Traffic investments load the funnel.
There is a lot of focus on increasing traffic to websites when assessing online marketing tactics. This is for good reason: Without website visitors, no one is there to make a purchase or learn what your business is all about.

Website traffic tools are sold most often (likely) because it’s the easiest non-invasive marketing influencer a third-party can offer. Website traffic tools include a wide range, from offline to online: billboards to pay-per-click to social media will all grab some amount of website traffic.

Conversion investments widen the mouth.
The forgotten focus is on website conversions. Conversions include sales, downloads, contact form completions–any specific business goal on a website. Conversions are influenced by a number of on and off website considerations, some examples: qualified traffic, website design, website usability, images.

There is an extremely high amount of permutations a visitor can navigate through in order to make it to the actual conversion. This is where the analytics nerds love to play, with exciting results. (There’s a fantastic example beginning on slide 15 of Google Analytics Decision Making.)

Too many companies get lazy about making design updates or testing out interfaces. I get it–it’s not easy. Website interfaces and design require a balance of science and art. And it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it process. What you’ll learn from the results, however, are worth every investment made.

Consider the following example chart.*

There’s a reason not to be lazy about making conversion rate investments. Even if the average transaction value of each conversion was only a dollar you can still see significant impact across the board. So why are so many companies only focusing on increasing website traffic?

Website traffic is a clear necessity for business growth. Just make sure you test out ways to improve conversion rates regularly.

*Please note: Conversion rates are often low percentages on average. Even incremental changes at tenths of a percentage can make a significant difference (depending on website volume). This chart was kept simple for illustrative purposes.

This post is an extension of Rethinking Marketing: Create Consumer Value through Brand Extensions

I realize white labeling products is easy and sometimes headline-grabbing for brands. But the reality is they’re still products. Regardless of sexy new concepts using “social integration” or “mobile accessibility”, a product limited by transaction.

It is important to differentiate the use of products as part of a campaign versus actual program development. Programs are developed uniquely to a business,tied to a bottom line business goal.

But that’s not the fault of the company selling the white labeled the product. In fact, it’d be impossible for the companies developing these products to execute any other way–they don’t know your business.

Creating programs that improve the way business is done is the responsibility of the marketer. The marketer has the opportunity to pair innovative products with fundamental business growth. Why settle for retro-fitted products?

Ready to engage in conversations like this before they’re sent to the masses?

“Products” as Brand Extensions

There is a marketing opportunity to create value-added brand extensions. Value added brand extensions provide utilitarian benefits to the consumer.

There has been an uptick of brand extensions by way of mobile applications, microsites, web tools, and more. A couple examples:

• Benjamin Moore’s Paint Calculator: Know how much (Benjamin Moore) product to purchase using the paint calculator. It’s super simple to build (and use), keeps the user on the Benjamin Moore website, and nears the user to making a purchase decision (converting). This is the simplest example I’ve found.
• Nike+ Running Application: Nike doesn’t sell shoes, athletic wear, or basketballs. It sells athletic culture. And Nike+ was a great way to extend the brand into the athletic experience.

Brand extensions that provide these benefits extend the product lifecycle, builds the relationship, and creates an enchanting experience. But most of all, they are a staple of customer-centric marketing program development.

Entrepreneurs Capitalize Instead

But there are some companies that run ahead of the pack and capitalize on brand markets. These entrepreneurs create free consumer value, then invite brands into the party at a cost. A couple of examples:

• Mint.com: The banking industry tanks and bleeds brand equity while Mint use continues gaining credibility. Mint seizes the opportunity to leverage massive amounts of very personal consumer data by selling hyper-qualified advertising to banks and other financial services companies.
• iTunes, Pandora, Spotify: Record companies keep kicking and screaming with each evolution of iTunes. But they continue giving away opportunities to own the next evolution.
• Groupon: Small Business Associations, even SBA, could have owned this and sky-rocketed the value of their entire organization.
• Evernote: Where was Post It on this? Or are they really just selling paper?

This is easy for brands, but there’s a significant opportunity cost being late to the party. The entrepreneurs own the consumer data, access points, and relationships. Brands gain…advertising channels.

Check mate? Or are more brands going to stand up and own their markets?

Ready to engage in conversations like this before they’re sent to the masses?

It amazes me how many marketing companies base their very being on execution tools (web development, social media, email) and still call themselves “integrated”. Or, for that matter, how many clients end up down this rabbit hole.

Before your head explodes or you set the comment section on fire, please continue.

Some companies sell tools. Some marketers buy tools. Purchasing decisions are usually driven by pre-determined budgets. It looks kind of like this:

For the sake of continuity, I call this Siloed Execution.

Many agencies sell integrated marketing. Integrated marketing is smart. It looks kind of like this. It saves money, connects contact points, and is a much smarter spend than siloed tools. However, purchasing decisions are still often driven by pre-determined budgets without regard for customer impact.

Technical integration of execution tools is, well, technical. While it allows us to do our jobs more seamlessly and with improved branding, etc, it begins with the tools–not humans.

Customer Centric Program Development: Begin with the target customer, build out the content strategy, develop the brand, then deliver. This approach will provide a scalable budget based on desired impact.

Here’s a simplified version, using the sample tools above, of how this looks:

Let’s break this apart:

Customer: Your customer more than the summation of their demographics. Focus on the consumer lifestyle. For more on lifestyle-focused marketing, check out Retail Content Strategy: It’s a lifestyle.

Content: What kind of value and information is of value to the customer lifestyle? This is the kind of content they want to consume: the kind that provides value to their life. Value can be created by education, entertainment, or even social status.

Brand: How can the brand connect, create, or amplify the content customers are seeking–while remaining consistent with its values?

Delivery: This is where marketing agencies sometimes begin. “We can access XYZ demographics.”

Tools: This is where marketing agencies usually begin. Today’s favorite claim to competence: “We do social media.” I’ve been “doing” telephones my entire life and that doesn’t mean anything without the messaging, the customer-centric program development. Those who sell “social media” (or other tools like “email marketing” and “web development” for that matter) did not take to heart the demise of Borders.

Talk about true integration. It all beats from the same human heart: The customers’.

Now that I’ve offended most of my professional marketing colleagues, let’s start a conversation. Comment and let me know what you think, what you recommend differently.

Ready to engage in (even more) more blunt conversations like this before they’re sent to the masses?

Last night I spoke with a group of entrepreneurs at the Wayne County Community College in Detroit about using web analytics to make marketing decisions. Our talk included a lot of great questions, so I recrafted the presentation slides to include event-dialogue.

A lot of this is somewhat elementary information for analytical data nerds, so consider yourself warned.

Ready to engage in conversations like this before they’re sent to the masses?

Even if you went to Borders, it wasn’t for the books. Borders didn’t sell books. They sold information and a buying experience; the books were just the medium. But no one told Borders. And Amazon told everyone. And now it’s too late.

But there are plenty of Borders-like businesses out there. They’re easy to spot, bleeding marketing dollars on free standing inserts in the local newspaper to yell at consumers about how much cheaper their widget is than the other guy’s widget–which is usually fine if they’re globalized brand.

The following is a retail content strategy breakdown of three categories:

1. Revenue erosion,
2. Lifestyle, and
3. Products.

Examples used include Dunham’s Sports, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and REI.

Comparison of home page content strategy is tied to Alexa ranking success. Though correlation does not indicate causation, it is one metric easy to assess with consumer level information.

Example conclusion: Website focused most directly on lifestyle had highest popularity (measured by lowest Alexa rank)