoughts about social media ROI? Please share via the comments!

That’s exactly what happened at Thunder, and we realized we were spending a lot of time on reporting each month. Thanks to an extensive internal time audit, we figured out just how much time was being spent gathering, analyzing and presenting data from Google Analytics alone (it was a lot). So we set out to speed things up while tackling the issue of shifting clients’ focus as well, and that’s exactly what we did. Here’s how.

Just like everything else in this industry, it all started with Google. A team of Google developers realized how difficult it was to export and work with data from Google Analytics, so they created an Analytics API for developers to use. Furthermore, Nick Mihailovski who lead the API development, created a slick way to put Analytics data into Google Spreadsheets using their own Apps Script. Put all of this together and you now have a way to automate the export of data from Analytics into Spreadsheets – it’s called Magic. No, I’m not kidding it really is called Magic, and it lives up to its name.

Instant Gratification

With the help of this new tool, Thunder was able to reduce the time of gathering data for one website from hours to instantaneously. Magic allows you to set up what metrics you want to report on going forward and then set a trigger for pulling that data via the API however frequently you’d like. This means every time you log in to your Google Spreadsheet that contains the report, the data is up to date with the latest values! We didn’t even have to open Analytics.

This blew my mind.

The next best thing was the fact that since it all lived in Spreadsheets, I could create my own custom tabs with formulas to rework the data however I wanted. I could also display that data in an easy to understand chart right next to it that updated itself automatically since my formulas were referencing API data. So just to recap, I was now able to open my report and it was done for me.

Getting Everyone Excited About Key Metrics

Obviously I was excited and just about everyone at Thunder was realizing how much campaign execution time just opened up for them. Our challenge was now to figure out how we could present these metrics to our clients in a quick manner that got them thinking about more than rankings. Max went to his special thinking place and came back with a great idea – why don’t we automate the presented report too? We could link the Spreadsheet to a public Google Site, and the site could be accessed at anytime by authorized users.

This great idea solved the main issue of why clients were checking rankings – they could. Think about it. If you own or run a business and you’re getting monthly reports, you probably aren’t feeling 100% in control. You have to wait for the end of the month to make future decisions. With Max’s idea, clients could now check the metrics we wanted them checking whenever they wanted! We also were able to add branding to our reports, so the Google Sites could be presented in a meeting at any time.

Ready To Automate Your Report?

I wish I could say the process of connecting the dots was easy but it really wasn’t. Max and I put a lot of time into researching Google blog posts, browsing developer forums and watching how-to videos. It took a lot of trial and error but I want to share what we’ve learned so you can get started if you’re interested.

I’m not able to show you which metrics we use exactly, but here’s a list of the exact articles we referenced when putting the reports together. If you want to learn more and get started right away, I recommend checking out all of the links below because it’s important to understand the “what” as much as the “how.” Good luck and let me know if you need any help in the comments!

Resources

Connecting the Google Analytics API to Google Spreadsheets

Using Magic to Automate Google Analytics into Google Spreadsheets

Core Reporting API Reference Guide

Analytics Dimensions & Metrics Reference Guide

In the spirit of futuristic trends, we reached out to our team and asked them questions about how they find things on the Internet. Where do they go when the want to find a local business? Which search engine do they prefer? What kinds of devices do they use to search the web? Did we mention Google Glass and burritos are also in the mix?

Here’s how the Thunder Cats search!

What do you think? Do you search differently or the same?

With the monthly newsletter deadline getting closer, I was sorting through several ideas for May’s Founder’s Post. From thoughts on volunteering, to the impact of well-organized meetings, I was vacillating on what would be the right topic.

In the end, it was an email from my life partner, Gabriel, that helped me make up my mind. He sent a link to an awesome post titled Stop Lying To Yourself: How To Change That Voice In Your Head by Leigh Newman who, turns out, is an author, the Deputy Editor of Oprah.com and clearly a great writer. Number one on her list of things we tell ourselves that a) aren’t true and b) keep us in a rut of our own making is “Asking people is too embarrassing,” which fit perfectly with my third topic idea for this month, ask for help. Decision made.

Ask For Help?

Yes, ask for help. After telling myself lies about how I can’t do [x], or that there’s no resources for blah blah blah, or I don’t know how to get this or that, I believe the second biggest obstacle I’ve created for myself (and Thunder) is that I’ll do it myself because (i) I can and/or (ii) I’ll look stupid if I ask for help.

