Back in the days before year 2000 when website traffic statistics were quantified as “hits,” web analytics was not a common tool for many web businesses. The concept of “hit” means for every file that is requested by a site visitor, the counter of “hit” increases by one. This was never a meaningful way to look at visitors’ traffic and how visitors interact with a website.

A web analyst’s job description in the modern day should consist of the following tasks:

• Trend and data reporting
• Analyze current online marketing acquisition strategies and explore nw opportunities and/or new strategies
• Understand on-site visitors’ behavior and experience
• Stay connected with the trends and the details

Trend and Data Reporting

Daily trend and data reporting is tedious and repetitive as you are possibly using SQL queries to extract all the required data from a SQL server database and then placing the numbers in an Excel spreadsheet.

One basic dimension for any reporting is the time period: daily reports, weekly reports, monthly reports, quarterly reports, and annual reports.[Read more here]

With today’s world of ever-increasing connectivity and ease of communication, launching a public relations effort with an online marketing effort is no longer out of reach for small businesses. It does take time and a bit of resources, but you don’t need to deploy an army of public relations agents to get noticed, especially with social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter at your disposal.

Create an “Inventory” of Your Business Events

Every business deals with certain “seasons” and special events throughout the year. Whether it’s special sales, prepping for a certain time of the year, or even marking events in your business history, these events are important news to share with your network of customers, fans, and friends. Making a list of these events can help you create a marketing plan and include public relations efforts to help promote them. You may take these types of events for granted because to you they “always” happen, but to your network who isn’t as deeply involved in your world, your news, advice, or content could be valuable information they would like to share.

Don’t Lump All You Do Into One Press Release

Avoid the temptation of writing a press release that includes all the events your company has planned. Instead of lumping them all together, break them out and figure out what makes each event so special that they are an event on your calendar. Figure out why people should care and how they will find your event of value to their lives. By breaking each event out you will have a steady source of news to connect with your network and a reason to keep them coming back for more.[Read more here]

When it comes to social media platforms, the marketers’ top five social media choices are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, and YouTube (and other video) as reported by both Awareness, Inc.’s research and Social Media Examiner’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.  [Read the rest here]

More Data Capture, More Targeting

Advertisers have been able to target by location, content, and demographics for some time now. Recently “social targeting” and retargeting across mobile-enabled platforms has emerged. The new capabilities represent a significant opportunity to hone ad delivery. They also allow for greater customization of messaging. [Read the rest here]

The web doesn’t work like it used to. And that’s a great thing for retailers.

For the past 15 years or so, a customer would “browse” to a retailer’s e-commerce site, “navigate” a catalog of products, maybe buy something, and then leave. Online retail has been a solitary, hidden experience for even a brand’s most loyal shoppers.

Although this model is still the norm for many e-commerce sites, new shopping experiences are based on something different, the social retail model. The social retail model hinges on two particular aspects of the customer experience that, when executed correctly, marketers and merchandisers can leverage to great advantage: app-ification and amplification.

“App-ification”

The social- and mobile-centric web is starting to app-ify; as we’ve learned from mobile, apps are the most universal container for user experiences and the exchange of value between brands and consumers. Whether they ultimately install an app on their iPhone, or click “allow” on a Facebook permissions dialogue, consumers are following the same basic engagement flow:

1. Discover the app, typically through the content or experience it contains.
2. Allow the app, either by installing it or allowing it access to profile information.
3. Experience the app, which offers some mix of utility (e.g., shopping), content (e.g., news), or entertainment (e.g., gaming).
4. Share content from the app, either explicitly or automatically (such as through Facebook’s frictionless sharing). [Read the rest here]

Web forms are a transaction. You need to look at them as an exchange of information for something of value you promise in your offer. When you don’t look at it as an exchange, you fail.

Despite all the innovation we have seen online, there’s been very little innovation with forms. No one likes filling out forms online or offline. Filling out forms online sucks! And on mobile devices it sucks even more. Even worse, if your online forms look like a form from the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) you are creating even more suckiness.

