Currently, Marketing for Mavens offers 3 types of promotions; tags, visits, and individual. I'd like to take a moment to explain the visit promotions.
Visit promotions are designed to show different content based on the number of visits a person makes to your web site. For instance, the first time someone visits your site you may want a home page promotion that explains what your company does. Then for all subsequent visits, you can change the promotion to go into more detail about your products, events, and services.
Visit promotions aren't distributed to your visitors based on their needs the way tag promotions are but they can be very valuable in certain circumstances. Just remember, a new visit is determined by the time in-between page views which is 30 minutes. When you test your visit promotions, you will need to wait 30 minutes between page checks for a new visit to be recorded.
Showing posts with label web marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web marketing. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Web Analytics is Dead!
Web Analytics is the one thing that all web marketers do and it continues to be the least understood. Every corporate site uses some form of Web Analytics software. Whether it's Google Analytics, WebTrends, WebSideStory, or some other package, companies spend thousands of dollars a year on these applications. The problem is that these packages record too much information with too little time to respond. When we do respond, it's to make small changes designed to appeal to the masses that have already been to your site and that if we've even interpretted the data correctly.
If we've learned anything in the ClueTrain era it's that mass anything no longer works. Just look at mass advertising, mass email, and mass mailings. These marketing techniques require that you hit as many people as you can because you're only going to reach about 3% to 5% of them. Well what about the other 95%. Shouldn't we at least try to appeal to them? Well we can.
To appeal to the other 95% on the web, we need to be able to customize and target our content directly to them. We need to learn about our visitors as they use our sites and we need to respond to their needs in real-time, not weeks and months later when we have time to analyze our reports. We don't have the time. Many people will only visit our sites once to decide if they want to do business with us. These lost opportunities will never come back.
We're now well into the Web 2.0 era but our web analytics software has done little to catch up. It's now time to look for ways to communicate as close to a 1 on 1 basis as possible. I've been formulating these ideas for some time now and have begun integrating them in the Marketing for Mavens web application. It focuses on communicating with each of your visitors and I welcome you to try the free beta and let us know what you think.
If we've learned anything in the ClueTrain era it's that mass anything no longer works. Just look at mass advertising, mass email, and mass mailings. These marketing techniques require that you hit as many people as you can because you're only going to reach about 3% to 5% of them. Well what about the other 95%. Shouldn't we at least try to appeal to them? Well we can.
To appeal to the other 95% on the web, we need to be able to customize and target our content directly to them. We need to learn about our visitors as they use our sites and we need to respond to their needs in real-time, not weeks and months later when we have time to analyze our reports. We don't have the time. Many people will only visit our sites once to decide if they want to do business with us. These lost opportunities will never come back.
We're now well into the Web 2.0 era but our web analytics software has done little to catch up. It's now time to look for ways to communicate as close to a 1 on 1 basis as possible. I've been formulating these ideas for some time now and have begun integrating them in the Marketing for Mavens web application. It focuses on communicating with each of your visitors and I welcome you to try the free beta and let us know what you think.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Developing a Better Home Page
We've moved. Please visit us at www.marketingformavens.com/blog.
Over the last few days, I've put a good deal of time into reconfiguring the home page. The previous design was very text heavy and the feedback I received revealed that it didn't clearly explain the services provided by Marketing for Mavens.
It's funny how you can be a web marketer for 10 years and still find yourself reverting to poor design practices. In this case, I'm far too close to the content then I'd prefer to be. I know how valuable Marketing for Mavens can be to a web marketer but when you've been so focused on developing the product for the last 6 months, what you consider to be a clear and concise explanation, turns out to be confusing to people who are learning about your services for the first time.
I still feel like the content needs to be revised further especially on the pages beyond the home page. I'll be updating it over the next several days and will continue to listen to the feedback we've been receiving and update the site accordingly.
Over the last few days, I've put a good deal of time into reconfiguring the home page. The previous design was very text heavy and the feedback I received revealed that it didn't clearly explain the services provided by Marketing for Mavens.
It's funny how you can be a web marketer for 10 years and still find yourself reverting to poor design practices. In this case, I'm far too close to the content then I'd prefer to be. I know how valuable Marketing for Mavens can be to a web marketer but when you've been so focused on developing the product for the last 6 months, what you consider to be a clear and concise explanation, turns out to be confusing to people who are learning about your services for the first time.
