The Next Level for Online Retailer, Drugstore.com

Online retailers understand the importance of using web metrics to make informed decisions about their business and to enhance sales. Companies like Amazon, Sephora and Zappos typically collect a wide array of information from customers and prospects, including conversions, visit duration and referrers, to name a few.

One online retailer I’ve used to purchase hard-to-find health, beauty and pet products for the past three years is Drugstore.com. I’ve found that this retailer almost always has what I need – and typically at a good price – when I can’t find it in local brick-and-mortar stores.

But one of the most important things that keeps me coming back to this retailer is its desire to have an upfront and open relationship with it customers – as outlined on two pages of the company’s website: Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Under Terms of Use, Drugstore.com details what it expects of its customers, including providing accurate account information, honoring copyrights and using the site for lawful purposes only. Under Privacy Policy, the company details what its customers can expect from Drugstore.com, including agreements with third parties, social media and email.

What I appreciate most about this company’s Privacy Policy page is Drugstore.com’s disclosure of what information it collects and how it will be used (1999-2013, para. 10):

We automatically receive and collect certain types of information whenever you visit our websites. For example, like many other websites, we use "cookies" and web beacons (described below) and obtain certain types of information when your browser accesses our websites. This information includes the Internet protocol (IP) address of your computer, your geographic location as determined by your IP address, your browser software and operating system, your web server, the date and time you access our site, session information (such as download errors and page response times), information about your viewing, search and purchase history, and information about the referring URL and the URL clickstream to, through, and from our websites. We use this information to monitor the usage and performance of our site, to enhance our customers' search and shopping experiences and to determine aggregate information about our user base and usage patterns.

While I don’t typically like businesses collecting information about me as a consumer, I do understand why they do it as a marketer. By collecting information about my online habits, the company can better target products, services, discounts and more to keep me coming back – what Drugstore.com refers to above as enhancing “our customers’ search and shopping experiences.” It also can help the company understand if its website has any issues, such as challenging processes or poor information, that keep me, and other customers, from seeing a purchase through to completion or creating an account – referred to as monitoring "the usage and performance of our site" and “aggregate information about our user base and usage patterns” in the company’s disclosure also referenced above.

Based on what I’m learning in my web analytics course at West Virginia University, I suspect Drugstore.com has set up several e-commerce goals for its websites, and tracks conversions and funnels, accordingly (if not, I would strongly encourage the online retailer to do so). I also suspect (and suggest) that some of the metrics Drugstore.com collects are focused on helping the company answer the following questions:

•  How do customers arrive at our website and what keywords are they using to find it? (i.e. referrals and SEO)
•  How often do customers return and how long in between their visits (i.e. frequency and recency)?
• What types of products are customers looking at and how many are they looking at (i.e. page views and page views/visit), and what are they purchasing (i.e. conversions)?
• Where are we losing customers? (i.e. bounce rates and funnels)
• How many visitors sign up for an account and/or make a purchase? (i.e. conversions)
• Are there are any parts of our account process that might be challenging and causing customers to leave? (i.e. funnels and conversions).

Just think of the wealth of information Drugstore.com could have at its disposals by combining its website metrics with knowledge gained from its social media sites, advertising and paid search: the “story” of the company’s online presence could really come to life – to the benefit of the business. Kaushik (2010, p. 357) explains:

The toughest challenges in online measurement are the touchiest. Gaining a Conversion is complex: a Visitor may visit your website multiple times and be exposed to multiple online marketing campaigns. And because we live in a “nonline” marketing world, the influences on a Visitor are not limited to online channels. We see television ads and billboards. Therefore, our Outcomes are no longer limited to online Conversions; we might do our window shopping online, but we convert offline.

For these reasons, Drugstore.com should consider using vanity URLs in its public relations, advertising and offline marketing efforts to assess how these elements can help drive online conversions. The company also should consider using unique coupons and codes in its offline campaign efforts to help determine effectiveness in reaching online ecommerce goals. And Drugstore.com should view traffic patterns online, when campaigns are running, to see what impact those efforts are having on the company’s online presence.

