Segmentation Metrics

            As marketers, it is important to know what groups of consumers you are targeting and how best to reach them. The way to measure and analyse this type of information is through segmentation metrics.

What are Segmentation Metrics?

       Segmentation metrics are numbers used for evaluation or assessment of business success within given segments. 

     

In regards to marketing on the web, there are three primary forms of segmentation:

1.    Page-based information

2.    Visit-based information

3.    Visitor-based information

Page-Base Information:

Using page-based information is usually the easiest method of collecting metrics. It is a way of grouping similar pages together into categories and sub-categories to better understand web-site performance. For example, a website may cover several different topics. Using page-based information can inform the marketer or company what pages and topics are performing up to their standards, and which pages are not.

Visit-Based Information:

Visit-based information refers to the data collected concerning things such as how many individuals visited the site, saw specific content, or purchased a certain product. This information can be valuable in many different ways. Most importantly, it allows the marketer to adjust the website navigation to accommodate their specific goals.

Visitor-based Information:

Visitor-based information is widely regarded as the most important form of web-based segmentation metrics. The better a company understands its online users, the more prepared it will be to gain their business and earn customer loyalty. These segments help marketers better understand what types of individuals are visiting their sites and what their needs are. This information is usually broken down into typical demographic segments such as age, gender, occupation, and geographic location.

            There are web services available which can implement performance reports on things such as site traffic, web page performance, and various other segmentation metrics. Below are links to a few examples of these services:

• http://www.google.ca/analytics/

• http://www.alertsite.com/index.html

• http://statcounter.com/

Posted by: Arthur Cobham #000284171

Landing Pages… convert the curious into the customer

A well crafted landing page should be focused and created to target your audience, and potential customers, for your business. It should be clean and uncluttered, easy to navigate, promote a concise message about the product or service your business offers and provides a clear CTA (Call To Action), a means (button or link) to prompt the viewer to follow a path (or convert) to a sale. The goal is to have a high conversion rate by prompting the curious, potential visitor to your page to register their information (to generate leads) or convert them into a buying customer.  But first you have to direct the curious to your landing page.

The landing page is reached though an existing link, often in an advertisement, or by way of an online search. You can boost the accuracy of that search for your business by implementing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques. These can easily be built into your site and landing page during it's construction and can play an important role in placing your site before competitors in search results.

Google, a leader in online search, offers suggestions to assist in landing page optimization. Search data is collected by way of "web crawlers" (or bots) that search the Internet to gather site data. You can assist the search bots and help push your landing page to the top of search results by following some simple page creation rules:

• creation of unique, accurate and descriptive web page titles (HTML <Title> tag)
• using the "description" meta tag in your HTML code (using words relevant to your business)
• short but descriptive page file names or links (URLs - Uniform Resource Locator), using hyphens as separators so bots can recognize the individual words (eg, dress-formal.html - yes; DressFormal.html - no, words not easily searchable)
• make site navigation and the Call To Action easy to find and access

You've help guide potential customers to your landing page through boosting search results, now the structure of the page itself comes into play. The following video provides 8 tips for optimizing your landing page.

Your business wants and needs a high "conversion rate" to be successful. Boosting the search results for your site through SEO techniques and implementing the design tips provided will greatly help convert the "curious browser" into a "buying customer".


References

SEO Starters Guide -
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Learn how Google discovers, crawls, and serves web pages - http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=70897

Landing Page Optimization - 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_page_optimization

Examples of small business landing pages -
http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/8-small-business-landing-pages-critiqued-for-conversion/

What is a landing page -
http://www.vertster.com/landing-page-design/what-is-a-landing-page/

8 Tips video -
http://www.vertster.com/landing-page-design/what-is-a-landing-page/

Search Bot image -
http://seoyourblog.com

Submitted by Pamela Ramos Peraza

The Future of the Internet

Upon my seven year old nephew pulling out his mother’s smartphone this past Thanksgiving, I heard the remark from my brother, “When I was a kid, we had one computer in the whole school and everyone had to take turns on it.”

Some are too young to remember the computer at school with the built-in mouse on the keyboard or manually loading your video games onto the very exciting and stylish Commodore 64, but in actuality this happened not too long ago. Especially when taking into account the internet’s relatively short lifespan of forty years. The advancements that have since been occurring have met and exceeded even the wildest of imaginations from the early days. So what is in store for the future?