I still feel like the content needs to be revised further especially on the pages beyond the home page. I'll be updating it over the next several days and will continue to listen to the feedback we've been receiving and update the site accordingly.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Treat Your Web Visitors with Respect. Stop Herding Cattle.
We've moved. Please visit www.marketingformavens.com/blog.
One of the features of Marketing for Mavens is the ability to see how each visitor comes to your site and where they go. The real value is that it forces you to see your visitors as individuals instead of a crowd of people.
When you look at your typical web report, you see how all of your visitors interact with your site. You know that a majority of people visit your home page and that a certain percentage go to your product pages but you miss out on the details like how did this person get here, what were they looking for, and did they find it. The other problem is that any changes you make to your site based on these reports is designed to appeal to the masses. Web reports force us to treat our visitors as cattle that we can herd around. We try to find the path of least resistance that we can push them towards and then track the results through funnel analysis knowing that a certain number will drop out but if we can convert 10% to leads we'll be very happy.
This leads us to the niche that Marketing for Mavens fills. There's a very good reason to use all those web reports and you should continue to do so but you should also be looking at your individual visitors as well. Marketing for Mavens will assist you in treating each visitor, or as we like to call them citizen, with respect and open up a new way of communication that will transform how you interact with your potential customers. With this approach, you will understand what your citizens needs are and assist them in fulfilling these needs turning your citizens into customers more quickly and more efficiently then pushing them through a path that you already know loses 90% of your potential leads.
One of the features of Marketing for Mavens is the ability to see how each visitor comes to your site and where they go. The real value is that it forces you to see your visitors as individuals instead of a crowd of people.
When you look at your typical web report, you see how all of your visitors interact with your site. You know that a majority of people visit your home page and that a certain percentage go to your product pages but you miss out on the details like how did this person get here, what were they looking for, and did they find it. The other problem is that any changes you make to your site based on these reports is designed to appeal to the masses. Web reports force us to treat our visitors as cattle that we can herd around. We try to find the path of least resistance that we can push them towards and then track the results through funnel analysis knowing that a certain number will drop out but if we can convert 10% to leads we'll be very happy.
This leads us to the niche that Marketing for Mavens fills. There's a very good reason to use all those web reports and you should continue to do so but you should also be looking at your individual visitors as well. Marketing for Mavens will assist you in treating each visitor, or as we like to call them citizen, with respect and open up a new way of communication that will transform how you interact with your potential customers. With this approach, you will understand what your citizens needs are and assist them in fulfilling these needs turning your citizens into customers more quickly and more efficiently then pushing them through a path that you already know loses 90% of your potential leads.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Where is the integration between content management and web analytics applications?
We've moved. Please visit us at www.marketingformavens.com/blog.
One of the problems which Marketing for Mavens tries to solve is that most sites use some kind of content management system and a separate web analytics application and neither of them talk to one another.
Every day your content management system pushes out the same content to the same people and it doesn't know whether that person has visited your site in the past or what they were looking for. Instead, web marketers are left looking at reports on a monthly basis and then trying to configure the site content accordingly. This response is far too slow and you're reacting to the masses and not individual visitors.
Marketing for Mavens helps to solve this problem by tagging you're visitors based on the web pages they view. It then knows each visitors interests and can push the appropriate promotions and content to them in real time based on these interests. Now your site can be personalized to your visitors without them having to register for your site. This is important as you can now target your content and messages to only the visitors interested in seeing it. If you are interested in seeing how Marketing for Mavens can help you to manage your web content and promotions and deliver them to targeted visitors, please check our our short demo video and join or beta program.
One of the problems which Marketing for Mavens tries to solve is that most sites use some kind of content management system and a separate web analytics application and neither of them talk to one another.
Every day your content management system pushes out the same content to the same people and it doesn't know whether that person has visited your site in the past or what they were looking for. Instead, web marketers are left looking at reports on a monthly basis and then trying to configure the site content accordingly. This response is far too slow and you're reacting to the masses and not individual visitors.
Marketing for Mavens helps to solve this problem by tagging you're visitors based on the web pages they view. It then knows each visitors interests and can push the appropriate promotions and content to them in real time based on these interests. Now your site can be personalized to your visitors without them having to register for your site. This is important as you can now target your content and messages to only the visitors interested in seeing it. If you are interested in seeing how Marketing for Mavens can help you to manage your web content and promotions and deliver them to targeted visitors, please check our our short demo video and join or beta program.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Giving back to the web community
Today, I've been working on a little side project. This idea popped into my head during lunch and I feel compelled to act upon it. Over the years, I've received a lot of help from web community. Whether it's support for a particular product or learning a new programming language, I couldn't imagine having the success I've had without someone answering these questions or showing the steps necessary to solve various problems.