This week, while I read the “Illustrated History of Web Forms” and then “6 Captcha Alternatives to Improve Conversion,” I realized that online form optimization begins with diagnosing the three most common problems:

• Forms that fail to reduce fear
• Forms that fail to build trust and credibility
• Forms that fail to reinforce benefits

How to Identify Your Form Issues

How forms fail to reduce fear:

• Do you ask for more information than required?
• Do you ask for sensitive information before your visitor is comfortable?
• Does your form look intimidating? Does it look like it will take too long to complete? Do they know how many steps it will take to complete?
• Do you create doubts and uncertainties by not closing the loop of questions your visitor has? For example, when a visitor sees a form field for a coupon code and does not have one, they fear they are not getting the best deal possible. If they fill in a lead form or a form to sign up for a service, do they know what will happen next?
• Do you handle errors and field validation graciously?

How web forms fail to build trust and credibility:

• Do you establish that you are a credible and trustworthy business?
• Is it obvious that that they are in a secure browser environment? Have you checked it in a mobile browser?
• Do you leverage your trust messages at the point of action?
• If you’re collecting information for a lead-generation program, let visitors know what you’re going to do with that information. Remind them at the point of action that their privacy is valued, and let them know when and how you’ll respond to the lead. Studies have shown that leads lose their effectiveness by six times in the first hour of not being responded to. [Read the rest here]

However, digital marketers often feel they won’t be able to make “the leap” – and not because of execution, customer adoption, or anything related to their core brand and its strategic benefits. What lurks on the other side is more of an internal problem tied to a general fear that someone will not understand the full scope of why and what’s so important. After all, most email programs work pretty well even when poorly planned and executed. So these smart and savvy marketers I have been chatting with want to ensure they pitch their program properly to have it “blessed” by senior management and usually more importantly, not squashed by these same people.

Here are some practical ways to get buy-in from the C-suite:

1. Find the right key performance indicator. Sometimes any business-related goal tied to your email program can be enough, but you might as well go for the right one, not just any metric. Connecting your email program’s impact to a key performance indicator (KPI) like revenue per subscriber or sales per campaign will all of a sudden make your email program stand up strong next to its less measurable digital cousins like social. [Read the Rest]

Social media is about creating engagement. One way a consumer can become engaged is by telling a compelling story. And then it is not just about the content; it is about how you tell it, and how you leverage the content. Here is a concise checklist of 10 key elements to help you tell your story so you can build and thrive on engagement.

1. Real people, real stories. Write about experiences of real people by focusing on the element of change. Think about a before and after scenario, so you can show your readers what has been overcome or what has changed. Try to be original with the language. Real quotes are compelling and successful in generating “shares” on social networks.
2. Think about your audience. Target your story to the audience and focus on a segment versus writing for everyone. Solicit comments by posting questions and collect the feedback to share with your team.
3. Train your storytellers. The feedback you receive should be the guiding point for your storytellers. Train them on what to say to the media, how to respond to your consumers, and most of all, how to continue the conversation.
4. Customize for your social channels. After you have written your story, think about how you can customize it for your different channels. You can take quotes and lessons learned and turn them into headlines. These headlines can be tweeted, shared on Facebook, published on LinkedIn, and can even be your subject lines in email campaigns.
5. Short is good. A shorter story will keep your consumer engaged but you don’t have to end the story there; try continuing the “rest of the story” on another page.
6. Make it “multi-media visual.” Use words, pictures, sound, and video to enhance your storytelling. You will not only captivate the consumer, but will be able to leverage “searchability” on other channels. [Read the Rest]

Risky strategies revealed themselves elsewhere as well, particularly in the way that advertisers utilized social media. The Guardian may have put it best in its wrap-up of the game’s ads with the sentiment, “When every spot wins the ratings war, the battle moves on to winning the Twitter spike.” And what a battle it is. Capturing as many eyeballs as possible on TV is only the first part of the equation; the ultimate goal, at least within the hours and days following the Big Game, is to get consumers talking in the social space.

Some of the approaches employed this year might be a little unorthodox. The potential payoff, however, stands to send their exposure into overtime.

It All Comes Back to Social…but How Soon Is Best?  [read the rest]