Walmart's Analytics Help Them Help You [Shop]

Walmart, the nation’s most prolific retailer, has been collecting customer data for years.  Walmart saves an estimated 2.5 petabytes of data accumulated from more than 1 million transactions per hour; an increasing amount of these happening online (Lutts , 2012).

Most of this customer data is being collected from in-store and online transactions and also from the content of social media conversations.  In addition to Walmart and Sam’s Club, Walmrt has partnerships with banks, vision centers and pharmacies from which they can also glean additional customer information. Customers can cash payroll checks at Walmart, providing yet another layer of personal information including highly private and unique data like driver’s license and social security numbers.  In many cases, Walmart’s customer information database is chock full of information customers willingly provided directly to the retailer. Many retailers offer a loyalty card which tracks information, but Walmart does not. However, they do offer a reloadable prepaid “Money Card” that looks like a branded credit card for which shopping behavior data may be collected from in store and online transactions.

Venky Harinaryan, Walmart’s senior vice president of global ecommerce, said “we see social commerce fueling the next generation of e-commerce where online and retail stores bring a continuous shopping experience to millions of users” (Walmart, 2011). Social commerce allows a retailer to tap into the current customers, but also potential customers who are in the social circles of their friends or followers, who share similar lifestyle typologies and who may be predisposed to purchasing the same items or similar from Walmart.

Walmart’s research division, @WalmartLabs, is dedicated to the convergence of online shopping and social media. The company started employing a platform known as Mupd8 which has the capability of analyzing incoming social media data and issuing an immediate response, such as a product recommendation. According to Accenture’s 2011 global consumer survey, more than two-thirds of consumers search for and read about brands on social sites (Accenture, 2011) so data mining in the social space is a prudent strategy.

Walmart also employs Shopycat, a Facebook app, which analyzes Facebook statuses including Likes,  Interests and post content (such as a friend making a recommendation to another friend) to make a socially-based product recommendation. Social media analytics gives insight into purchase habits and also sentiment analysis and reputation monitoring. It can also identify key influencers who are brand advocates in their social spheres.  

Here’s a snapshot of what came up for me without putting any personal information into the site. I recently did an online search for Ina Garten recipes on Google and on FoodNetwork.com so Shopycat demonstrated to me that it can be eerily accurate.

Wal-Mart is using these applications to analyze more that 300 million status updates a day (Dusto, 2012)! In late 2012, Walmart made Mupd8 open source to developers, a rare move for the dominant retailer.

In addition to exploiting the latest technology to develop customer profiles, Walmart uses Omniture’s SiteCatalyst product to look closely at the performance of their online shopping portal walmart.com. Walmart is interested in knowing how merchandising across this site directly effects conversions by “mining data in real time to quantify and visually reflect the effectiveness of walmart.com and its marketing objectives,” (Khan, 2004). Valuable observations can include things like product placement, campaign duration, price variables and design elements (such as the color of banners) and how these elements contribute to conversion. By reviewing the functionality of their ecommerce portal, Walmart can respond to the online behaviors they observe and adjust elements affecting the clickstream, purchase funnel and conversion rate of the site.

Due to the massive scale of Walmart’s distribution processes, predictive analytics data can also help the company measure inventory and supply chain systems and improve overall operational efficiency. In 2004 when a series of hurricanes hit the southeastern coast of the US, Walmart mined data for shopping patterns that occurred during previous storms and learned that things like strawberry Pop-Tarts and beer have higher sales in advance of a hurricane (Hays, 2004). When a company is able to identify the most popular items in a region or particular store, and manage down to the number of items in stock, the company can deliver better customer service and sell more.

In April 2012, Walmart allowed customers to order online, but pick up and pay for their orders in cash at their neighborhood store after identifying two groups of customers for whom this service would be appealing – those without credit cards, and those who prefer to keep their financial information private (Clifford, 2012). Knowing the buying patterns of these customers is important, since the individual stores actually act as distribution centers, and need to have the product in as soon as the customer is ready to have it, often the same day.

