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How To Measure and Improve Site Success
Measuring and understanding your Web site's success is a critical process
that is sometimes overlooked. Many times, marketing efforts stop at
getting traffic to the site.
Traffic alone, however, does not make a site successful. By "connecting
the dots" between your marketing programs and end results, you can
improve performance. Ultimately, site success depends on how well your
site performs with respect to your goals. Measuring actual results
against those goals tells you how well your site is succeeding.
In my view, improving results lies not with measuring the results
themselves but in measuring, understanding, and adjusting the events
that lead to those results. Further, having a marketing plan that
identifies general strategies and specific programs for meeting your
site goals will give you a higher baseline performance to work with when
improving upon your site's success.
Have a Plan
Whatever your Web site goals, a marketing plan helps you better meet
them. By including two or three general strategies to meet each goal as
well as *specific* programs under each strategy, you are better able to
evaluate and improve upon performance.
For example, let's say you make high quality, custom-made scarves and
wish to sell them regionally:
* A Web site goal could be to begin selling scarves online and achieve
"x" amount of sales in the first six months online.
* One general strategy for meeting that goal could be to get the site
known locally by fashion conscious ladies in your community.
* A specific program to support this strategy could be to hold a contest
on your site, with the prize being a free, customized scarf. To promote
the contest, you could issue a press release, which you send to fashion
editors, etc.
By taking this funneled approach - planning down from the broad goal to
the specific program - you are better able to evaluate how well each
program supports (or fails to support) your goals.
From the start - when you are developing your plan and deciding upon
site structure - think about how to measure performance. Measures will
differ, depending upon the situation, but should be both quantitative
and meaningful with respect to helping you improve site performance.
Choose a set of measurements that tell you not only how your marketing
programs are working but also how well they support Web site goals.
Evaluate Marketing Programs
In order to evaluate a marketing program's success, first decide your
objectives. Then, most importantly, "connect the dots" between those
objectives and your site goals. Later, when analyzing program results,
evaluate not only whether the program succeeded in meeting objectives,
but also how well it moved your business toward its Web site goals.
It is possible to meet a project objective while failing with respect to
site goals. A frequent example is traffic generation programs. I often
read stories of a business participating in "hit" programs with
disappointing results. They reach "hit" goals, but see no benefits.
Consider Return on Investment (ROI)
One way to evaluate marketing project results is through a Return on
Investment (ROI) analysis. The ROI is a computation that tells you how
much you got back compared to what you put into a project. You can
express ROI in terms of a dollar amount or as a ratio. Either way, the
formula itself is simple.
The dollar amount formula tells how much you increased profit in total
dollars as a result of the project:
(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) minus (Dollars
invested)
The ratio formula tells how much you got back, in dollars, for each
dollar you invested in a project:
(Cost savings and earnings as a result of the project) divided by
(Dollars Invested)
IMHO, things get sticky when you try to define "cost savings and
earnings as a result of a project". This is because returns from
marketing investments are broader and often more abstract than returns
from some other types of investments. Marketing investments result in
not only direct monetary benefits, but indirect benefits as well. To
make matters even more difficult, the indirect benefits are often
intangible and difficult (if not impossible) to measure.
If you are part of a typical small business with limited resources you
may be in a seemingly no win situation. Accurately computing ROI
requires a detailed analysis for which the internal resources and
expertise are often lacking. Outside consultants can spend hours
unearthing data and computing an accurate ROI, but this can be expensive
on a small budget.
This does not mean, however, that you cannot make your best effort and
use ROI as only one of several inputs into your project evaluation. When
figuring ROI and evaluating project success, keep in mind that each
project will realize different types of benefits. Aside from direct
dollars cost and direct dollars returned, consider other potential
project benefits, including how well it supports your site goals. Other
aspects to consider:
Improved Customer Relationships
Happier customers can represent a return on investment. This can be
gauged through repeat order patterns, by a change in the number of
complaints/compliments, or through customer surveys comparing pre and
post project satisfaction.
Influence On Off-Line Sales
Online activities often have an influence on off-line transactions. You
may experience sales leads originating from your Internet programs.
Customers may also be driven to your off-line store as a result of
online information.
Brand Building
Online activities can mean better long-term growth for your brand.
Market share changes, online interactions, and brand awareness surveys
are some ways you can judge brand-building effects.
Company Growth Potential
Factor in long-term growth prospects when evaluating your project. For
many businesses, the Internet provides access to new markets and
customers. If you have a local business, for example, your Web site
could extend your business far beyond the city limits.
3 Step Approach
Take into account these broader implications, pay attention to how well
a program supports your site goals, and measure project results. By
taking this three-pronged approach, you can better choose marketing
programs that will result in a successful site.
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