It is for this reason that I've decided to devote an hour of each day to answering one person's web marketing questions. The questions can be from a wide range of topics including coding, web design, development, SEO, paid advertising, database design. No questions is too dumb and I welcome questions from those who have no clue about the web but find it fascinating or need help getting started. I don't pretend to have all the answers but I can, more often than not, point you in the right direction.
Of course this is free and in return I want nothing other than for you try to pass the knowledge along or help others as best you can. This is my opportunity to pay forward all the help that people have given me in the past. If you're interested please fill out the form at www.marketingformavens.com/free_web_marketing_help.html.
It is for this reason that I've decided to devote an hour of each day to answering one person's web marketing questions. The questions can be from a wide range of topics including coding, web design, development, SEO, paid advertising, database design. No questions is too dumb and I welcome questions from those who have no clue about the web but find it fascinating or need help getting started. I don't pretend to have all the answers but I can, more often than not, point you in the right direction.
Of course this is free and in return I want nothing other than for you try to pass the knowledge along or help others as best you can. This is my opportunity to pay forward all the help that people have given me in the past. If you're interested please fill out the form at www.marketingformavens.com/free_web_marketing_help.html.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Web Site Visitors: Tag and Learn
One of the side benefits of using Marketing for Mavens is learning what topics (tags) your visitors are interested in and how they relate to other topics. For example, you can tag all of your web pages with keywords associated with your content, as each visitor navigates your site, a list of tags become associated with them. Through this relationship you begin get a different level of insight into how your individual pages relate to one another. Unfortunately, right now, most of this analysis must be done by hand. I'm trying to come up with a better way to show this relationship in a report which would remove a lot of complexity. Either way it give a unique view into your visitors and your site that I believe you'll find valuable.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Build Dynamic Web Content Without Costly Upgrades to Your Site
Building a site with dynamic content can greatly improve the user experience. It keeps your content fresh and it ensures that the right information is delivered to the right person when they want it.
When it comes to moving from a static to a dynamic web site there are several approaches that you can take...everything from an open source content management systems to very expensive enterprise systems to hand coding your own solution. Any of these solutions, depending on the size of your site, company, and budget, could take several months to a year to accomplish. I've gone down each of these paths in a corporate environment and can confirm that there are no short cuts.
As an alternative, I've been building Marketing for Mavens, a micro-content management system that allows you to add JavaScript code to your existing web pages (html, php, asp, etc.) giving you control over the parts or sections of a page where you want to display dynamic content.
The advantage to this is that Marketing for Mavens can assist you in the distribution of your content and promotions. It tracks your visitors similar to how any web analytics system collects visitor information. This information is then used to distribute your content based on the previous pages the person visited. In addition to this, anyone in your company can be setup with an account to update and control your dynamic content and web site promotions.
If your interested in trying out Marketing for Mavens on your site, please visit sign up for the beta coming at the end of the month.
When it comes to moving from a static to a dynamic web site there are several approaches that you can take...everything from an open source content management systems to very expensive enterprise systems to hand coding your own solution. Any of these solutions, depending on the size of your site, company, and budget, could take several months to a year to accomplish. I've gone down each of these paths in a corporate environment and can confirm that there are no short cuts.
As an alternative, I've been building Marketing for Mavens, a micro-content management system that allows you to add JavaScript code to your existing web pages (html, php, asp, etc.) giving you control over the parts or sections of a page where you want to display dynamic content.
The advantage to this is that Marketing for Mavens can assist you in the distribution of your content and promotions. It tracks your visitors similar to how any web analytics system collects visitor information. This information is then used to distribute your content based on the previous pages the person visited. In addition to this, anyone in your company can be setup with an account to update and control your dynamic content and web site promotions.
If your interested in trying out Marketing for Mavens on your site, please visit sign up for the beta coming at the end of the month.
Monday, June 9, 2008
New Videos Now Available: Build Custom Content & Determine Best Potentential Customers
I've created two new videos. The first is a new overview video showing how to setup a new account, create new promotions, and integrate them into your web site. This is very similar to the previous overview video but it has been updated to show the latest interface and coding changes.
The second video shows how you can use web forms to send visitor data to you Marketing for Mavens (MfM) account. This is important as MfM can help you determine your best potential customers. MfM scores and tags each visitor based on the pages they visit and the content they view. This not only helps you to market the most appropriate content to your visitors but also helps you determine each visitor's level of interest.