And because today’s consumer wants retailers to respond on their schedule, Walmart stores in some cities are offering same-day delivery  for holiday season orders placed online (Evans, 2012) which appeals to a segment of their customer who prefers the convenience of online shopping, but does not want to wait for an item to ship. More than half of Walmart’s online shoppers are now picking up items at their 4,700+ U.S. stores (Clifford.) Real time analytics would play a key role in making sure that stores are ready for the customer demand.

So, we know that Walmart is already developing and utilizing its own cutting edge data management and analytics technology to:

·         Build accurate customer profiles

·         Improve all aspects of the customer experience, both in store and online

·         Increase efficiency in their supply chain and distribution systems

·         Develop predictive online experiences that increase conversions

·         Integrate data across multiple customer channels

So What Else Can The Retailing Behemoth Do?

Walmart can continue to customize the shopper‘s online experience, playing to different segments and subsegments.  Overlaying customer profile data with online site usage data could help Walmart design different online shopping experiences based on factors like the age of the user. For instance, should a Walmart.com designed for person aged 50+ look different than the one offered up to a 21 year old shopper? Variations between sites might not only include merchandise options, but also in the layout and architecture of the site based on visitor flow and on-site engagement data.

I would say another big opportunity for Walmart is in the area of customer acquisition. Walmart predicts this will be a tough holiday season for the majority of its shoppers and therefore the company’s fourth-quarter earnings could fall below estimates. Target, catering to a more affluent customer base, expects to exceed Wall Street projections (D’Innocenzio, 2012).

The average household income for a Walmart shopper is in the range of $30,000-60,000, while the median household income of a Target customer is $64,000 (D’Innocenzio). Walmart already outperforms Target in the area of social media engagement. Continuing to play to this strength would be a good strategy. By mining both the social engagement data and shopping habits of their highest income customers, Walmart could identify their top tier income customers and those in their social circles. Walmart could choose to engage in meaningful ways with these prospects and, quite possibly, adapt their messaging from “deep discount” or “extreme value” to “convenience and selection” or something else that would be appealing to this type of customer.

Also of paramount importance to Walmart, and any online retailer for that matter, are Key Performance Indicators such as site abandonment, cart abandonment, and checkout abandonment rate.  These metrics equate to revenue so they deserve close analysis. These metrics also give a clear indication of some design elements such as how things are merchandised, arranged and communicated. The Walmart site is not for the clutter-averse; there is a LOT going on there. To a new customer, it could be overwhelming. Comparing the figures on these metrics for new versus returning (familiar) shoppers might suggest some site changes with new shoppers in mind such as a Welcome Page, or a quick video tutorial on how to best use the site.

The mounds of personal and behavioral data that is obtained across multiple channels  including online, social communities, call centers, mobile applications,  is transformed into actionable insights that can affect customer behaviors in real time. Multi-channel data integration is key for Walmart in doing what they do best – making it easy for us to consume.

References:

Accenture. (2012). The new realities of dating in the digital age: Are customers really cheating, or are you just not paying enough attention? 2011 Global Consumer Research study. Retrieved from http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Global-Consumer-Research-New-Realities.pdf

Clifford, S. (2012, July 4). Luring online shoppers offline. Retrieved on December 9, 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/business/retailers-lure-online-shoppers-offline.html

D’Innocenzio, A. (2012, November 18). Walmart and Target: A tale of two discount chains. Retrieved on December 10, 2012 from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57551520/walmart-and-target-a-tale-of-two-discount-chains/

Dusto, A. (2012, October 31). Walmart’s online marketing technology gets a ‘mup-date.’ Internet Retailer.  Retrieved on December 8, 2012 from http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/10/31/wal-marts-online-marketing-technology-gets-mup-date

Evans, B. (2012, October 12).Walmart, Amazon, eBay: Who’s the speed king of retail? Retrieved on December 9, 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/business/wal-mart-tests-same-day-delivery.html?_r=0

Hays, C. (2004, November 14, 2004). What Walmart knows about customers’ habits. Retrieved on December 9, 2012 from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmoney/14wal.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&position=&

Analytics Yellow Belt

Today was a day of highs and lows. I enjoyed checking out the Google Analytics reports and watching the traffic on my blog increase as everything synched up perfectly. In my mind, I was transforming into an Analytics Ninja!