Additionally, Drugstore.com should look at the applications available from Google Analytics’ gallery. Two applications I suggest the online retailer should consider – and the reasoning behind those suggestions – are:

•  SessionCam. This application allows companies to record and replay user activity on websites, giving them the chance to observe the actual customer visits associated with the company’s web data. This application would be particularly useful in the company’s re-marketing efforts, as well as providing valuable conversion insights.
• Sprout Social. This tool is a “social media management platform that helps businesses effectively manage social channels and provide an exceptional customer experience. By integrating with Google Analytics, users are able to see their web traffic in relation to their social media activity on a single dashboard, (Google, 2011). Sprout Social can help Drugstore.com better understand how its social media activity is performing toward realization of online ecommerce goals.

All of these are suggestions Drugstore.com should consider using, if the online retailer isn't already doing so, to enhance realization of the company's ecommerce goals. This information taken together – from suggested questions and their associated metrics to integration of on- and offline behavior to tools that can enhance understanding and reporting – can help Drugstore.com predict the future online behavior of its customers, allowing the retailer to identify unrealized opportunities and drive growth. Rogers, principal at ConvertClick, explains in a blog (Puri, 2013, para. 8) why retailers need to use predictive analytics to improve online shopping experiences:

Generally speaking, analytics is about improving the decision-making process. The goal of predictive analytics is to analyze past and present behavior patterns to predict trends before they happen and build sound business strategies. That’s the next level for online retail.

I could not agree more with Rogers’ about the next level for online retail – actionable insight – and believe this is absolutely necessary for Drugstore.com to take full advantage of its multichannel analytics. What about you? Is there an online retailer you patronize regularly that you believe is drawing actionable insight from its online presence? If so, why and how do you think that retailer is doing this?

References

Drugstore.com. (1999-2013). Retrieved Dec. 7, 2013, from http://www.Drugstore.com/

Drugstore.com (1999-2013). Terms of use. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2013, from http://drugstore.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/512

Drugstore.com. (1999-2013). Privacy policy. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2013, from http://www.Drugstore.com/drugstore/qxc148674

Google. (2011, July 5). Sprout Social. Google. Retrieved December 4, 2013, from http://www.google.com/analytics/apps/about?app_id=1240001

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Wauters, R. (2011, March 24). Boom! Walgreens buys online retailer Drugstore.com for $409 million. Retrieved Dec. 7, 2013, from http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/boom-walgreens-buys-online-retailer-drugstore-com-for-409-million/


 

Goals and Funnels and Filters – Oh My!

Last week, I wrote about a variety of metrics I looked at to determine the effectiveness of my blog – such as recency, bounce rate, referrers, traffic and time spent on page, to name a few – given its eight unique visitors. While that analysis was interesting, I know it was very limited given the low number of individuals who are visiting my blog. However, I’m happy to report that my blog has picked up another five unique visitors in the past week for a total of 13 and that, while I know I have a long way to go, growth in unique visitors does give me hope I’m going in the right direction.

This week, I’m going to look at some of the reports and features I’m didn’t address last week – specifically goals, funnels and filters – and talk about how I am starting to use them. I’m also going to discuss the actionable insights I can gain from the data collected using these traffic parameters.

Goals

Google Analytics (GA) allows me to set up 20 goals for my blog. As P.I. Reed (Lesson 6, para. 2) explains, a “goal is a Web site page that helps generate conversions for your site (with some extra code, they can even be file downloads or on-page actions).”

With blog objectives of thought leadership and interesting content, I’ve decided to set three goals:

Visit duration. My first goal focuses on boosting average visit duration from 3.08 to 3.5 minutes. The reason I’ve chosen this visit characterization metric is because it offers insight into how long my visitors are spending with my blog during each session. If I’m providing interesting and relevant content, I should be able to increase the amount of time my visitors spend with my blog. As of the time I posted this blog, I had no completions for this goal.

Page Views/Visits. My second goal is to increase the number of page views/visit from 2.61 to 3 or greater. This visit characterization metric allows me to see how many pages my visitors are viewing during each visit, which gives me an idea of how engaged they are with my site (P.I. Reed, 2013, Lesson 6). I’m particularly interested in this metric since my hope is that my visitors will visit more than one page, finding my content engaging and interesting. It will be interesting to see if I’m able to tie this goal to new versus returning visitors when analyzing my data next week. Again when I posted this blog, I had no completion information to share related to this goal.