Watch the new videos.
If you have any questions regarding the new videos, please send me an email.
The second video shows how you can use web forms to send visitor data to you Marketing for Mavens (MfM) account. This is important as MfM can help you determine your best potential customers. MfM scores and tags each visitor based on the pages they visit and the content they view. This not only helps you to market the most appropriate content to your visitors but also helps you determine each visitor's level of interest.
Watch the new videos.
If you have any questions regarding the new videos, please send me an email.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Web Marketing: Stop Spamming the Masses and Start Building Relationships
One of the problems with web marketing is that thousands of dollars are spent to bring in new visitors but only a small percentage of this is used to retain and nurture these visitors once they come to your sites.
One reason is the difficulty in building and targeting pinpoint messages, promotions, and campaigns to web visitors. Companies tend to focus all of their effort on getting the company message out to the public. The problem is "the public" is a very broad group so the content is watered down for consumption by the masses. This is not what most of your visitors are interested in.
Another reason is how difficult it can be to manage, maintain, and update content for individual web visitors. The people in the company who would best manage this content don't have the tools and resources to access the web site and track how well campaigns and promotions are doing. Instead, they must fill out a web request form to get added to the queue. On the other hand, the web team is busy creating new pages for a product launches, managing Google Adwords campaigns, or analyzing web site statistics. They have tools that assist them in managing all of these tasks but they don't have a tool for efficiently managing campaigns that are targeted to individuals.
A third reason is how easy it is to setup a Google Adwords campaign, show how many click-throughs your site is receiving, and stop there. You can get your ads out to the masses in just a few minutes. Then, every few weeks, you justify this spending because you can see the results in real time using the web interface or through nicely printed reports. This is great but it's only half the battle. Wouldn't it make more sense to take all of this great traffic you are getting from Google Adwords or search and continue to assist your visitors in finding what they want once they're on your site?
This is why I built Marketing for Mavens. It's a unique web application which puts the power of marketing to web visitors into the hands of those who are most capable of maintaining these campaigns. The web team can choose to keep control over the content management of the campaigns or give access to people in marketing programs or other groups within the company to handle this themselves. In addition, Marketing for Mavens tracks and tags each individual based on the pages they visit so now your company can ensure that your campaigns are matched up with right person at the right time. With Marketing for Mavens you know who your top visitors are and you can customize your messaging to them leading to quicker sales and improved visitor satisfaction.
If you are curious as to how this works please feel free to check out the demo. Marketing for Mavens is scheduled to launch a beta release in June so please sign up if you are interested in taking part.
One reason is the difficulty in building and targeting pinpoint messages, promotions, and campaigns to web visitors. Companies tend to focus all of their effort on getting the company message out to the public. The problem is "the public" is a very broad group so the content is watered down for consumption by the masses. This is not what most of your visitors are interested in.
Another reason is how difficult it can be to manage, maintain, and update content for individual web visitors. The people in the company who would best manage this content don't have the tools and resources to access the web site and track how well campaigns and promotions are doing. Instead, they must fill out a web request form to get added to the queue. On the other hand, the web team is busy creating new pages for a product launches, managing Google Adwords campaigns, or analyzing web site statistics. They have tools that assist them in managing all of these tasks but they don't have a tool for efficiently managing campaigns that are targeted to individuals.
A third reason is how easy it is to setup a Google Adwords campaign, show how many click-throughs your site is receiving, and stop there. You can get your ads out to the masses in just a few minutes. Then, every few weeks, you justify this spending because you can see the results in real time using the web interface or through nicely printed reports. This is great but it's only half the battle. Wouldn't it make more sense to take all of this great traffic you are getting from Google Adwords or search and continue to assist your visitors in finding what they want once they're on your site?
This is why I built Marketing for Mavens. It's a unique web application which puts the power of marketing to web visitors into the hands of those who are most capable of maintaining these campaigns. The web team can choose to keep control over the content management of the campaigns or give access to people in marketing programs or other groups within the company to handle this themselves. In addition, Marketing for Mavens tracks and tags each individual based on the pages they visit so now your company can ensure that your campaigns are matched up with right person at the right time. With Marketing for Mavens you know who your top visitors are and you can customize your messaging to them leading to quicker sales and improved visitor satisfaction.
If you are curious as to how this works please feel free to check out the demo. Marketing for Mavens is scheduled to launch a beta release in June so please sign up if you are interested in taking part.
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