 

We were asked to set up some goals and use Google Analytics to see how well, or not, our blog sites were meeting them. There are four types of goals and they are all pretty straightforward:

 

• A URL Destination Goal
• A Time on Site Goal
• A Pages Per Visit Goal
• An Event Goal

The goals I set for my blog page were pretty simple. I wanted to set some benchmarks for Time on Site and Pages per Visit, and I wanted to track an "event," which in this case was the number of people who played the “Hanukkah song” video in my previous post. Google Analytics is set up to track pages, but not things that occur within pages, like embedded video. Video is generally a good way to increase Time on Site, especially if it is compelling or, such as in the case of a tutorial, useful and illustrative of a concept.

 

Goals are pretty important to people who are trying to accomplish something with their web site. Leading visitors to a purchase or getting them to fill out a form are two easy goals you can set up, or maybe you just want them to spend a designated amount of time on the site, which is really all I had hoped to accomplish. Not all goals necessarily lead to a purchase, as it really depends on the nature and purpose of the Web site. I wanted people who found Her Online Space to linger a while.

Things were going so well for me.

 

And then...I got cocky. I couldn't leave well enough alone. I wanted to challenge myself, and post a video to track an "event," simply, the number of people who hit play. Anyway, it crossed my threshold of knowledge and it quickly went south. Being a newbie to analytics, I have no business messing with HTML code. Really, I don't. There is a little code manipulation required to track the "event" and somehow I made error after error and, well, it just wouldn't work. Be my guest and watch the video, but I can't tell if you were there or not (at least at the time this blog post was published). Though a little defeated, I tried to keep it in perspective.

 

I set a Time on Site goal at four minutes since the video clip was about that long, and determined that a logical Pages Per Visit goal was three pages, hopeful that people would not only check out the video, but also some previous posts. When I looked at the goal completions on December 3, I had 20 total goal completions,  10 each for Time on Site and Pages Per Visit and a 0 for Video Plays for disappointing but obvious reasons.

 

 

As a marketing professional, it is important that I at least know the language of analytics. As more aspects of business move online, it only makes sense to know how to interpret the success or failure of various campaigns. Analytics is how you do that. Analytics expert Avinash Kaushik would like us all to be Analytics Ninjas. Personally, I am hoping for maybe yellow or orange belt status.

Rest assured, I will probably not be employed in a role where I need to input tracking codes myself. However, I do see myself in a role where I might need to weigh in on the ROI of a particular promotional effort or public relations campaign. So knowing how to engage in meaningful dialogue with skillful Web site architects and designers will be a good skill to have. Also, I admit, a working knowledge of analytics is a pretty key skill for the modern-day marketer.

 

I was inspired by some additional information on this very topic. Vaughan (2012), writing for Hubspot's inbound marketing blog, suggests that its prudent for marketers to remember that web analytics is not the complete picture and that "marketers really need much richer data to understand the performance of their marketing campaigns, something that web analytics alone can't provide." Naturally, the measurable metrics available on Google Analytics or other platforms are useful in telling us how a web site performs in a technical way. Knowing things like the clickstreams, the funnels, and the duration on site is useful. But it is the job of the marketing professional to interpret this data in a meaningful way. The marketer looks at all the data, across multiple channels (including some that are not online) and makes adjustments in strategy to positively impact ROI.