Share/Social Connect. To boost visitors to my blog, I’ve selected share/social connect as another goal. This engagement metric allows me to see how many of my visitors find my content interesting and relevant enough to share, helping me determine if my objective to establish myself as a thought leader is working. Presently, I have achieved three goal completions as of the time I posted this blog, yielding a goal conversion rate, which is sum of the conversion rate for my three goals, of 7.14 percent.

It’s important to note that goals also allow you to set a dollar value for each conversion. While Google Analytics (2013) strongly suggests using this feature for all visitor interactions, I wasn’t sure what “values” to place on each of my three goals, given my overall blog objectives of thought leadership and relevant content. If you have suggestions on how I might assign a monetary value to my goals, or have read good articles about how to do this, please share.

Funnels

Funnels, according to GA (2013), will allow me to look at the paths my visitors take on their way to my conversion goals, which I’ve established as sharing social content, page views/visit and visit duration.

Funnels can provide very useful information. Since I have no information in my funnels reporting section at the present moment, I decided to speak with my employer’s digital media specialist, Brian Donohue, to get a better understanding of how funnels can be used by businesses.

Where I work, Donohue uses an e-commerce conversion funnel for the company’s individual dental product. The ultimate goal, he explains, is to realize a sale of the product. There are several steps involved in the conversion process – demographic information, comparing and selecting a plan, proceed to checkout, creating an account, and payment/enroll.

By setting up a funnel that follows a visitor through each part of this process, Donohue (2013) says he can look at three things:

• What steps in the company’s conversion process are giving customers the most trouble
• What copy/language might be contributing to the customer’s decision to continue or leave
• What technical issues might exist that make it difficult for the customer to complete the conversion

The funnel, he says, allows him to see how customers are interacting with the company’s various channels, such as social email and organic search, as well as help him optimize marketing efforts to increase conversions.

To further enhance my understanding of how funnels can help me measure the effectiveness of my blog (so when I have data available I can best interpret it), I viewed a useful video from Google (2011) that explained how funnels are a lot like a basketball game – it takes more than one player, or channel, to secure a goal, or conversion. And each part of a funnel helps provide the information needed to show how each player (or channel) is, or isn’t doing, its part in securing a goal (or conversion).

Filters

According to P.I. Reed (Lesson 6, 2013), filters can be applied to the information in my GA account, allowing me to manipulate the data to enhance accuracy of reporting. Specifically, GA (2013) allows me to set predefined or customized filters.

Predefined filters include the ability to exclude/include information from specific domains and an IP address, and to a particular subdirectory,(Google Analytics, 2013). Google Analytics (2013) also offers five customizable filter types: exclude, include, lowercase/uppercase, search and replace, and advanced. Each of these filter types performs a specific purpose as outlined below:

Since I presently am not using filters for my blog, I spoke with Donohue to find out how he uses filters. He (2013) explains one of the pre-defined filters he uses regularly is to exclude traffic from the company’s IP address. By using this predefined filter, he can rule out data from employees looking for information to use in their jobs that can skew effective measurement of goals and conversions. Last year, Donohue also set up two filters specifically  designed to collect information on mobile and tablet technologies. By using these filters, he was able to see how many visitors were using mobile phones or tablets to visit the company’s website and make the case for responsive design.

Donohue (2013) emphasizes that if you use filters, it is always wise to maintain a profile with unfiltered data because once the data has been processed you cannot go back to the raw information.

Conclusion

Based on the above information, goals and conversions are the reports that will provide me with the most actionable information from my blog – information that is crucial in helping me understand if my blog is reaching its objectives – thought leadership and relevant content. If I achieve my three goals, I can gleam information about what should be repeated or enhanced in the future. If I miss my goals, then I will have information about what might need fixed, changed, or enhanced to increase the effectiveness of my blog, moving forward.

As for filters, I might want to consider setting up filters that allow me to look at information for only those visitors who come to my blog via social media channels, or to exclude all visitors who come from my place of employment.