This is true even after hearing one of the earliest words of advice I got when starting Thunder from our incredible accountant, Phil Wright. He told me early on, “Don’t do something just because you can…use your time wisely to make the greatest impact possible.” Sure, at the time, I took his advice and hired a bookkeeper for the company because he’s an accountant, so that’s what he’s talking about, right? Wrong! He was talking about much, much more. So much more that I’m constantly reminded every time I ask for help, I’m able to do more for myself and Thunder than I thought possible.

Here’s an easy example. I like working with clients and on interactive campaigns. Overall, that’s a good thing, given what Thunder does. But inevitably I experience what I call “campaign creep.” That’s what happens when I get too involved in campaigns, and before I know it, I’m spending more time managing campaigns than managing a business. I’ve now learned that when this happens, I ask for help to get something campaign-related off my plate, and then I’m able to focus on initiatives and things that help the entire company.

Which brings me back to why I sometimes don’t ask for help in the first place. I think deep down most of us don’t ask for help because we’re afraid we’ll look stupid or that we’ll look like we don’t know what we’re doing. To be fair, I’m not talking about asking for directions here.

I’m also not talking about things that we can find the answer to on Google. I’m talking about goals that can be personal and professional…the big goals. Typically these are the ones that we need the most help with but are also when we’re the least likely to ask for help.

Ask For Help When It Matters Most

Here’s an example from Thunder how asking for help put resources into motion toward accomplishing some very big goals for the company, as well as created clarity of vision and direction, and also led to company-wide buy-in.

Like any company, Thunder grapples with the “cobbler’s shoe” scenario in that our website isn’t all that we know it could be. We’re super proud of our blog but our website doesn’t accurately reflect all that we do, which in turn influences the type of client we attract and, potentially, the general perception other companies and people have of us. We’ve known all of this for awhile now and finally last month decided to get organized and ask for help.

We brought in an old friend of the company and web project manager extraordinaire, Susan Rust, to help us organize ourselves. Keep in mind that we’re in the business of helping clients identify their primary objectives, develop a strategy for achieving those goals, and then executing on that strategy to achieve measureable results. We should be able to figure out this website thingy ourselves, right? Well, we’re a talented group of people so we probably could, but we’re not a web design company so this really was new to us, at least as a group. Asking for help was a big step forward.

Help Will Always Be Given [At Hogwarts] To Those Who Ask For It

Susan got us started with a kick-off meeting that ended with some clear deliverables and next steps. Great! Now, our issue was who is going to do what? As anyone who’s relaunched a website knows, it’s a big effort and a lot of work. Meanwhile, the website isn’t the only initiative that we wanted to accomplish. We’ve been accumulating a great list of “want to’s” but no priority or plan to identify where to start and who would do what. What’s more, work had already started on several initiatives that weren’t getting finished, which was leading to people feeling inertia and wasted effort.

As the CEO I was torn because I knew all of these initiatives would make a big impact on how the company grows and develops. At the same time, I knew that people were feeling stretched and also unclear about their priorities. Feeling the pressure, the little voice in my head went to town “saying” that to be a good leader, I should simply choose what the priorities are, delegate who does what and move this ship forward. Well, that little voice was on a roll, but I knew that wasn’t the best way forward and, anyone who knows me, it’s not really my style. In fact, I was more at risk of the opposite dilemma of not identifying the priorities and meanwhile fretting about how to get this done without actually asking anyone what they think or how we might do it, resulting in even more wasted efforts and growing frustration for everyone involved.

At this time, it became crystal clear that I was being plain stupid. ‘Nuff said. All I needed to do was ignore that annoying voice and ask for help. In fact, who better to help with this situation than the extraordinary group of people I work with.

So, we held a company meeting and, standing in front a blank whiteboard, I explained that there’s a lot of great initiatives to move Thunder forward, and I have my ideas of which ones are most important, but that doesn’t really mean anything unless everyone is on board and on the same page. I then asked to have an “open meeting” where everyone could contribute what they think is the most important thing to do to support Thunder’s growth as a company. Everyone gave their ideas which were written on the whiteboard. I added mine last. We quickly came up with a great list of priorities for Thunder. Here’s a shot of the whiteboard.