 

The bottom line is this. If you have a web site, or manage one, you need to know how it all works together. The most basic metrics of time on site, page views, traffic sources and bounce rate are helpful but only if you know how to apply them to make good business decisions. Leavy (2011), writing for Entrepreneur, suggests five simple things you should be able to know from your web site analytics.

 

1. Do people already know you, and how are they finding you, and why?

2. Are you bringing in potential, qualified customers?

3. Is your social media presence bringing people to your web site?

4. Are visitors "bouncing" from your home page, and if so, why?

5. Are they visiting the right pages and getting the information they need to "convert?"

 

Any marketing professional worth her salt is interested in improving sales, impressions, awareness...whatever the case may be. It is critical to be aware of all of the useful elements in the tool box, and the possibilities of analytics-based decision making.

 

Marketing used to be accomplished by the old “spray and pray” method, where you spend a lot of money putting out a lot of information to the masses, never really being sure it was working.  Heffernan (2010) describes old-style advertising as unaccountable and that “companies are slowly but determinedly moving from unaccountable media advertising to traceable, analyzable results.” And that is exactly what is happening in the online ad environment where you can view instant analytics and make changes to improve the message, the channels and the audience.

 

I can't say I'll be applying for any web analytics jobs soon and I should probably avoid messing with any code. But, I do forge ahead with the confidence that I have a functional understanding of the foundation of this discipline and how I can apply it to my marketing campaigns.

 

References:

 

Google Analytics. (n.d.). About goals. Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1012040

 

Heffernan,  M. (2010, June 10). Spray and pray: Why does anyone still buy advertising? CBC Moneywatch. Retrieved on December 2, 2012 from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-44340243/spray-and-pray-why-does-anyone-still-buy-advertising/

 

 Leavy, J. (2011, July 11). Five things you should know about web analytics. Entrepreneur. Retrieved on December 12, 2012 from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219955

 

 Vaughan, P. (2012, March 8). Why you need marketing analytics, not web analytics. Retrieved on December 2, 2012 from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31705/Why-You-Need-Marketing-Analytics-Not-Web-Analytics.aspx



Video Makes Blogs More Interesting

As we approach the final home stretch of IMC 642, Web Analytics & SEO, we are being asked to generate more traffic to our fledgling blogs in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of all of the tools that exist to draw traffic, increase conversions and analyze the success or failure of an online site.

I don't think that I'll be winning any awards for my thought leadership on this topic, but that doesn't mean I did not grasp many of the concepts outlined in this class. I consider myself fortunate to have had this opportunity to enroll in the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Masters Program at the esteemed West Virginia University. As a marketing professional, I know that knowledge of this particular field of study will be increasingly useful in the next decade.

We've worked hard these past few weeks, cramming in a semester of content into a nine week class. The holiday season is upon us, so soon we will all be decking the halls, baking up a storm, and possibly shopping 'til we drop. Actually, scratch that shop 'til we drop thing. IMC 642 definitely taught us that we can sit at our computers in our PJs and wait for all of those highly targeted behavioral ads to tell us what we need to buy this season. Privacy? Who needs it?

Whether you will celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanza, one thing is true. Many of us will be working very hard up to that final assignment  due on December 24 (Christmas Eve)! And, we will all be ringing in the New Year as graduate students, eager to complete our WVU Master's Degree in 2013!

I thought I'd offer a little break in the study action with one of my favorite seasonal videos of all time. I bet you like it too. Don't worry, it's rated PG.   HAPPY VIEWING!

No Fear Analytics

My name is Lisa and I have Numerophobia.

Diving into the charts and graphs of Google Analytics is daunting to me. My brain is not wired in this manner. I am a person who prefers to consume information via the written and spoken word. Numbers, especially those with a graph or a chart, vex me. I cannot draw. I dislike Pictionary, and Sudoku can bring on a cold sweat. I did not do well on those awful standardized tests that had a spatial relations section. Therefore, I studied communications, thinking I could elude numbers for the rest of my life. How wrong I was!

