Recently in Data Analytics Category

I know you're not supposed to come right out and say that, but what if it's true?

You see, the vast majority of people who contact Aquent looking for work will not be placed by us. This is especially true of folks who apply to jobs that we post online. When we looked at the numbers last spring, turns out that we placed around .6% of the people who applied for jobs posted online. That's slightly better than 1 placement for every 200 applications.

Of course, if you were referred to us, your chances improved, even while remaining relatively slim. We placed around 5.7%, or 1-in-18, of the folks who were referred to us. 1-in-18 odds are better than 1-in-200, but still far from a sure thing.

I'm bringing this up not because I want to discourage people - though our operations would certainly be more efficient if we were dealing with 99.4% fewer online applicants - but because I want to set realistic expectations. Some people who apply for jobs online may think of it as playing roulette (though the odds are worse), and don't really expect to "win," but I'm sure that most of them are actually looking for work and want the job for which they are applying. Unfortunately, as I've shown here, the chances are very good that they will be disappointed.

The challenge for us becomes: How can we disappoint a lot of people in a way that they feel OK about? My answer is: Make sure that they get something out of the interaction.

So, when we disappointed you, did you get anything out of it?

Image Courtesy of Erik Charlton.

On the "giving it away as a business strategy"-front, check out this WSJ article on Google offering a free tool to measure web hits. I quote, "Existing ad-serving systems don't currently provide detailed Web-audience data about the sites where they place ads. By giving away the new tool, Google could presumably attract more ad business."

You charge companies to serve their ads, but at the same time, you provide them with free intelligence about where those ads will best perform, which encourages them to use your ad-serving service. Etc.

I think they call that a "virtuous circle," though Google's competitors may call that a "death spiral."

I saw this video on DeanHunt.com. Well, actually, Dean posted a slightly earlier version of it. The one below dates from June 2007:

The main point seems to be that the world is bigger, more connected, and changing faster than we realize. It's interesting in part because it illustrates at least one of the points it is trying to make: originally created for a presentation to 150 people, the various versions have collectively been viewed over 5 million times on YouTube.

There are a lot of thought-provoking tidbits in here and I encourage you to find them for yourself. To save you a fraction of time, I'll share these two with you:

- By 2013, supercomputers will exceed the computational capacity of the human brain;
- By 2049, a $1000 computer's capacity will exceed that of the human race.

As the authors point out, it is very difficult to predict what will happen between the first date and the second. One reason for this unpredictability is something Vernor Vinge dubbed, "The Singularity," way back in 1993. As he wrote then, "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."

In other words, once an intelligence greater than our own appears on Earth, the possible futures ensuing become as unknowable as the events occurring beyond the event horizon of a black hole.

Action Item: During your next job interview, ask the interviewer what plans the company has for The Singularity and the need to serve super-intelligent customers.

If you talk to marketers who have run customer loyalty programs, they can pretty quickly tell you the basic keys to program success. I've set them out as best I can here, though I recommend reading the last key first.

If you think I'm right on target, or way off base, please leave a comment.

1. Listen to the Customer

In order for the program to be meaningful and attract participation, you need to offer participants things they want. To find out what those things are, you have to ask them. Then, when the program is up and running, you've got to continually ask them if they are really getting what they want. Were they happy with the item they received? Was the customer service up to snuff? Were their expectations met? Is there anything else they'd like to see in the program? And so on.

The listening should never stop. You've got to keep checking in with them to update and expand your offerings to meet their changing needs and wishes.

2. Act on What the Customer Tells You

If you're going to go to the trouble of asking what customers want, and they are going to take the time to respond, then you've got to deliver. If they want pet supplies, offer pet supplies. If they want home and garden accessories, offer home and garden accessories. If they want it, and you can get it for them, do it.

More importantly, if there are problems with fulfillment, customer service, or the account management process, you've got to fix them. The program is supposed to be a benefit to your customers. If it turns out to be a hassle or a disappointment, it will fail.

"If you're not thinking segmentation, then you're not thinking," Ted Levitt of the Harvard Business School supposedly quipped. While every marketer would readily agree with him, getting segmentation right can be as challenging as it is necessary - and getting it wrong can be downright disastrous: Working with segmentation schema that are irrelevant to your business is a waste of time and money; working with too few or too broadly defined segments means missed opportunities; and working with too many or too narrowly defined segments means stretching your marketing resources to their breaking point.

Since there are so many options and variables involved in segmenting your audience, it is best to rely on analysts, either external or internal, who understand your business and who understand how to match your needs with the myriad segmenting approaches. To sketch out a useable framework for getting the most valuable results from your segmentation provider, I consulted Ben Ben-Baruch, a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant represented by Aquent who got his first contract assignment with General Motors in 1997 and has been there ever since.

"Whatever segmentation provider you use and whatever methodologies and data they employ," Ben says, "the key is ensuring that you can use the segmentation to meet your business goals. Finding a provider that thinks in terms of your business, presents the data with an emphasis on its proper use, and makes it easy to keep the data fresh, is critical not only to the success of your segmentation process, but to the success of your marketing efforts in general."