Over the next week, I’d appreciate your help is driving some traffic to my blog so I can better understand how all elements are working – or not working – in helping me reach my goals,  so please consider sharing via Facebook; emailing my blog to a friend; or tweeting about it. And if you have suggestions for other goals or filters I should set up, I’d love to hear from you.

References

Donohue, Brian. (2013). How to use funnels and filters. In-person interview on Nov. 27, 2013.

Google Analytics. (2013). Beth’s blog. Retrieved Nov. 29, 2013, from https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-overview/a45647041w76369387p78959657/

Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, West Virginia University. (2013). Lesson 2: Web Metrics & SEO. Retrieved Oct. 28, 2013, from WVU eCampus Web site: http://ecampus.wvu.edu

YouTube. (2011). Multi-Chanel Funnels in Google Analytics. Retrieved Nov. 29, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz4yHOKE5j8

Is My Blog Doing What I Want It to Do?

Bounce rates, time on page, unique visitors, frequency, channels and conversions. These are just a few of the metrics available about my blog, Now You Know, thanks to Google Analytics. But how do I best decipher all of the available information to craft a story about my blog’s success? Essentially, how do I know if my blog is doing what I want it to do?

In his book, Web Analytics 2.0, Kaushik (2010) explains that in order to measure success, I need to first establish my blog’s purpose, or objective, then I can pick the best analytics to tell me how I’m doing. Since I’m not selling a product, but am instead “selling” my knowledge of marketing, measurement and metrics, a good goal for my blog is to provide content that helps establishes my thought leadership and is interesting to my visitors. To determine if I am achieving my objective, I need to carefully choose key performance indicators that will tell me if I’m being successful. The analytics I need to consider, given my blog’s objective, fall under three of the five standard reporting sections offered by Google Analytics (GA) – Audience, Acquisition and Behavior – and will include returning visitors, average visit duration, channels and average time on page, to name a few.

Audience

I’ll begin by assessing the Audience analytics associated with my blog. GA (2013) lets me look at a number of metrics related to my visitors, such as age and gender, language and location, new and returning visitors, and mobile devices to help me better understand who my visitors are and their level of engagement. Keeping my blog goal in mind – thought leadership and interesting content – I’m going to look at metrics that can tell me not only who my visitors are, but how I can better tailor my content to reach them. Metrics I want consider include:

• Unique Visitors, Visits and Page Views. These foundational metrics can tell me how many individual visitors have come to my blog, how many total visits they have accounted for and how many total pages they have viewed during a particular time period (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013). Since my blog’s inception on Nov. 2, my site boasts eight unique visitors who have visited the site a total of 18 times and have viewed a total of 47 pages.


• Page View/Visits. This ratio is an engagement metric that is calculated by dividing the number of page views by the number of visits in a specific time period (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013). The data tells me that my eight visitors have viewed an average of 2.61 pages per visit.


• Average Visit Duration. By looking at this visit characterization metric (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013), I know that my eight visitors have spent an average of 3.08 minutes on my blog during each visit.


• Returning Visitors. P.I. Reed (Lesson 2, 2013) places this metric in the visitor characterization category. Returning visitors tells me that more than half of my visitors have returned (55.6 percent) since my blogging efforts started.


• Recency. Also a visitor characterization metric, this number tells me how much time has passed since a unique visitor performed a particular action of interest (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013). GA’s data reveals that the majority of my visits (15 out of 18) have taken place in a day or less (14 at 0 and 1 at 1).


• Visit duration. This visit characterization metric tells me the length of a session’s time for my visitors, (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013). For my blog, visit duration appears to be 30 seconds or less, with 10 of the total 18 visits falling in this range.


• Bounce rate. This engagement metric ratio, calculated by dividing single page visits by entry pages (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013), offers insight into how quickly visitors are exiting a site and where. As Kaushik (2013,) says, “In a nutshell bounce rate measures the percentage of people who come to your website and leave ‘instantly’." According to GA, my blog has a bounce rate of 44.44 percent.


• Age and Gender. Knowing this demographic information is helpful in identifying my visitors and better tailoring my content to them. Thanks to GA, I know 54.15 percent of my visitors are men, with the biggest percentage of visitors being between 25 and 34 years of age.