You can imagine how an analytics tool with lots of lines and pie charts can strike fear in someone like me. But, I am here to tell you Google Analytics is not too scary. I gingerly navigated my way through Google Analytics to see how this blog is performing. I’ll admit, Google does a pretty good job offering resources, videos, and blog posts to help the novice maneuver through the reports. I took on my fears and I am better for it.

I see that my pleas to friends, family and coworkers were successful because to date I have 45 site visits and 205 pageviews. On November 15, 2012, I posted a blog link on Facebook and emailed some of my close friends to ask for their help. I learned that I do not have many friends with a desire to learn about analytics. I am happy to report that on November 15, my blog site had 20 new visits, with 78 pageviews, with an average visit duration of 3:29! This means that a few people actually read my entries, though I see that many endured the experience for all of ten seconds. Pageviews per Visit is a good indicator of stickiness or, put another way, whether the content is interesting and valuable enough to draw readers in deeper. For an established blogger who really has something to say, this is a key performance metric.

Unexpectedly, when I looked at the Audience Overview report (with a date range of November 1-25), I saw that I had a visitor from Zurich, Switzerland, who promptly bounced realizing they reached my site in error. I looked at all of the cities, and I can make some good assumptions about who was on my blog. A high school classmate in Irvine, California, works in IT and it was no surprise he capitulated and checked out the page.

Looking at the Traffic metric, I see that 55.55% came via a referral, primarily Facebook, and 44.44% came via direct traffic, most likely from the direct link I posted for the class. I can see that the blogroll posted by fellow classmate Kayla E. was effective in driving one person here. A start up blog relies heavily on referrals and inbound links, so this was much appreciated.

New and Returning Visitors are useful metrics because they give a blogger like me an indication if we were developing a fan base. Cultivating a loyal legion of readers is an important component to helping a blog grow and thrive through shares, links and referrals. In my case, I have had seven returning visitors and I will surmise that most if not all of these visitors are my classmates.

I really enjoyed perusing the Visitor Flow chart. I found a good online tutorial and was able to go in and manipulate this report as I viewed the video, which helped my understanding of what was actually being illustrated. Though I did get many people to check out my blog, more than 60% of my total traffic stopped at the first page. On November 15, the date that I saw the most activity, 50% of visitors dropped after reading one page. Hmmm. I guess my content was not very appealing!  It is important to note that an established blogger might expect unique visitors to return frequently to read the latest post, and immediately leave. This type of action results in a high bounce rate, but should not be used to judge the quality of the content.

I also looked at Engagement, to see if I could make some assumptions about how long people were on my site and how they were interacting with it. While I was able to compare the visit duration of new and returning visitors, overall this doesn’t tell me very much. I think I understand what Kaushik (2012) meantwhen he expressed his concern that engagement is subjective and a “heart” metric.   There is no standard for time duration, as it is highly dependent on the type of site and the content. One can presume that a blog draws a particularly engaged audience to begin with, so a healthy time on site and/or visitor duration generally means the content is working. In this unique academic environment, I have to take into consideration that people are just stopping by my blog. However, in a “real world” scenario, PageViews per Visitor or Recency and/or Return Visitors would be helpful indicators to help me decide if the content is doing its job, bringing people back and developing some kind of loyal following.

Of course, there are other determinants to a blog’s success beyond Google Analytics or similar tools. The number of RSS subscriptions, the frequency and quality of comments and the amount of sharing on social media channels can also give valuable insight into the relevancy of blog content and the loyalty threshold of the readers. In fact, Heidi Cohen suggests there are 65 metrics to track the success of your blog, and many of these have nothing to do with Google Analytics. Numbers can speak volumes, but sometimes you need to look beyond them. As a self-diagnosed Numerophobic, I liked that.