The Cloud 

You probably use the cloud in some form or another daily. Take for example uploading pictures to facebook so that they can be accessed from home, when on vacation or from your phone. Here is a video that explains the basics:

What does this mean for the future? Cloud computing is expected to make its biggest impact in the business sector. By bypassing the use of a server and minimizing IT services, cloud computing allows businesses to pay for the amount of information storage or software needed in a “pay-as-you-go” fashion thereby maximizing return on investment. The adoption of the cloud is gaining in popularity at a steady rate.   

Click here for more info: http://gigaom.com/cloud/the-tale-of-two-clouds-what-is-the-future-of-cloud-adoption-in-it/

Interactive Advertisements

According to Dr. Vinton G. Cerf , VP and chief internet evangelist for Google, a more interactive and consumer-friendly mode of advertising is the wave of the future. He gives the example of watching a movie on your big screen television. Imagine a scene where the actor is sitting at a table with an Apple laptop on it. Now imagining pointing and clicking on the Apple laptop using your remote control which then brings up a menu that provides information about the laptop, how much it costs, and where the nearest store is located to your proximity and even if you would like to purchase it right at that moment.

This idea applies a more consumer friendly mode of advertising. It gives consumers the ability to access the information when they need it by way of the web, instead of being bombarded with advertisements that you do not necessarily want to see. This could be applied to other means of advertising as well. Another example would be billboards that have the technology to interact with your smartphone for a more personalized experience.

If you would like to watch the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDtSCCjXEqo

Search Engine Optimization

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Basically, Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO” is the process of bringing a website higher in the ranks of a search engine.  When trying to optimize a webpage for search engines, what one is essentially doing is trying to make the site more visible and easy to find for people looking for content related to your subject matter.

How do you improve your rank on Google, Bing, and other search engines?

There are many ways in which you can improve your ranks, but it can be very complex.  So complex, in fact, companies now hire people to work full time on improving their business’ rank.

Two great ways that one can improve their search engine ranks are using the right keywords and having relevant, quality content which will lead to having backlinks.  These are basically what SEO is all about, when looked at in the simplest sense.

Keywords involve choosing relevant words and phrases to base your optimization around.  These will be the basis for your URL, tags, and other words which will be places in the coding of the website, but also in the content.  The more specific and niche the keywords are the better chance someone who is looking for your specific content will be able to find it.  If one uses keywords which are too general or generic your content could be lost among the millions of sites on the internet.

There are sites such as http://www.seotipsy.com/ that serve as tools to give companies ideas and advice for improving their SEO rankings.

Some people believe that the most important thing to ranking high on search engines is to generate relevant content.  I agree with this idea, because it leads to the direct traffic, plus it can lead to people linking others to your website.  When others place a link to your website on another website it is called a backlink, and it is a useful way to get your website ranked higher.

Though SEO is a great way to get your website noticed, it is an ever changing game, and you always have to be working on keeping your rank up.  Your website can drop from the first hit on a search engine to several pages deep in a matter of minutes.  Staying number one is not easy, but it is definitely necessary if you wish to have a successful business with a strong internet presence.

Here is a short video about the basics of SEO: 

I hope you enjoyed my blog, thanks for reading.

Victoria Le Page
October 3, 2012

Clickable Ads

Online Ads include all of the methods by which businesses try to get Web surfers attention and sell their products and services. No matter popping up ads, banners, sidebar links, social networks, emails or affiliate networks, they are all strategies used by marketing people to attract new consumers and gain leads for company. However, advertisement on the Internet has been around for near fifteen years and many users are looking at the ads they skim on the Web in a different way. Online web promotion strategy is becoming more and more of a science as everyday surfer of the Internet are turning increasingly irritated by the many ways that web advertisement can often surreptitiously take over a "www" that one is trying to use. The challenge today is considering and finding other ways of getting people's attention.

The methods for Internet promotion hasn't really changed quite in the past ten years. Popping up ads are still a big weapon among tons of advertisers, which already drive net surfers crazy. Related researchers are fast to point out that "pop-ups" are the highest rated form of despised advertisement. Ads that attempt and bait potential consumers into clicking on it rated just as low and ads that suddenly pop up and hide what you are really wanting to find are also widely disdained. When Internet advertisement doesn't have close buttons, and when it floats across your screen, or plays surprisingly without your permission, those ads are really nothing but annoying to people according to research. Therefore before a potential consumer ever relies on those pass kinds of online web advertisement ploys, more energy and money should be spent on highly proven methods of promotion. 