Acquisition

Next, I’ll look at some information related to Acquisition. Google Analytics offers insight into channels, keywords, referral sources, traffic and more to help me better understand where my visitors are coming from, and what or who is helping them come to my blog. The metrics I am most interested in – keeping my blog’s objectives in mind and availability functionality – are:

• Referrers. GA calls referrers – a visit characterization metric that tells me sources of traffic (P.I. Reed, Lesson 2, 2013) – channels. According to GA, 15 of my 18 visits came to my blog directly, two from blogger.com (social) and one from a bot - gadgets/ifr (referral source.


• Traffic. GA tells me that most of my visits, since my blog’s creation, have taken place on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

While GA offers a variety of metrics under this reporting section, such as information on the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, social, cost analysis and Search Engine Optimization, I am presently not using any of functionality because I am not running a marketing campaign nor have I enabled Webmaster Tools.

Behavior

Under this final standard reporting section I am using, given my blog’s objectives, GA offers a variety of metrics related to the Behavior my visitors – information that will help me better understand what my visitors are doing, including where they are landing and exiting my blog, and what content appears to interest my visitors the most:

• Unique Page Views. This foundational metric is the number of times a page was viewed at least once (Google Analytics, 2013). GA reveals that 34 out of 48 total page views are unique. This metric also allows me to see that my top two articles are “What Story Does Your Web Metrics Tell” and “Taking Advantage of the Shift to Content.” My least popular blog is “Which Online Advertising Platform Will Best Help Drive Results.”


• Average Time on Page. This metric tells me how long my visitors on spending on each page on average. GA reports this metric at 1:57 seconds for my blog.


• Landing Pages. This metric tells me where my blog visitors are arriving. GA reveals that most of my visits (14 out of 18) start from my blog’s home page, and that 8 of these visits are from first-time visitors.

This standard reporting sections offers other metrics I am not using at this time, based on my blog’s objectives, including site speed, site search, events and Adsense.

Conversions and Real Time

While I’m not using Conversions and Real Time presently, I wanted to note that GA also offers these reports. Conversion reports allow you to see how you are progressing in your realization of the goals you’ve set for your website or blog. It also allows you to look at multi-channel funnels and your e-commerce efforts. Real Time reports provide information about your visitors as it is taking place, including events, traffic sources, content and locations. Since I’m not selling a product, pushing downloads of a white paper or really focusing on increasing blog visitors (just yet), conversions are not part of the metrics I’m analyzing for my blog at this time.

Assessment

So after looking at all of this information, is my blog doing what I want it to do? What do these metrics, taken together, tell me about my blog? Simply put, the metrics are telling me that while I am on my way to achieving my blog’s objective – thought leadership and interesting content – I have much room for improvement. Particularly, I want to look for ways to boost my engagement with my visitors, increasing my page views/visit, returning visitors and average visit duration metrics.

Since I know the majority of my visitors are men and are between 25 and 34-years-of-age, I might try to tailor my content more to this audience and their interests as related to my topic of web analytics. It may also be helpful to introduce new content (i.e. post new blogs) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are peak performance times. Additionally, I should consider what referral sources beyond blogger.com could be helpful in driving visitors to my site and adding widgets to my blog so visitors can share content they find interesting and help boost my audience. I also need to begin asking my readers to share their thoughts and opinions on each blog to enhance engagement. These are just a few of things the metrics are telling me about the performance of my blog and how to enhance it.

Based on the information I’ve shared here about my blog from GA, what suggestions can you make to help me reach my goal of thought leadership and interesting content? Are there other metrics I have overlooked that would tell me an important part of my blog’s story?

References

Google Analytics. (2013). Beth's blog. Retrieved Nov.. 23, 2013, from https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-overview/a45647041w76369387p78959657/

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Kaushik, A. (2013). Standard metrics revisited: #3: bounce rate. Retrieved Nov. 23, 2013, from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/standard-metrics-revisited-3-bounce-rate/ <br><br>

Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, West Virginia University. (2013). Lesson 2: Web Metrics & SEO. Retrieved Oct. 28, 2013, from WVU eCampus Web site: http://ecampus.wvu.edu

Which Online Advertising Platform Will Best Help Drive Results?