As you can/might be able to see, we ended up with 8 initiatives we believed to be very important for Thunder. In the spirit of threes, I then asked if everyone agreed that we only select three at this time. Once we accomplish one, we can fill in the open slot with the next priority and so on until all of them are done. We all agreed. As a group we decided on the following three near-term priorities:

1. Website Relaunch, including the four sub-initiatives of (i) content, (ii) design, (iii) build-out and (iv) on-page optimization
2. Thunder Mission & Branding
3. Thunder’s Friday Workshops

We also designated a lead for each of these initiatives and identified a support team for each. Talk about asking for help. With this simple request, we identified (i) Thunder’s near-term priorities, (ii) the leader for each initiative and (iii) the support team for each. Wow! I was beyond excited and thrilled that we did this as a team. In some ways, we asked ourselves for help.

I Would Ask For Help But It’s Faster To Just Do It Myself

If the first trap is fear of looking stupid, then the second trap of not asking for help might be the misperception that it’s better if I just do it myself cuz I know how to do it…and it’ll be faster that way. Right? Wrong!

While sometimes it does make sense to just get ‘er done, in most instances it’s more impactful to show someone how to do something than to go at it alone. This not only helps empower more people but it also takes the pressure off of being the only person who can do something. What’s more, this has the ripple effect of making a stronger organization (or team), and it might also reveal that someone else can improve (gasp!) on what I’m doing now. I run the risk of sharing an overly-used online quote, but I think this one really does sum up what I’m talking about: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” (African Proverb – I can’t vouch for this but it’s the only source I could find.)

The Sooner The Better

I’m guessing by now you’re getting the idea and why ask for help is italicized every time.

I’m continually amazed at what we can accomplish when we ask for help. There are so many people and resources eager and willing to help us, no matter how large or small our goals. It all starts with asking for help. And, in case you haven’t already guessed this next part, it’s an awesome feeling when help comes your way…and even more so when we can offer it back too.

So, what are you waiting for? Is there anything personal, professional or whatever that you could ask for help with? You’ll be glad you did.

P.S. Yes, I’m a Nemo and Harry Potter fan.

Read all of Max’s Founder’s Corner posts.

In this post, I review what we learned about campaign profitability and how we arrived at the figures. I also touch on the big “aha moments” for Thunder in regard to how this information impacts how we operate now and how we grow. My goal is to share our process and hopefully inspire other agencies, as well as learn from those who’ve gone further than us in this regard and would like to chime in.

What Are The Campaign Costs?

Okay, so we want to know which campaigns are profitable. Well, first we need to define costs. To determine this figure, I’ve used a basic formula of:

Let’s break it down further into its parts:

Hours X Salary

This is the number of hours (per the Time Audit) associated with a particular campaign times the hourly salary for the people who worked on that campaign. As such, the hourly fee for someone more senior is higher than someone who is more entry-level; this seems obvious but part of the exercise is also to determine where we can shift the efforts of people involved on a campaign so that we can see where some campaigns might require fewer hours from a senior person while other campaigns might merit more senior level time.

Multiplier

This is the figure of 1.2 that we calculated to reflect the costs of payroll-related taxes and administration, health care and similar costs. This multiplier is for costs directly related to the employee. As such, it does not reflect company-wide costs such as overhead, utilities, infrastructure, computers, etc.

Additional Fees

These are any per-campaign costs that are not reflected in payroll, primarily writers from our network who are paid via 1099.

Thunder Time

This accounts for the hours associated with internal communication, Thunder’s blog, business development and administration. Whether it’s campaign execution, client support, internal communication, sharing knowledge or administration, nearly everything we do is in support of clients and their campaigns. As such, I decided to associate the costs of our support of these activities directly to the campaigns rather than lump them into marketing and operations. To calculate how much of Thunder Time goes into each campaign, we used a weighted average that is derived from dividing each campaign’s costs (Hours x Salary x Multiplier) by the total costs for all campaigns.

Which Campaigns Are Profitable?

Now that we know the costs, we can determine which ones generate profit and how much. To determine profitability, we subtracted the Total Costs (outlined above) from the amount invoiced for the same period. We conducted the Time Audit in February, so we are using the data for one month, and then extrapolating out for the entire campaign. The following chart illustrates which campaigns generate profit (above 0%), loss (below 0%) and break-even (at or near 0%), with the campaigns listed along the horizontal axis:

With this picture, we can quickly see which campaigns lose money or break-even and, more importantly, where we might determine a minimum “threshold of profitability” for all campaigns, say 20% or 30%.

Which Campaigns Grow The Company?