In my eyes, nowadays online web ad is moving forward of being a partner with the idea of helping people find answers, not just making a sale. This is maybe a tough concept for hardcore salesman to accept, but in the process of helping consumers find answers to their questions, more business goals can ultimately be achieved. For example, the blog is a great chance of writing personally, without a bunch of hype and it allows the writer to become a sort of expert or "turn to" person when potential clients or customers have questions ( just like us ). It also can have sidebar invitations to visit company website and an invitation at the end of the blog, and it should be used for informational functions, not related to product presentation. The idea is to get potential consumer to come back again and pass blog on to others for their enlightenment as well.

Branding on the Web

We as marketers know, (if you don’t, you should) that branding is a critical component in achieving success. We’re using the traditional approach of listening and providing the customer with a solution for his needs, but are constantly evolving and focusing a lot more on branding.

Branding is much more than just adding a recognizable logo, having a catchy slogan or standing out from the competition. Nowadays, this phenomenon is about creating a long-lasting relationship with someone who knows little or nothing about you, and transforming them into a loyal customer who trusts and loves your company.
 

The strength of a brand -also known as brand equity - will affect this. And because the internet is such an important part of our everyday lives, branding on the web is much more important. Our mission has become a lot easier due to the fact that the internet allows customers to have an increased level of brand awareness and makes them quicker to act than traditional mass-media. This doesn’t mean that the same marketing principles don’t apply anymore. On the contrary; a customer passes through the same stages – awareness, familiarity, trust, commitment- but a lot faster because of the internets advantage of being highly interactive, engaging and able to personalize communication. 

Creating an online brand

The resources and efforts required for a good branding campaign are quite high. That’s why there are guidelines that should be followed for a better end-result. The most important ones are:

• Emphasize the quality and mission of the company.  You will want to implement an image or reputation that stands out and is respected.

• Research your customer and engage him through the use of signage, advertising and online personality.

• Find the right balance between advertising-marketing and customer relationships.

•  Continuously manage and control available information about your products or company.

It is becoming clear that people are making choices and develop attitudes towards certain brands based on the material they find online. This issue can be handled in several ways. The first would be to create and spread your own relevant content, or by letting the users come up with the information - reviews, discussions or blog posts - and handle that content accordingly with the use of marketing tools such as search engine optimization.

As a conclusion, it is fair to say that branding is a highly complex process if it’s done right, but it is vital for any type of business because the targeted consumers are always changing and develop new needs that need to be addressed.  

Do you Database? Do it Right!

Do you Database?  Do it Right!

 

 

 

 

Database marketing is precision. Plain and simple.

 
 

“The foundations of virtually all the capabilities that differentiate  direct response marketing from mass media marketing reside in the marketing database.”

 – Page 101 Internet Marketing – Integrating Offline and Online strategies

 

 

 

 

Effective use of your customer database allows for more precise market segmentation, and accurate prediction of customer and prospect behavior.

 

“I have a very comprehensive database with more demographic and lifestyle data on my customers than I will ever need!”

Here's the thing, as marketers, we need to take a holistic approach to our decision making process. The information we use to make decisions must follow suit. Thus, the database we need is not JUST demographic and lifestyle data about our customers.

 

We need EVERYTHING.

This database MUST combine several individual databases into one, functional data warehouse that depicts a total landscape of your business. If not, you are missing a large part of the picture:

Take, for example, Mohawk College.

Mohawk College is a large organization with many departments that use separate databases and, in some cases, even utilize different software packages.

 

Just to name a few...

 

College Staff:

Administration, Support Staff and Faculty

Students:
Current Students, Co-op Students, Gradute Students, Mohawk Students Association, Banner, Co-op/Job Centre, Program Specific, Disability Services, Continuing Education, Locker systems.

Alumni:

Alumni Association database, Graduate Employment Rates

Marketing and Recruitment Prospects:

High Schools, Guidance Counselors,   Community Centres, Continuing education Prospects, Full Time,   Post Graduate Prospects

Other Business Areas:
Program enrollment trends, Residence information and Trends, Meal sales (meal plans etc), Book Sales

External Data Sources

Census data per geographic region
Highschool graduate data

....and this is not even close to the whole picture. This is not a complete listing by any means, but all of these data are useful to each other with regard to effective decision making…and the relentless attention to the needs of your target market.

Think about all of the information contained in these databases. Think of how cumbersome the decision making process would be if we couldn’t make them work together.

How would Mohawk make decisions regarding additional residence space without comparing geographical demographics? How would Mohawk make program and course ordering decisions without cross referencing enrollment? 

Obviously, making all these databases talk to one another is a technical challenge. And as marketers, we are not generally responsible for creating the database, but it is our job to decide what information is valuable for the decision making process, and drive its creation, based on that information.

 

How do you think Mohawk is doing? Do you think we can do better?