Thinking about online advertising, but aren’t sure which platform to use? The two top platforms today – Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising – each boast their own unique benefits that should be taken into consideration before making a media buy. 

Google AdWords 

This advertising platform boasts the ability for marketers to set their own budget; reach consumers via geographic, demographic or psychographic targeting; make advertising changes at any time; and measure the effectiveness of each advertising dollar spent.  According to Larry Kim (n.d., para. 10), Google AdWords works best when trying to sell a product: 

Our research shows that Google is the better choice for display advertising because it has superior CPC performance, improved ad targeting options, and an enormous array of ad formats that Facebook lacks.  

Facebook Advertising 

Like Google AdWords, Facebook allows marketers to select their own budget; target consumers according to location, interests, online behaviors, age, etc.; change advertising at any time; and measure effectiveness. Kim (n.d., para. 7) believes this venue is best for brand building efforts:

Facebook sessions usually tend to last much longer than a normal Google search session, which would make Facebook preferred for building brand awareness or sending a specific message.

A Side-By-Side Comparison

With the C-suite's increasing focus on measurable results, it makes sense to choose the advertising platform  most closely aligned with marketing goals and objectives. The following infographic by e-Intelligence (2013) offers a side-by-side comparison of the two platforms using a number of important metrics, including global online market share, unique monthly visitors, time spent by visitors on each platform and average click through rates.

As the visual shows, Google is clearly ahead of Facebook when it comes to global online ad market share and unique monthly visitors; however, Facebook visitors spend significant more time on that platform. What’s particularly interesting about the latter observation – time spent on a platform – is that that the greater the time spent somewhere, the more time a marketer has to engage with the visitor. This is extremely important for brand-building activities.  

Check out this white paper by Microsoft Corporation (2010) that supports this observation by showing a connection exists between online ad engagement and brand impacts – both on and offline. The white paper highlights the impact of “dwell” rates and “dwell” time on ad efficiency, visits to the brand site, traffic, engaged visitors and more. Dwell is defined on page 5 as “the level of active engagement with the ad.” 

Additionally, e-Intellgence’s infographic also shows that while Google Ad Words has a higher click-through rate, Facebook advertising boasts a higher revenue ratio: For every $1 spent on Facebook advertising, an advertiser realizes $3 in revenue compared to $2 for Google Ad Words. 

This article by Steven Matsumoto (2010, para. 1) offers marketers some tips to “help you make more educated decisions about where to spend your precious marketing dollars” – particularly when it comes to advertising. Matsumoto offers a formula for calculating return on investment for advertising dollars spent so no matter which platform you choose, you can determine what revenue results your ad spend is generating.

Let Your Goals Drive Your Choices

Since these two advertising platforms offer some similar functionality but boast different benefits, which platform you ultimately choose to invest in is best based on desired results. By letting your goals and objectives drive your advertising choices, you are in a better position to know which one of these two platforms can best help drive your results.

References

e-Intelligence. (2013, May 7) Google vs. Facebook: The battle of online advertising. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://visual.ly/google-adwords-vs-facebook-ads

Facebook. (2013). Advertising. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from https://www.facebook.com/advertising

Google. (n.d.). AdWords. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://www.google.com/

Matsumoto, S. (2010, July 12). Basic advertising ROI calculation. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://biznik.com/articles/basic-advertising-roi-calculation

Microsoft Corporation. (2010).   Dwell on branding: Proof that online ad engagement drives better brand results. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/WWDocs/User/Europe/ResearchLibrary/ResearchReport/Dwell%20on%20Branding%20Research%20Report%20Apr10.pdf

Taking Advantage of the Shift to Content

As a graduate student enrolled in the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) program at West Virginia University, one of the messages I get loudly and clearly is that content matters – particularly when it comes to a company’s online presence. In fact, I have absolutely no doubt that content plays a key role in helping drive a company’s marketing and communications strategy.

