Exploring Marketing Technology

Opinions are all my own

  • Measure clicks and ROI from Twitter posts

    A week ago I was a co-speaker at a C2 Five Dollar Friday event. One of the last items I touched upon was how to measure traffic that comes from Twitter and other social media posts. I promised the group that I’d document the process.

    Note: Get news on my expanded web design ROI workshops, to be held by C2 in Milwaukee and Madison.

    Twitter As A Channel for Sales

    It wasn’t too long ago that there were no definitive examples of strong positive ROI from Twitter. Since then several high-profile companies have publicized their successes. You might have read a recent account of how, according to Forbes and other sources, a division of Dell Computing has earned over $3 million from sales generated from its Twitter posts.

    Here’s how your business can accurately measure direct sales — or track sales leads — generated by this powerful communication channel. All you need is a free Google Analytics (GA) account and the following new GA profiles (a special thanks to eConsultancy for their terrific post on this topic in May):

    1.) Track all clicks from Twitter and major Twitter agents

    a.) Add a new profile in Google Analytics

    Name this new profile something like Twitter Traffic. If you’re creating this profile significantly later than the rest your Google Analytics set-up, you can add a date to the profile name. That will help you know how far back in time your results reach. In this case I haven’t:

    Step 1

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  • Get the basics of Digital Marketing ROI at C2’s Five Dollar Friday!

    I’ll be speaking Friday at C2, as part of their Five Dollar Friday afternoon sessions. Here’s what C2 says about the event:

    September 18, 2 – 5 pm: SEM, SEO, PPC, HTML, CSS and other important web acronyms demystified!

    We work in a quickly evolving industry. New versions of software, browsers and social media launch so often, keeping up can be a challenge. Today clients expect that creative professionals, regardless of title, know it ALL! C2 understands your pain.

    To the rescue, C2 presents two sets of expertise: Andrew Wintheiser and the team from Lightburn Designs, and Jeff Larche, owner of Digital Solid. Andrew will clarify and simplify some of the more complex elements of search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC) and search engine marketing (SEM). Andrew will fill the first part of the afternoon with best practices, resources and case studies to help demystify these crucial web acronyms.

    Jeff Larche will follow, to demystify one last but arguably most important acronym: return on investment (ROI).

    He’ll walk you through some simple steps and web analytics to help you report, in real dollars, the effectiveness of your online work. Jeff explains, “It’s ironic that something so measurable – online marketing – should also be so difficult to quantify. But there have been recent gains in web analytics. They’ve produced techniques you can take your clients through.” He’ll also show how you can use current measurements as a benchmark, to gauge progress in growing ROI over time.

    There are still a few seats available. Sign up now!

  • Twitter entrepreneur to speak at likemind next Friday

    Starting next week, likemind will features speakers in an intimate, conversational format. Those who have attended one of these internationally acclaimed “un-networking” meetings can attest to their unique appeal. Like BarCamp conferences, they’re stripped-down ways for professionals of all stripes to meet and converse.

    Changes to Milwaukee’s likemind format were inspired by this realization: Most of us can benefit from a meeting where diverse ideas are traded and new acquaintances are made — as long as there is one thing we can be sure to take back to the office. I was quick to agree with Jamey Shiels, my new co-host for the meetings, that an interesting speaker could be just such a “draw.”

    Another change is the earlier meeting time. We’re started at 7:00 AM instead of 8:00. That means more people who must be in the office by the start of the business day can attend. Our speaker will be starting his brief presentation at roughly 7:20. And our first speaker is …

    streetzapizza

    Learn About The Streetza Pizza Success Story

    Scott Baitinger will be the speaker at likemind next week, Friday, September 18. He and Steve Mai are generating national attention for their street vending business. They sell gourmet pizza by the slice to a crowd generated in part by their posts on Twitter. Here’s what a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece on the duo had to say:

    Twittering food trucks are a rarity in Milwaukee — Streetza might actually be the first — but they’ve been embraced elsewhere. In Los Angeles, the Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck broadcasts its moves via tweets and draws from 300 to 800 diners a night.