While the above shows profitability on a per-campaign basis, another way to slice the data is to show the impact of each campaign to the overall profitability of the company. To help illustrate this, the following chart shows the same data but weighted by the size of the campaign. This was determined by dividing the revenue for that campaign (we used February’s invoice) with the total revenue for the same period (sum of all the invoices).

While we still have three campaigns that stick out as unprofitable, here we see that there are more campaigns that hover around the 0% to 1% range, as well as fewer and more pronounced outliers at the higher end of the scale. Because this chart reflects how much a campaign contributes to overall profitability, the higher percentages of these outliers indicate that they contribute disproportionately more to the company’s profit than the lower margin campaigns, which contribute less.

This raises some vital questions and opportunities for Thunder:

Stop the bleeding: For campaigns where we lose money, can we change the way we support those campaigns or migrate those campaigns out of Thunder altogether?

Increase efficiencies: Given our current operations, Thunder has a lot of campaigns that contribute around 1% to the total profit of the company. That’s a low margin, especially given the company’s desire to invest in new methodologies and technology, as well as increase salaries for staff. Can we increase the margins for these campaigns or should we transition them out of Thunder altogether?

Increase campaign scale: Thunder is definitely in a transition period of migrating from smaller campaigns to larger campaigns. While there are some “large” campaigns that hover around 1% or lower (which reflects higher operating costs or lower efficiencies), the top contributors to Thunder’s profitability are all large campaigns that have higher profitability margins. This highlights the company’s strategic goal of working on larger campaigns with greater productivity that results in higher profit and more resources. As we maneuver the waters of campaign size and building up Thunder to support those campaigns, we will no doubt get smarter about which clients are our sweet spot (I look forward to writing that post in the near future for Thunder’s blog).

Growth strategy: Are we an agency that supports smaller clients or larger clients? Do we target enterprise level clients? While Thunder currently supports a range of clients from all these areas, these figures highlight where we see our opportunity and how we see our growth path. At present, we are a high-touch, highly consultative services company that sells our expertise and our time. If we focus only on small clients, then we’ll be hampered by scale because we will over-deliver in regard to services which will result in smaller margins and then less resources to invest in resources and talent. If we focus on large clients, then there’s a better fit for the quality and style of our services, but we still grapple with productivity and efficiencies. This is an area we’re working on in regard to our internal processes. It’s also an area where we see the opportunity for developing internal tools and programs to support greater productivity and also new services (again, topics I look forward to writing about in the near future).

What Steps Can We Take Now?

For Thunder, there’s a lot we want to do in terms of our web presence, internal education, building out the team and investing in technology. Some of these are in the works, others are near-term but not happening today. So, what steps can we take right now, given our resources and current organization?

1) Fish or Cut Bait

Now that we’ve identified which campaigns lose money, we can decide if they can be “let go” or if their campaigns can be handled with greater efficiency. When we look at the data and what goes into supporting these campaigns, the typical pattern is that Thunder’s services are not a great fit (primarily because they cost more than the value of the leads generated) OR the campaign requires more support than the client’s budget allows. In all the cases above, we decided to end the campaign and support the migration to another provider. On paper this is easy, in practice it’s a little more daunting. In the end, it was relatively smooth once we explained that we weren’t “dumping” them but rather “supporting their transition” to a better solution, which in some cases resulted in changing their online strategy and approach altogether. Our goal has always been to help clients with their campaigns so we’ve always done our best to support this goal even when transitioning a campaign to another vendor.

2) Evaluate Low-Margin Campaigns

With the unprofitable campaigns addressed, now we can look at the campaigns that are profitable but have low margins and, thus, contribute less to the bottom line. We decided that we would not end any of these campaigns right away. Rather, we are figuring out whether we can increase efficiencies (and their consequent contribution to the company’s profit) and then re-evaluate whether or not to continue when they renew. For those campaigns where we can increase efficiencies, then we’ll probably retain those; for those campaigns where we cannot, then we will most likely not renew them.

3) Re-Allocate Resources

From the time audit, we know how much time people spend on campaigns and specific tasks. We also know how profitable different campaigns are. We can use this data together to determine the best use of people and resources to best support a campaign as well as increase the margins, whenever possible. One area where we identified immediate resource allocation improvement was in regard to writing blog posts: Many senior account executives are also good writers so when they need content, they’d write it themselves. While they create great content, the downside in terms of productivity was that they were using their time (which has a high value) on a deliverable that could be supplied by a high quality and lower-cost provider, in this case a writer. Our solution has been for account executives to work with writers on idea creation and content development, and then revise the final draft. This involves more steps but it also frees up the account executive to focus on strategy and higher-level tasks while utilizing the writer for a task that s/he does best. In the end, this approach has resulted in greater efficiencies. We’re monitoring to see the final impact on margins of these changes.

