New Jersey Web Marketing (Focused Web Foundations a Necessity for Your Business)

Let’s face it.  The economy is still not that great.  But there’s an upside to any recession.  Businesses now have the opportunity to position themselves for when the market turns around.  If you’re in the right position, business will boom once the recession is over.  And even though the economy is down, people still need products/services.  So how do you position yourself properly?…DEALS!

“People need deals and deals need people.”  You remember that scene in “A Beautiful Mind” when Russell Crowe, er, I mean John Nash, says the best option is the one that benefits both the individuals involved but also the group as a whole?  In other words, you need to create deals for your product/service that are mutually beneficial for both the consumer and for you.  The economy will stabilize once we’ve reached equilibrium.

And how do we reach that equilibrium, you ask?  The WEB!  The INTERNET!  The entire ONLINE ARENA!  Advertising-online is the wave of the new century.  Now is the best time, if any, to get your business into the 21^st century.  If you do, you’ll be in the best position when people start buying again.  Why?  Because there are a lot more people using the web right now than you think.  In fact, the web is very quickly becoming the hub of all media.  The web allows you to watch TV and movies, listen to the radio, or just download music, talk with friends (and even people you thought you would never see again thanks to a little something called social networking, i.e. Facebook, MySpace), buy pretty much anything you want, pay bills, do all your banking, and even get medical advice.  The virtual world is slowly replacing the real one.

So when people start buying again, you better have your DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor at 1.21 gigawatts (yes, I know that was a corny and completely contrived reference to Back to the Future, but I had to get it in there somehow) because the future is here and there’s no stopping it.  And when people start buying again and go online to do so, if your business isn’t online it probably won’t survive.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll give you some tips on how to get your money’s worth from the world of the Internet and advertising-online.  It’ll definitely be worth your investment.

New Jersey Web Marketing (Snowballing Out of Control, Part 2)

So what do you do when you can’t spend money, but you not spending money means that you lose even more money?  The answer is quite simple really.  You don’t need to spend more.  You just need to spend smarter.  If you’re spending a couple of grand on some sort of broadcast communications, lets say commercial cable TV, just for one commercial, but that commercial isn’t bringing in any more business than usual, then you need to stop paying for that type of marketing.

Suppose you’re the corner coffee shop.  All the people living around you that need coffee will come to you for coffee whether or not you advertise to them.  So why would you spend ridiculous amounts of money on a marketing strategy that targets those people that are already coming to your store?  That type of marketing is not worth the investment.  If a marketing strategy is not bringing in any NEW customers, then it is worthless.

You need to figure out what amount of customers you would have regardless of your commercials on cable TV.  Let’s say that with the cable TV commercial, you have 105 customers.  But 100 of those customers would come to you anyway, with or without having seen that commercial.  So that commercial is only bringing in 5 new customers.  Now let’s say that commercial cost you $5000.  Those 5 customers only gave you $1000 (yes, I know, that is some pretty expensive coffee, but go along with me here).  You have just now lost $4000.  That type of investment may not be a good idea in this economy.

A good marketing strategy doesn’t focus on targeting customers you would already have.  In fact, a good marketing strategy doesn’t waste any time with those customers.  A good marketing strategy only focuses on targeting the customers that you don’t already have.  These are the customers that will bring in more money.  These are the customers that will make your investment in a marketing strategy worthwhile.

New Jersey Web Marketing (Snowballing Out of Control)

The recession may be bottoming out, but consumer spending is still pretty low.  And it won’t get any better for a while.  When people are unemployed, they don’t like spending money.  And when people are afraid of being laid off, they don’t like spending money.  It’s simple psychology.  But people not spending money just makes the economy even worse.  The economy runs on the transaction of money.  If there’s no money being transferred from one person to the next, the economy will sink.  So the less people spend, the worse the economy gets, which causes people to spend even less, which in turn makes the economy get worse.  It’s simple economics.  Everything snowballs.  Things just get worse and worse, and people get more and more afraid.

Let’s say that you’re a business.  People aren’t buying your product because consumer spending is down.  That means less revenue for you.  Maybe you have to lay off a few people you can’t afford to keep on.  But there’s still work that needs to be done.  So the work from the laid off employees gets delegated to the remaining employees.  But your remaining employees are already up to their noses in work.  So what happens?  Productivity gets cut.  You’re unable to deliver, which in turn cuts your revenue once more.  Everything is snowballing again.

So how do you save your business?  Do you simply stop spending money?  If you cut down on marketing costs, you may save money in the short run, but you’ll lose new customers.  So what do you do?

I’ll tell you the answer…in my next post.

New Jersey Web Marketing (Measuring Traffic Data)

Why is data analytics important? Well, have you ever tried to manage something that you haven’t measured? You could throw yourself into the deep end of a pool, but if you don’t know how to swim then you’re going to drown. So how do you stay afloat? You need to invest in measuring and tracking services for all of your web traffic.

First of all, you need to be able to measure your sheer traffic volume. Traffic volume is the general number of visitors to your site, whether they were conversions or not. This can give you a clear picture of how many web surfers are even reaching your site, from anywhere on the web. This number is also important because it gives you something to measure everything else against.

Secondly, you need to measure traffic quality. What is the bounce rate of your site? How much time are your visitors spending on your site? These things are important to measure in order to gauge how well your site keeps the attention of its visitors. By measuring this against the traffic volume, you can see what percentage of your visitors is actually staying on your site, versus just looking at it for a couple of seconds and then hitting the back button (or any other way to get off a site so quickly).

Thirdly, you need to determine your traffic sources and measure how many visitors you are getting from each one of those sources. This allows you to see where you are getting your visitors from and enables you to allocate more resources to those arenas. You can measure this against traffic quality to see where the most interested visitors are coming from (from which website or link they are being redirected). You can also measure this against traffic volume in order to determine the percentage of visitors from each source.

Fourthly, you need to measure your conversions. Making that sale, i.e. getting that conversion, is the goal of your business. By measuring conversions, you can see how well you are doing in each category. By measuring conversions against all of the above mentioned kinds of data, you can determine where most of your conversions are coming from, how long each conversion spends on your site, and the percentage of total visitors that become conversions.

Lastly, you need to determine how often you should analyze these data points. This depends entirely on your business and your industry. It also depends simply on your preference. Some people like to have daily numbers, some like weekly, or monthly, or quarterly, or even annually. The point is that you need to figure out how often you need the data reports in order to be on top of your game. But that is entirely up to you.

Again, these numbers individually won’t mean much. A number by itself is just a number; but together, these numbers will paint a very clear picture of the health of your business. With all of this knowledge, you’ll be able to do everything that is necessary in order for you business to thrive. If you know how to swim, into the deep end you go.

Here’s our press release about measuring traffic data (it’s the same thing as above).

Here’s the same press release, but from another website.

Here’s the PDF.