In his article, Content is King of Social Marketing, Michael Greenberg (2009, para. 4) says it best, “Without content, there is not a whole lot to talk about.” He adds this piece of sage advice a little later in the article (para. 14), “Developing content is not for the faint of heart. You have to constantly develop new ideas and think of new ways to keep your readers or viewers engaged.”

I live Greenberg’s words every day. With a marketing team of four individuals, plus a director, that serves six million members and 26,000 clients, we struggle daily to meet the growing needs of consumers for fresh and relevant content.  On any given day, we wear a minimum of five hats – trying to balance competing priorities – which means our work day and week often extend beyond traditional business hours.

So how does a department like ours successfully manage its company’s online presence and build fresh, relevant content regularly? While the answer may seem simple –  by knowing where we need to focus our limited resources – doing so is far from it.

Today’s successful marketers and communicators know one of the best places to start is where you find your target audiences. Are they using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or blogs? By knowing where your target audiences are getting and sharing information, you can be better focused on reaching them. This means doing the necessary research into the channels your target audiences are using so you can work as efficiently and effectively as possible with limited resources.

The following infographic from Pew Research (McGee, 2012) shows who is using what social media outlets:

While this infographic is helpful in determining where a company should have a presence, it doesn’t help solve the content part of the equation – coming up with fresh and relevant content on a regular basis.

One of the biggest tools we use for content development is an editorial calendar. This calendar, managed by our digital media specialist, lists what content is being posted on what platforms and when. Then, each member of the marketing team is assigned pieces of the content to develop for these channels. So far this approach is helping our department and team stay focused on content development in a manageable way. This article by Buyer (2012) offers some good advice on how to create such a calendar.

So while developing content isn’t easy, it’s definitely necessary to help ensure a company’s online success. After all, you want to engage your target audiences in a two-way conversation, but without content – giving them something to talk about – you may just end up in a one-way conversation, which is reminiscent of "the old days" of marketing.

In the book, Content Rules: How to Create  Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, E-Books, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business, authors Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman (2012) offer several examples of companies that have found success focusing on content, including Kodak. The authors (2012, Chapter 1, p. 3) share the story of Ann who was thinking about buying a new camera and starting asking friends and family online to make recommendations:

Somewhere along the way, her search caught the attention of Kodak’s then–chief marketing officer (CMO), Jeffrey Hayzlett, whose team monitors Twitter for queries such as Ann’s. Jeffrey subsequently reached out to Ann directly on Twitter to suggest his company’s own point-and-shoot pipsqueak, the EasyShare. Oh, and if she had any unanswered queries about point-and-shoot products, Jeffrey added, ask away!

It’s cool that the CMO of a $7.6 billion company reached out to a single consumer. But what’s really going on isn’t just cool; it’s a major shift in how companies are marketing themselves online. Kodak might be on Twitter, but it and other companies are also creating blogs, publishing podcasts and webinars, launching Facebook pages, and more. Kodak knows that it doesn’t have to wait for Consumer Reports to review its latest point-and-shoot; it can publish the specs itself and help customers come to Kodak.

Clearly content matters. In his book, Web Analytics 2.0, Avinash Kaushik (2010, p. 242) explains why content is so crucial to a company’s success:

One of the least understood phenomena of the last few years is how the fundamental nature of content creation, distribution, and consumption has changed. Most marketers are unprepared to take advantage of this shift, most web analytics vendors have not evolved their core data collection mechanisms, and most analysts have not yet adapted their measurement techniques.

I know I want to be a marketer who is prepared to take advantage of this shift, using content to spark conversations and help achieve organizational goals. How about you?
 

References

Buyer, L. (2012, Dec. 28). How to create a social media editorial calendar. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2136988/How-to-Create-a-Social-Media-Editorial-Calendar

Greenberg, M. (2009, Oct. 20). Content is king of social marketing. Multichannel Merchant.com. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2013, from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/content-is-king-of-social-marketing-20102009/

Handley, A. & Chapman, C.C. (2012). Content Rules: How to Create  Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, E-Books, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

McGee, M. (2012, Sept. 14). Social networking demographics: Pew study shows who uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & others. Retrieved Nov. 4, 2013, from http://marketingland.com/social-network-demographics-pew-study-shows-who-uses-facebook-twitter-pinterest-others-21594