4) Target Higher-Level Campaigns

In looking at the business development funnel, we are focusing on larger scale and higher margin campaigns early on. As our lower margin clients drop off, we are replacing them with higher margin clients AND smarter campaign execution in terms of resource allocation and efficiencies from the get-go.

Altogether these changes increase Thunder’s margins which enables us to increase salaries, invest in technology, grow our talent and expand our operations all of which, in turn, result in better campaign support and performance. All in all, a win-win for everyone involved.

What About You?

The above questions and considerations aren’t unique to Thunder. With this data, we’re able to see some realities about who Thunder is and how we operate. This, in turn, gives us the power to make more informed decisions about how we function and how we grow. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more and make more strategic changes.

I hope you found this to be helpful information. As I mentioned early on, it’d be great to hear from other agencies and companies to hear what they’ve learned about their business and choices they’ve made.

Read all of our posts about Productivity Evangelism at Thunder SEO!

The technology powering the devices we have used to connect, share and entertain ourselves over the last 10 years has been moving at lightning speed. The decade that saw the introduction of the smart phone, the tablet and the always-online 4G networks was one of rapid change and groundbreaking announcements that seemed to come around every 6 months or so. Always new, always updating, always connected, always sharing, always available.

Our entire industry is built off of technology that barely existed 20 years ago, and through that passage of time it is almost unrecognizable from what it was when it began…begging the question, what’s next? In many ways I feel that the wave of progress has crested, heralded by the premier of yet another batch of devices. Some are used purely for entertainment, gaming systems that have evolved from their simple origins to become incredibly complex pieces of technology. Others take the progress we’ve made and distill the bells and whistles into a streamlined, efficient and uninhibited way to share our lives with others.

They are a celebration, a culmination of 10 years worth of advancements in new ways of keeping ourselves entertained and sharing our experiences. However, in some fundamental ways, they also reflect the growing public opinion that we are as connected as we need to be, that where we go from here is not forward but to the right, that we must harness and refine what we have created rather than discard it in favor of something new. Are we ready for the future?

Gamers Gearing Up For The Next Wave

A clear signaling for the end of the cycle of the current generation is the announcement of new gaming consoles from both Sony and Microsoft. Unlike many other corners of the tech universe that patch, adapt and slowly build on their systems, console gaming moves in massive lurches, with new systems coming out roughly every 7-10 years.

Interestingly, the newly debuted PS4 and soon to be announced Xbox are the first to emphasize the fact that their technical progress is not going to be significantly higher than the generation that preceded it. It will certainly be better, but nothing like the 16-bit –> 32-bit or 32-bit –> 3D leaps that have been made in the past. You know, the type of upgrades that would leave your jaw on the floor from marveling at the pure visual spectacle on display.

Rather, the emphasis is on “sharing.”

This quote, from an exec at Ubisoft, summarizes the focus of the new consoles. The new Dualshock 4 controller for the PS4 will feature a “share” button that allows you to connect to your social networks and upload screenshots and videos for your friends to see. You can stream yourself playing and have friends tune in to watch. Integrating with your mobile and tablet devices, you will be able to purchase new games, apps and extras or simply monitor your system updates, and eventually play your games remotely as well. Sony is promising integration across the entire device ecosystem with the ability to seamlessly connect to the digital community you are part of. And that’s just the PS4.

The next Xbox has not been officially revealed, but reports of the new system REQUIRING an internet connection to play have been confirmed, as well as the plan to provide subscriber TV packages for exclusive on-demand viewing. In essence, billions are being spent to designate this next generation of consoles as the sole multimedia provider for the living room. They will exist as an amalgam and celebration of everything we have devised to make connecting and sharing with each other seamless and integrated into every aspect of our lives.

What role this new shift in focus for consoles might play in the realm of online marketing has yet to be seen, but I predict that segmentation of the audience will continue to be refined again and again. Facebook could begin providing data about what players are sharing, what games and apps are garnering the most interest. Using this data, we may combine it with Graph Search to isolate and target an extremely specific audience. Agencies who used to simply share photos and videos as a social strategy may find themselves working with clients to create interactive gaming experiences that tell short stories or include some type of product placement. Will social gaming drive our strategies in new ways? I can only imagine that it will continue to grow and cement its place as an important aspect of our industry.

