1. Website analytics - If your initiative includes the enhancement or redesign of a website, start the project with an examination of your existing analytics data. If you don't have any, stop reading this and go get it. Figure out what will be important to you later. It may be as simple as traffic volume, visit duration, cost per ad spend or conversion rates. But you may find a need to collect custom data as well. Almost every analytics package out there has that capability.
2. External data - In this context, external data is performance data obtained through your CRM package or 3rd party sources. Call center volumes or in-store data would fall into this category. You need an adequate way to access it and you need historical references.
3. Email marketing - If your initiative includes modifications to email marketing programs, make sure your provider is collecting meaningful data on open and click-through rates. And make sure you'll have access to historical data to create a trending analysis.

I had an extremely interesting experience last week that forced me to undergo a thought exercise that I think can be extremely valuable for everyone to consider using on a regular basis. We all get so hung up in our particular expertise and the advanced nuances of our individual focus areas that we often fail to think about the basics and even more frequently we end up failing in our communication to others. My recent experience went something like this-

My wife came over to the Definition 6 offices along with my two year old daughter Mika to bring me some lunch. After lunch Mika began running around the office exploring a bit. I followed her as she ran into our main floor executive conference room. Now, I’m a bit biased, but for a child that just turned two she’s pretty impressively conversant with a great vocabulary. Here’s the conversation that followed:

Mika: What is this room?

Me: It’s a conference room.

Mika: What’s a conference room?

Me: It’s a room where people meet to discuss things.

Mika: Can I sit in one of the thinking chairs? (The “thinking chairs” reference is from her favorite show Blues Clues)

Me: Sure

Mika: What are we thinking about?

Me: Well, in this room we are usually thinking about interactive marketing?

Mika: What’s marketing, daddy?

Me: Hmmm… well, marketing is doing things that get other people to think a certain way, do certain things, or to buy things you want them to buy.

Mika: (thinks for a moment) I don’t understand marketing, daddy.

And there you have it. The question, my particular answer, and her response are in many ways less important than the thought exercise itself in my opinion. Try it yourself. Without thinking for more than a second or two, blurt out your definition of marketing as you’d answer it to a two year old. Try it again with “technology”, “managed services”, “open source”, “.NET”, etc. etc.

I’ve noticed in countless meetings how often people make assumptions about the level of understanding the audience has regarding certain terms or shared meanings. And also how often people throw around terms and concepts that they don’t seem to understand. I can’t count the number of people I have interviewed who list certain expertise and terms on their resumes only to be incapable of defining it in an interview. Go ahead- next time you interview someone lists the term “web services” on their resume ask them to define a web service, it’s components, and what exactly a web service does. You will be amazed and bewildered at the answers you receive.

Quite a few years ago when I worked at a different company and .NET first came out I recall the CEO asking via the discussion group email lists for people to explain to him the value of .NET. After dozens of convoluted and complex answers were offered he finally replied to all with the single line “Someone explain it me like I were two years old.” It’s not that he wasn’t an extremely bright and technical individual, he’s one of the brightest people I know. But it wasn’t until he asked the question in this way that people finally gave answers that culled things down to the key points and basic value.

Take this all for what it’s worth. I plan to run a lot more of my ideas and future presentations past my newly appointed diminutive advisor. There’s nothing like a two year old to keep you honest, accurate and off your high horse.

Companies are scaling back on their IT staff and supporting the often necessary multiple fully loaded  FTE’s to monitor, manage and maintain their sever infrastructure.  This is often seen as an expense they could more easily outsource and reduce costs on.

What We Deliver:
• Hosted or remote managed services for web and general Windows server infrastructure and most key network appliance devices
• A full range of per device monitoring and management services on a monthly basis.  It can be done by hosting the devices with us or remotely, leaving all of the devices and network where they currently reside

Estimated timeframe for delivery: Monitoring services can begin in less than a week, management typically in less than 2 weeks.  Contact us today for more information.

Nearly across the board companies are lowering their spending or holding off on marketing and IT projects given the state of the economy.  You still have a need to market, drive sales, lower costs, and generate revenue using things like interactive marketing solutions, perhaps even more so now.

Read through our daily blog posts to learn how Definition 6, a leading interactive agency, can help identify smaller, lower cost solutions that can be delivered quickly and efficiently.  Below are example offerings (bucketed into revenue creation, growing market share and reducing IT costs) that we bring to our clients in an overall turbulent economy. Most solutions can be up and running in under 2 weeks:

Sales - Revenue Creation
• Mobile Sites
• Site Search
• Desktop and Web widgets
• Rapid SEO
• Email Marketing
• Web Analytics

Marketing - Growing Market Share
• Social Networking
• Mobile Sites
• Blogging
• SMS Campaigns

IT - Reducing Costs
• Offshore IT Solutions
• SaaS Infrastructure Workshop
• Hosted SharePoint
• Web Content Management
• Managed Services

As the holiday season approaches, the prospects for record setting sales appear dim for most retailers.  The economy is, well, you know...  Competition is keen and consumers are spending on necessities, if that.  This will make the 2008 holiday season especially challenging for marketers and retailers.  So for eTailors, and those in the electronic commerce space, getting it "right" this year can mean staying in business, or not. 

So I suggest a pre-holiday, eCommerce audit to ensure a successful holiday season.  Make sure your web site is search engine optimized by reviewing page tags, keywords, meta data and header information.  Ensure your home page has a strong call to action.  Are there special promotions prominently displayed on the homepage and above the fold?  There better be, because your competitors will have that nailed!

Have you checked the web channel integration with your inventory application?  Better make sure that inventory purchased on-line is reflected in your database in near real time, as the costs of returns will be higher this year, with gas prices as they are.

Are you planning special promotions and marketing events in your other channels?  Ensure that the web is being leveraged to support and augment those initiatives.  Are your call center employees up to date with your latest web promotions? 

If your website is hosted by a third party hosting provider, have you alerted them to that great new web promotion you are planning?  You'll need to ensure they can handle the anticipated increase in bandwidth.  Those managed services providers might also offer some ideas on how to keep that traffic even by varying messaging by the time of day and even day of the week.  This will smooth out traffic and promote a more consistent user experience.

And let's not forget the all important email campaigns.  Have you segmented your target audience so they can receive offers indicative of the part of your website that got them to opt in in the first place?  Are you promoting higher margin products so you don't generate a lot of traffic and revenue but no profits?  Are you sending emails often enough to keep your prospects engaged, but not too often that they stop opening your emails?  Can you do timely email clickstream analysis to identify which promotions are generating the most traffic, and stop the low performers and supplement the rain makers?

And have you reviewed your search and SEO strategies?  Will you be doing a lot of paid search?  Buying brand terms, category terms or product names?  Do you have a comparison or analysis regimen in place so you can add to the converting keywords and dial down the laggards?  Can you run timely metrics reports to get a good snapshot on how your website is performing on a daily basis?

If you have not thought through all of these interactive marketing concepts thoroughly, 2008 might be the year you learned a lot more about eCommerce than you bargained for.  And the way 2009 is shaping up, that job search will be long, prolonged and difficult.  So contact Definition6 now, and have us perform that eCommerce audit and tune up for you.  You'll sleep better, outpace the competition and ensure that 2008 is a stepping stone to a more prosperous 2009.