Jim Sterne, the producer of the eMetrics Summit and the president of the Web Analytics Association, has been talking about the internet and marketing since 1993. Indeed, he was kind enough to talk to me about it just the other day as part of the Talent Blog Podcast. We discussed highlights from the various eMetrics Summits in 2007, how the conference is evolving, and what folks can expect from the summits in 2008. We also talked about changes in the field of web analytics since he and Matt Cutler issued their landmark 2000 white paper, "E-Metrics - Business Metrics for the New Economy."

You may listen to our conversation by clicking on the device below:

powered by ODEO

You can also download the mp3 by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) this link here, or check out all the Talent Blog Podcasts on iTunes.

Highlights of the podcast can be found at the following time coordinates:

00:45 - 2007 eMetrics Summit Overview
02:50 - Summit Content for 2008: More Mainstream Marketing
04:29 - The Buzz around "Engagement"
06:40 - The Slow Growth of "Standards"
09:29 - Website "Slipperiness"
12:20 - Measuring the Success of the Website Overall
16:39 - The People Component of eMetrics
20:18 - Your Website is Your End of the Conversation: Are You Listening?
23:20 - "Website" Is a Verb

Image courtesy of ohaiyoo.

I spoke with Eric T. Peterson about a month ago as he was on his way to the eMetrics Summit in Washington, DC.

With the summit now behind us, Eric was kind enough to speak with me again on his impressions of the event. We also talked about Omniture's acquisition of Visual Sciences in the context of consolidation in the web analytics industry, upcoming events, and his plans to write the second edition of Web Analytics Demystified during Oregon's long, gray winter.

To hear our conversation, you can click on this device:

powered by ODEO

You can download the mp3 by "right-clicking" ("control-clicking," Mac-wise) this link here, or check out this and other Talent Blog podcasts on iTunes.

Highlights of our conversation can be found at the following time coordinates:

1:30 The real value of a conference or, "The Lobby Bar" Phenomenon
3:45 Regional variety and web analytics: East Coast vs. West Coast
6:05 Omniture, Visual Sciences, and the Future of the Web Analytics Space
9:55 Challenges to companies developing new web analytics applications
10:52 "Definitely go to eMetrics!" - eMetrics San Francisco 2008
12:30 Web Analytics is Easy: NOT!

Image courtesy of Ctd 2005.

Jeffrey Emenecker is the president of the Analytics Group at Aspen Marketing Service, a Chicago-based firm with offices around the country and an impressive client list. [Disclosure: Aspen Marketing Services also happens to be a client of Aquent's.] Jeffrey has twelve years of experience in creating, managing and measuring marketing solutions within various industries. His particular focus at Aspen Analytics is on leveraging analytical solutions within customer relationship programs and knowledge-based marketing campaigns.

I was introduced to Jeffrey by Beth Martin, an account manager in Aquent's Atlanta office. As a veteran in booming field of marketing analytics, I was curious what he could tell us about the state of the discipline as well as providing tips for people pursuing careers in analytics. Here's what I asked and how he responded.

What are common misconceptions that people have concerning the power of analytics to influence the success or failure of marketing programs?

The most pervasive misconception is the belief that analytics plays only a small role in marketing programs, and that creative is what is most responsible for driving success. We've seen just the opposite: It's all about the powerful combination of creative, analytics and the offer.

Aquent (the company this blogger works for) is sponsoring an AMA Webinar on March 6, 2007 at 10:00am PST/1:00pm EST entitled, "Web Analytics Demystified: Ten Simple Strategies for Using Web Analytics to Improve Your Online Marketing Efforts." The presenter will be none other than web analytics luminary, Eric T. Peterson. To quote from Eric's recent interview with Robbin Steif of LunaMetrics, this webinar is appropriate for " Anyone spending money on the Internet. Anyone spending money on website design, website analysis, anyone spending money on AdWords."

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to ask Eric a few questions of my own. Here's what I asked and what he answered:

Matt Grant: If someone were to move into "web analytics" from another discipline, which discipline would offer the best preparation? In other words, what skills are most readily transferable to a career in web analytics?

Eric Peterson: Wow, great question given that MBA programs around the country are just now starting to talk about web analytics. (I say this based on the increasing requests for Web Analytics Demystified from universities and MBA programs.) In my experience, successful web analytics professionals have the following traits and characteristics:

- They have a serious interest in the business, either from a marketing or operational focus, and are interested being an active participant in understanding how the business can be improved.
- They are either experienced with or unafraid of the technical aspects of the Internet. JavaScript skills are a MUST, especially as new technologies like AJAX become more popular.
- They need to be comfortable working with diverse groups and teams (IT in one meeting, marketing in the next, management after that, etc.) and confident presenters and speakers. Analysis is a tool for building consensus, not delivering ultimatums.
- They must be passionately curious about "why" things happen, online or off. It is the difference between reporting that something happened and reporting why something happened. One is a reporter, the other a scientist.