Through the Looking Google Glass

Of course, not everything we’ll see this year will continue to bank on being a hit by providing the most features. Google’s Project Glass is poised to fundamentally alter the way we interact, but in a very different way.

To me, this quote from Timothy Jordan’s SXSW presentation is the foundation for my belief that the next 5-10 years will see products and tools that simplify and streamline the process of enjoying the level of connectivity we currently have, while addressing the common complaint that so much of the human experience is being lost as we are seeing more of the world through screens. The glasses are the right turn I referred to previously, and they look a little ridiculous…but not too ridiculous. People already take Segway tours in public, so I doubt their appearance could keep them from becoming widespread.

The features Google presents at SXSW are in no way revolutionary: Capturing photo/video and sharing with friends or networks, voice searches and directions to your destination, audio playback, etc. It’s how these tasks are accomplished that might inspire adopters to leave smart phones, tablets and potentially even laptops behind. The same way that Apple simplified the desktop user experience vs. the extremely unfriendly PC’s of the 90′s and has continued to do the same for years is what Google might be accomplishing with smartphone technology. You no longer have to dig around in your purse or pocket for a phone and attempt to capture a fleeting image, no longer have to awkwardly stare at your hands at dinner trying to share the picture of your meal with friends who aren’t there while ignoring the ones who are.

What Google hopes to present with Glass is the idea that we can have the tools we’ve created without worrying about the constant distraction of trying to use them. Whether it’s Project Glass or iGlass who finds the nexus between connectivity and invisibility, the key will be offering us everything, but preventing us from nothing.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Right

In the end, of course, no one can know where we will be in the next five years. Will we even use search engines in the way we do now? It’s doubtful. How Search Marketers structure campaigns in the next few years will be significantly altered the same as they have in the last five years, but rather than learning how the technology works, we’re learning how to make the technology work for us.

We’re already comfortable with the idea of a social network being one the primary vehicles for communication across the globe, so how do we stop discarding what we have in favor of what’s new and focus on perfecting it? The newest gaming devices, which will no doubt sell in the millions, are hedging their bets on the fact that social networks and sharing will define the next decade. Project Glass may not be betting the farm on their widespread adoption, but in many ways Google has always been ahead of the curve and could simply be showing us a new direction, leaving room for someone else to come along and build upon it. Check back in five years for updates.

Images: Are You Wolf Enough, TechRadar, CNET

On Tuesday April 30th, I had the pleasure of presenting on Creative SEO at the 2013 Aim Conference. Given our experience in the multifamily industry, we are very familiar with creating compelling content that speaks to current and prospective residents. Instead of focusing on broad examples of apartment marketing, my presentation focused on three types of content silos: Corporate Generated Content, Property Generated Content and Resident Generated Content.

From celebrating corporate milestones and expressing thought leadership, to showcasing local neighborhood businesses and Pinterest Promotions, there are tons of apartment marketing tactics in my SEO for Creatives AIM Presentation! I had a blast sharing these examples, and look forward to more quality content in the multifamily industry.

To download this presentation, visit my SlideShare account.

]]> http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/2013-aim-conference-recap-seo-creatives/feed/ 0 http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/scientists-of-search-trading-cards/ http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/scientists-of-search-trading-cards/#comments Thu, 25 Apr 2013 15:30:45 +0000 Monique Pouget http://www.thunderseo.com/?p=2687

When we first started brainstorming content for our “Science of Search” month, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scientists that made these analyses and strategies possible. Without them, we’d just have a whole lot of data with little interpretation, which would be pretty disappointing.

Thankfully, we have plenty of super smart Scientists of Search that help us understand search engines in new ways, encourage us to take advantage of available resources, and most importantly, show us how to use data to inform decisions. They’re the number crunchers, the data analyzers, the big thinkers. In a nutshell: They’re cooler than you.

In the spirit of geeking out and having fun, our talented designer created these epic trading cards to share with friends. Without further adieu, here are our six favorite Scientists of Search!

1. Matt Cutts

If you’re an SEO, and you don’t know who Matt Cutts is, you’re doing it wrong! Matt’s the head of webspam at Google, where he and his team work hard to deliver the best search results possible.

In addition to bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science, Cutts’ has also earned a Masters of Science, landing him a primetime spot on our Scientists of Search list.