Are you a Wannabe Blogger? Do you want to see positive trends in those web analytics? Here is my advice. Work hard to create thought leadership, maintain credibility, and keep a reliable publishing schedule. Experts will tell you not to be too concerned with metrics too soon. First, concentrate on the purpose of your blog, and have clear, established goals. Next, focus on the content and deliver quality consistently. And finally, put a little marketing muscle behind it. There is nothing wrong with looking at some benchmark measurements to get started. But don't obsess on numbers over quality.

Reference:

Kaushik, A. (2007, October 1). Engagement is not a metric, it’s an excuse. [Web log]. Retrieved on November 25, 2012 from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/engagement-is-not-a-metric-its-an-excuse/

What's Your Goal? Demand Generation & Demand Fulfillment Ads

Both of these online ad channels make compelling cases for their ease, simplicity and speed. But there is more to the story, and that is where the capabilities of both Google AdWords and Facebook ads really shine, provided that you have your desired result in mind.

Putting these tools to wor requires getting into the mind of the consumer and understanding where they are on their search journey. Both AdWords and Facebook Ads offer extremely basic ad templates that require very little creative juice. But in the case of online search and display ads, what the ad looks like is not nearly as important as who might be seeing it and when.

The treasure trove of personal data that Facebook has amassed about its 1 billion users runs around 500 terabytes a day (that's 1 trillion bytes). All of that user data, from the profile details, to relationship status, to workplaces, and even our "likes" is all offered up to severtisers on a silver platter within the Facebook Ad platform.

Ads on Facebook can be highly targeted according to very specific user attributes that users themselves have provided by building their profile or by participating in the platform. Reaching this audience has one significant drawback, and that is you don't have concrete evidence that an interest in your product or service exists. But because of the unique social information available, Facebook advertisers can take advantage of very specific small windows of opportunity (such as the newly engaged, or those attending a specific college). Tim Kendall, Facebook's Director of Monetization, summed it up this way in an interview, saying that highly targeted Facebook ads can "find your customers before they search" (Salkever, 2009).

Placing an ad for your business in front of a specific facebook target audience requires a leap of faith that they might be interested in what you are selling, and that you will prompt them to respond. This is known as Demand Generation. The goal is that they will see your ad and reward you with a click-through. There is no guarantee that click will result in any conversion. They might not be ready for you yet, but there you are with a prompt for something that they probably do have an interest in!

Additionally, the advent of "social search" will be a game changer in the ad arena because user interests and their web of personal relationships will drive how Facebook users find information within that platform, giving Google a run for its money.

Currently, the primary difference between Facebook display ads and Google AdWords is that people who are using the massive search engine are already looking for something; a strategy known as Demand Fulfillment. It's no surprise that most people utilizing a search engine have a goal in mind. Putting an ad in front of people who are already looking for what you offer is a smart, efficient approach which is exactly what AdWords does. The demand is already there and conversion is highly possible, though not guranteed. it is also likely that the user is shopping around, so you need to make a compelling case once that click-through occurs. The question is how are you going to provide engagement to continue their path to purchase?

"Using online advertising as a way to introduce or promote a Brand is the precursor and corollary to a direct response strategy" (Umeno, 2010). Both platforms offer comparable degrees of functionality, campaign analytics and easily deliver the masses. Whichever platform you choose, remember there is still work to be done. You need to offer a hospitable place for these potential customers to land, and be ready with an offer they can't refuse.

References:

Salkever, A. (2009, September 18). Facebook revenue guru says demand generation is secret to ad success. Daily Finance. Retrieved from http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/18/status-update-facebook-revenue-guru-says-demand-generation-is-s/

Umeno, D. (2010, August 30). A mini primer on online advertising strategy. Confluence Digital Blog. Retrieved on November 11, 2012 from http://info.confluencedigital.com/blog/bid/118073/A-Mini-Primer-on-Online-Advertising-Strategy

And The Winner Is...