Given all this, companies do well to look for folks with a background in science, mathematics, analysis, and the like. A premium should be given to people who present well and exude confidence.

Matt: Having made such a move, what does a career path in web analytics look like? Is there an identifiable progression of job titles, responsibilities, etc.?

Eric: Someone just getting into web analytics can probably expect to be given a reasonable amount of "gruntwork" (i.e., generating and distributing reports, as opposed to conducting analysis) for 18 to 24 months as they learn the details of web analytics technology, the business, etc. After 24 months or so, the superstars should be promoted to a more senior role and tasked with conducting and presenting analysis at least 50 percent of the time. The real superstar analysts, depending on company growth, often are faced with management responsibilities within the first five years.

Matt: Is it a good idea to pursue a career in web analytics? Is this a discipline with a promising future or is that still to be determined?

Eric: Absolutely, but keep my personal bias in mind here. Since I first outlined the true value of hiring dedicated web analytics professionals in several reports published by JupiterResearch [both require login] an increasing number of companies have started aggressively hiring web analytics professionals. My research was more recently corroborated by Megan Burns at Forrester Research in this paper [again, login required] and today a very strong case can be made for hiring web analytics talent. Given the relatively small number of qualified applicants searching for new jobs at any given time, juxtaposed against demand, experienced folks are rightly getting good six-figure salaries to conduct the exact kind of research they find most interesting. Slam dunk.

Matt: What can web designers and other creative types learn from the web analytics crowd?

Eric In a nutshell, the difference between "attractive" and "effective". One of my favorite examples of this is a well known car site that is constantly criticized by creative types and brand managers as being "so 1995" and "flat out ugly!" Unfortunately for these folks, the CTO of this company knows web analytics very well and has clear measurements of success for any new design, regardless of how pretty the design is. You either meet the revenue per visit requirement or you get thrown out. Now, this strategy doesn't make my friend popular with the creative people on his staff, but his shareholders love him.

Matt Last question: In this post, Nigel Hollis of Millward Brown asks, "Is your brand a party animal?" What web metrics could we use to determine if our brand is a party animal?

EricEngagement, an emerging "Web 2.0" metric that many people are talking about but few are actually measuring. If you'd like to know more, you can read my posts on the subject in my weblog.

Matt: Thanks, Eric!
---

Intrigued? Then by all means, tune in to the webinar!

Bringing an innovative product to market is the best way to increase revenue growth for consumer packaged goods companies, but it's not always possible to load your product pipeline with breakthrough offerings. Fear not, for a recent study [registration required] of 480 product launches discovered there's another way to grow revenue and, guess what? It's all about marketing.

The folks at McKinsey & Co. who conducted the study found that "novel products" could bring about a "2.7 percent improvement on the average revenue growth in their particular categories" but that such novelties were fairly rare, comprising a mere 15 of the 480 launches considered. By contrast, they found that a combination of "incremental innovation" - changing an existing product slightly - and repositioning the product towards new consumer segments or uses could effect a 2.8 percent improvement. If you don't have a passel of brand spanking new products coming down the pike, this is your ray of hope.

Two Yoplait products were cited as exemplary of this approach (which was employed in 26 of the studied launches). The first was Yoplait Whips, where the innovation resided in "whipping air" into their existing yogurt and then positioning it as a dessert. The second was Yoplait's Nouriche line, which is a vitamin enriched (the incremental innovation) yogurt drink aimed at health-consious consumers. The bottom line? "Sales of these two products grew four times faster than the yogurt category as a whole and accounted for nearly 20 percent of Yoplait's total sales in 2005."

Of course, repositioning a product associated with breakfast or snack-time as a dessert brings with it its own set of challenges. First you have to figure out how to make it seem like a dessert (by whipping, for example). Then you have to address the fact that desserts are usually sold in a different part of the store than dairy products and breakfast items. Moreover, you have to take a whole set of new competitors (ice creams and puddings, etc.) into consideration. This all requires that you have a marketing organization capable of collecting the necessary data, distilling the practical insights, and disseminating the relevant information to sort out these challenges. To quote a related McKinsey report, "It's critical to involve a diverse array of people, including some with regional knowledge, others with trade or pricing skills, and still others with skills in branding or key-account management."

Here's the rub: Successful marketing innovation, as opposed to product innovation, depends on the people involved and the way they are organized. In addition to talented individuals who know how to think outside of their functional silos (account, channel, product, etc.), you need an organization that fosters communication and collaboration via common methodologies and shared data models. Your marketing department needs to be broad-minded, harnessing its collective intelligence to identify and act on opportunities revealed by the confluence of varied knowledge streams. Everyone needs to be talking to each other - the channel people, the consumer insight people, the sales people, et al - and the resulting revelations need to inform marketing plans that make things new - a new way of consuming, a new reason for buying, a new means of enjoyment, a new path to fulfillment.

And remember, "making things new," and not just "making new things," is what "innovation" is all about.