Over the years, Matt has become the face of Google Engineers, often speaking at conferences or sharing interesting insights within the 500+ videos on the Google Webmasters YouTube Channel. Are you a Cuttlet too? Join the club.

Matt’s Blog | Matt’s Twitter | Matt’s Google+

2. Avinash Kaushik

On the hunt for the ultimate GA resource? Look no further than Avinash Kaushik!

As Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist, Avinash is the authority on innovative marketing strategies that rely heavily on data. Kaushik shares practical analytical insights on his blog, and if you ever have the opportunity to be inspired by one of his brilliant keynotes, do yourself a favor and don’t miss out!

In 2009, Avinash received the Harry V Roberts Statistical Advocate of the Year award, and in 2011, the Most Influential Industry Contributor award from the Web Analytics Association. At the beginning of 2013, Kaushik joined the intelligent Scientists of Search lineup, clearly his most prestigious honor yet!

Avinash’s Blog | Avinash’s Twitter | Avinash’s Google+

3. Annie Cushing

If you’re anything like Annie and I, you think spreadsheets are sexy, and you want to shout it from the mountaintops!

Cushing is definitely my go-to source of wealth for all things data, and I’m positive I’ve learned more from her than any other course I have ever taken. Anyone that’s ever tried presenting Excel tutorials to a huge crowd knows it’s no easy task, but she makes it seem painlessly simple.

From Microsoft Excel formatting to crazy site audit checklists, Annie’s got your back when it comes to powerful data analysis your clients or C-levels will love!

Annie’s Blog | Annie’s Twitter | Annie’s Google+

4. Bill Slawski

Did you know there are tons of patents filed by search engines like Google and Bing that give us insight into how these complicated systems work and rank pages?

While that’s awesome, the average SEO can’t interpret these whitepapers, research and filings, but Bill Slawski can! That’s because he’s a former Trial Court manager and technologist who is also armed with a Juris Doctor Degree. Slawski breaks down patents into layman’s terms, making interpretation for us common folk a little more accessible.

If you want to get a unique, and underrepresented perspective on the direction major search engines are headed, check out Slawski’s blog and prepare to be wow’d.

Bill’s Blog | Bill’s Twitter | Bill’s Google+

5. Dr. Pete Meyers

In 2010, Google made over 500 small algorithm improvements that resulted in some big changes to search results, and Big G can’t stop, won’t stop. In other words, storm’s a brewing, but thankfully Dr. Pete is here to help predict the weather!

That’s because Dr. Pete and the Moz team created MozCast, a tool to help us keep track of the day-to-day changes in the Google algo.

As the Resident Marketing Scientist at SEOmoz and a proud earner of a Doctorate of philosophy degree, Dr. Pete’s main pursuit is to make data look cool while communicating its meaning to others, and he consistently succeeds.

Dr. Pete’s Blog | Dr. Pete’s Twitter | Dr. Pete’s Google+

6. Vanessa Fox

Vanessa Fox is an esteemed presenter, author, creator of one of our favorite Google Tools, and all-around super smarty pants.

Fox earned her seat in our Scientists of Search series by being a huge advocate of using data to inform marketing decisions, and using this information to acquire customers through organic search.

Whether you’re looking for expertise in search analytics tools, personas, or user experience, get to know Vanessa.

Vanessa’s Blog | Vanessa’s Twitter | Vanessa’s Google+

Did we miss your favorite Search Scientist on this list? While we wish we could include every genius in search, these are the ones that stood out most to us. However, we’d love to learn more about your favorite brainiac, so drop us a line in the comments!

Note: We would LOVE for you to share these cards with your friends, family, neighbors, blog readers, Twitter followers, and the like (Shoot, why don’t you just print them out and wheatpaste them on your local stop sign?!), but we only ask that you please (PRETTY PLEASE!) give credit to Thunder, since we invested a lot of time and research into this project. Full resolution sizes are available by clicking on each trading card. Thanks in advance!

]]> http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/scientists-of-search-trading-cards/feed/ 8 http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/big-data/ http://www.thunderseo.com/blog/big-data/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:23:08 +0000 Tatiana Torres http://www.thunderseo.com/?p=2647

I’m sure you’ve heard of Big Data before, but besides looking up its meaning on Wikipedia, how far did you go to understand why it’s actually really important for you and your business? The web is crowded with articles that give you a technical point of view on what Big Data is, but content about marketers using Big Data to inform their strategies is rare, so that’s why I decided it was time to dive deep into this ocean of information.