I consider the whole content/conversation debate a non-issue because there is no need to take sides. Conversation develops because of content. Conversation that develops about your content among the people that are most important to your brand or business leads to conversion. Neither content nor conversation reigns supreme in the social universe.

Before the emergence of the Web and social media platforms, the process worked similarly. We’d watch the network news, listen to our favorite radio program on our way to work, or read the daily paper, consuming the content, and we’d enter into conversation with our friends and colleagues about what we had seen/heard/read. The content was the reason for the conversation. We’d act on what we heard, or we wouldn’t.

Fast forward to the democratic playing field of the social web and people are not just having conversations about content but are inspiring, directing and influencing it as well.  The masses are also creators of content, sometimes without even being cognizant of it. Likewise, it is not unheard of for relevant, targeted content to develop as a result of conversation. Ideas are always being shared, improved, amended and updated. This is the social part of “social media!”

Greenberg (2009) affirms that “social marketing efforts need to be driven by content, not vice versa. Without content, there is not a whole lot to talk about.” I am in agreement that content is the start of everything, and the thing that holds it all together. Content development is essentially making strategic decisions about the messages that we are going to put out into the universe and considering, in advance, what the response to that content is likely to be.

Taking a different point of view, Novak (2010) writes that “content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising” and suggests that content is enhanced, improved, and made more memorable via conversation. This is absolutely true. But, the content IS the conversation starter. The platform where the content is published matters; you have to go where the people are and you must help them find you.

So in discussing whether content or conversation is “King,” perhaps we should instead ignore the debate and view them as more as Co-CEOs, or like Batman and Robin, each with a distinct role to play in the path to a desired objective.

Taking into account the “many to many” communications channels offered by the social web, I believe the more relevant and productive discussion should be about how content and conversation help each other thrive.  From a marketing perspective, we need to understand the relevance of both points and how we might incorporate this understanding into a sound communication strategy.

A report entitled Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics from the Center for Social Media affirms that content and conversation are both relevant and symbiotic, making these points:

 Many-to-many digital technologies are fostering participatory user behaviors: choice, conversation, curation, creation, and collaboration.

Quality content needs to be matched with effective engagement.

What does this mean for marketers? Evans (2008) says that the Web offers marketers and consumers an equal voice. All parties have a chance to participate and create, shape, develop the content. And let’s not forget the vital link between content and conversation – listening. Listening to what people are saying improves the quality and viability of content, and also provides an indication as to the right time to participate.

Nate Riggs of The Karcher Group, an Ohio-based web services firm, was quoted in a Content Marketing Institute article saying “The content you create, as well as the content you curate and share, helps you build a following of individuals who fit your customer profile” (Crossfield, 2012). If you are doing it right, that content you’ve created will lead to conversations in which you can continue to participate because your content will be trusted and welcomed.

Great content that remains hidden on a web site or blog is not doing a lot to grow business, or to develop evangelists for your business or brand. It exists simply to be found (maybe) and leaves a great deal to chance, missing a large percentage of the whole universe of potential customers. Reaching sales goals requires more effort which Riggs (2011) describes as “building an online conversation around the content products you produce.”

So what do you do? Take that great content and share it via other platforms and channels and you are starting a conversation with infinite viral and sharing possibilities!  Pinterest opened up a realm of new possibilities for posting (“pinning”), following and sharing. Brands that lend themselves to great visuals work especially well on this platform, such as Whole Foods Market or Martha Stewart. 

A quick glance at the Solis Conversation Prism 3.0 demonstrates just how many paths exist to reach the universe of potential customers. Notice how, in the center of all of those opportunities for communication and conversation, is the brand.

 

The social marketing plan of any company must employ both content and conversation to ensure it will be both heard and understood. To assume that one is more important than the other is a strategic mistake.