    Scott will talk about the growing success of his business, which has generated dozens of franchise requests. If you missed his presentation at the recent Social Media University, you definitely do not want to miss this!

    Related pages and articles:

  • What Would A Garage Band Do?

    This post, on the social media portal SoHoBiztube, is a riff on Jeff Jarvis’s book. Businesses can learn a thing or two from the scrappy ethos of today’s starving (and techno-savvy, and, yes, LOUD) artists:

    Garage bands … are taking the technologies that are familiar to their target market and using them in ways that are new and effective.  In an odd way, it is these seat-of-the pants performers who can serve as some of the best inspiration for businesses large and small.

    NOTES: The title of this piece on the portal was truncated to Garage Band Startups. The editorial elves have spoken, and I’ve learned my lesson that I shouldn’t refer to the headline in the lead of a post. Unless I want some confused readers! Also, a link to a prior blog post on busking was taken out. Here’s the post I referred to in that SoHoBiztube piece:

    Enjoy, and have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend!

  • Two secrets to estimating digital communications ROI

    Digital marketing has always been a paradox. It is two things simultaneously: Extremely expensive and nearly free. It is pricey because the skills needed to stage digital campaigns and “collateral” are still rare compared to those needed to stage traditional media efforts. And it’s free because once you’ve published the material, every incremental interaction costs a fraction of a cent. So how in the world do you estimate a digital return on investment (ROI)?

    Here are two trade secrets. In honor of the fast-approaching close of the summer vacation season, I’m going to use a road trip as a metaphor.

    1.) Focus attention on the speed of your progress and not on whatever city is currently outside your window.

    Web metrics are notoriously untrustworthy. They may be off by 11.5%, or -18%, but of one thing you can be sure: They are never exactly correct. Living with this imperfection requires both a diligent focus on precision and a resignation to the medium’s inevitable “slop.”

    Road Trip, Creative Common photo courtesy of Jim FrasierThe solution is to chart metrics over time, using the last period as a benchmark for this one. A saving grace of web metrics is that as imperfect as they are, they’re always imperfect in perfectly identical ways, month after month (assuming nothing technically has changed).

    2.) Remember the cost of the car as you calculate what you’ve spent.

    Break the costs of your trip into two: Fixed and variable. With the car trip metaphor, you need to remember that part of your costs are sunk into an asset. Whereas the gas, oil and accelerated depreciation come from the variability of the trip, the expense of the car itself is fixed — something you would have to pay even if you left the car at home.

    In the same way, every communication is a contribution to the maintenance of a crucial intellectual property: Your brand. Whether you did nothing this month to burnish that brand, it is still an asset — a source of wealth. (Consider this: You can’t sell a vacation you’ve just had, but you can sell the car you took it in!).

    You spent dearly in the past to get your brand where it is today, and you should acknowledge that every investment in communication that mentions the brand is like the replacement of a radiator hose or car battery. It helps retain the brand’s value.

    Don E. Schultz and Jeffrey S. Walters, in their book Measuring Brand Communication ROI, used a different metaphor. They compared a brand to a physical property (instead of the intellectual property that it actually is). Should you stop spending every year on its upkeep, it will begin to crumble, and will eventually fall to the ground. In digital marketing efforts, this spending is a portion of every PPC campaign, every email blast, every social media initiative.

    What fraction of your digital spending should be put toward the “car” and not the “gas and oil?” That’s the subject of another day. But simply shifting to this paradigm is progress.

    Take these two tips to heart and you’ll be well on your way to reporting reliable ROI.

    Are you in the Milwaukee area? Then you can learn more when I speak at C2’s September Five Dollar Friday. On the afternoon of Friday, September 18, I will be a co-presenter there, as part of an exciting exploration of “crucial web acronyms: SEO, PPC, SEM,” and — ultimately — ROI!