It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, if it’s a small business or a big corporation, or even what your position is. Every single individual in the company should understand how to turn Big Data into a Big Business. It can be the present for some companies, but Big Data is definitely the future for most companies.

Are We Still Talking About Data?

Yes. As individuals, every Google search we do, every website we visit, the music we listen to or the #hashtags we share on social media, and even the stuff we buy, leaves behind an online trail of valuable data about who we are. Are you still questioning Big Data’s size? Take a closer look at what people, just like you and me, have been doing in the digital world in a single minute.

Image: Domo

Big Data is probably a tender way to call the unmeasurable amount of data we are generating. Too large, incredibly complex and scarily dynamic for any conventional tool to capture, store, manage and analyze. Big Data is actually a simplistic term that refers to how the usage of technology can automatically track, gather and manage the relevant data to your business, on a large scale.

So, What’s the Science Behind Big Data?

Structured data has existed for a long time. If you’re a results-driven marketer like me, you probably love your spreadsheet full of numbers and charts. You know how much traffic the website had, where visitors clicked, and what they purchased. It’s all important analytical data related to you or your client’s business performance.

But imagine how you could improve your product or service with negative customer feedback from a competitor’s customers on Twitter. As a marketer, how do you structure behavior and sentiments in a spreadsheet? Technology is certainly an important factor in this process, but owning big data doesn’t necessarily mean Big Marketing success.

“Data is only assets if you can make value out of it.”

- Nick Orsman, Proximity London

Image: KNOW

Big Data’s science involves the way you analyze, interpret and prioritize each algorithm. How do you correlate data, what valuable insights you can extract, and of course, how do you creatively apply this knowledge to produce best in class products, deliver a unique customer experience and reach the right customers with the right marketing message?

OK, But What’s the Big Advantage?

The advantage of Big Data is not related to the data itself, but to all business benefits you can possibly get from using the data strategically across the organization. According to a McKinsey & Company report, it can help increase productivity, reduce costs and support better decisions. It can represent a whole new dimension of ROI (Return on Investment) to the C-Level.

Big Strategies to Drive Big Growth and Revenue

Let’s face it, as simple as it may be, every company works for a common goal: profit. The secret of a successful Big Data strategy is to search for the missing piece, the one thing that will actually help your business to grow. It sounds easy, but it’s not. A lot of companies lose focus, waste time and efforts collecting and analyzing data that will not have a big impact in their results. So, before you start, ask yourself two simple questions:

1. What’s preventing me from selling more?
2. What type of information would help me sell more?

The Big Data strategy will be unique to your company and needs. But, a little benchmark can always work as inspiration to new and creative ways to generate positive results. So, here is my contribution to your Big Marketing Plan, considering each step of the marketing funnel:

Understand

To get more insights about your customer behavior and needs, consider monitoring the social media networks where your current customers are. H&R Block discovered more than 1 million unanswered tax preparation questions on Facebook and Twitter, and got a 15% lift in business using a simple Q&A strategy.

Reach

Once you know your customer, you can reach new prospects using targeted advertising. Intercontinental Hotel gathered data from its 71 million Rewards Program’s members, customized 1,552 marketing messages in a new campaign, and got a 35% higher rate of customer conversions, only by reaching the right prospects with the right message.

Acquire

Email marketing is a useful tool to acquire new customers, but Big Data definitely took it to another level. Volvo integrated its CRM and email marketing strategy using Big Data technologies. Now it allows them to power data-driven messages, sending dynamic content and live offers to prospect customers.

Image: Technorati

Convert

Your website should be designed to convert prospects into customers, specially if you are an e-commerce. But it’s not always as simple as it sounds. Etsy monitored traffic patterns in real time to uncover ongoing issues that were causing visitors to drop off pages, implemented an optimization strategy and increased the percentage of site visitors who end up buying products.

Retain

A customer is not necessarily a recurring customer. T-Mobile used Big Data to combine customer transactions and social media interactions in order to better predict customer defections, which was cut in half in a single quarter.

Image: The Economic Times

How Do I Get the Most Out of a Big Marketing Strategy?

Regardless of its business benefits, Big Data is actually becoming a competitive advantage for those companies that know how to wisely use available and relevant data. Companies that ignore this trend are wasting an opportunity to better understand customers behaviors, and to grow healthier and faster in the global market.

To get the most of a Big Marketing strategy, start small, focused on your business needs and take one step at a time. Your customers don’t expect that you know everything about them, but they do expect you work to provide better experiences along the way.

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