References:

Clark, J. (2012). Public media 2.0: Dynamic, engaged publics.  American University Center for Social Media. [White Paper]. Retrieved from http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org

Crossfield, J. (2012, November 2). Turning social media follows into content marketing leads. Retrieved on November 11, 2012 from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/11/social-media-follows-content-marketing-leads/

Evans, D. (2008). Social media Marketing: An hour a day. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley.

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social media marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved from WVU eCampus.

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved from WVU eCampus.

Riggs, N. (2011, October 14). 10 content marketing principles for the corporate marketer. Retrieved on November 11, 2012 from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/10/content-marketing-principles-for-the-corporate-marketer/

Solis, B. (2010, October 13). Introducing the conversation prism version 3.0. Retrieved on November 10, 2012 from http://www.briansolis.com/2010/10/introducing-the-conversation-prism-version-3-0/

 

Beyond The Page View Metric

Chapter 4 in our text discusses a number of ways to slice, dice and analyze data to understand how the user/customer is using a website. Kaushik (2010) pointedly states that “the future of the Web will be substantially richer and immersive. To track these experiences we must think of new ways of collecting data.”

When I think of web experiences that intrigue me, my mind goes to the sites that are heavy on interaction, video and even gaming, also known as rich media. These sites offer great potential for branding because they encourage a longer interaction from the user. "Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) utilize software such as Ajax, Flex, Silverlight, AdobeAir, and Java FX, that makes the user experience more natural - more connected, more alive, more interactive and more responsive" (Ward, 2007).

Here is one you MUST check out (trust me on this…)

James Bond/Heineken

In addition of offering the user a better online experience, Rich Media ads offer advertisers benefits such as:

1.       Higher interaction rate (captures user attention, delivers on experience)

2.       Ability to measure browsing behaviors (not just impressions and click throughs)

3.       Higher performance levels (consumers are more likely to take action after viewing Rich Media ad than a standard ad)

4.       Increased brand awareness (over other online format ads)

The problem is that these types of experiences are harder to measure because rich experiences don’t generate page views. The user is not clicking on an ad to go somewhere else. This is solved somewhat by creating an Event Tracking metric that can help set benchmarks for the user unique experience of rich media and diverts from the traditional page-driven data metrics (Kaushik, 2010).

So how do you measure success in this rich media environment? You first have to determine what defines success for your campaign and work with developers to put in the proper coding up front. According to Kaushik (2010) when attempting to track the fluid web, you need to know what questions you want answered and translate your requirements to your developers. There is no right answer, you just have to know what it is you want to know and plan for it by putting the right mechanisms in place. 

In the above campaign, perhaps the metric is simply how many visitors view the video to completion (thus seeing numerous Heineken messages). Maybe the desired measurement is based on the click-through rate to additional Heineken content pages after the video is watched. There is an option in the video game to post a photo. I did not do this the first time, wondering if it was worth the trouble.  I exited the game, but after thinking about it, my curiosity got the best of me and I went back and fully participated. I was rewarded with a highly customizable (and fun) adventure. But, how many people don’t go back like I did, or how many stop playing the video after a few minutes?

There may even be a different experience offered for males than females. This is a media experience likely to be shared, and I suspect there is a metric in place that measures virality of this video game. You can even skip the James Bond Skyfall preview ad and go right to the interactive component, which probably says something else about the user that is relevant to measure.

And, considering my earlier post, I wonder if I’ll start to see some ads pop up for SkyFall or Heineken as I do some online research for my classes this week!

My customized James Bond Dossier

References:

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley, Inc.

Sharma, R. (2011, August 23). The benefits of rich media ads. Retrieved on November 4, 2012 from http://insights.marinsoftware.com/rich-ads/benefits-of-rich-media-ads/

Ward, J. (2007, October 17). What is a rich internet application? James Ward [Web log]. Retrieved on November 4, 2012 from http://www.jamesward.com/2007/10/17/what-is-a-rich-internet-application/