Marketing Logic

Almost every company I talk to wants to know which data table, which numbers, which analytics package will provide answers. The unifying question is “What should we be looking at?” I restate the question to say what they really want to know: “How can we get the answers we need?”

Avinash Kaushik writes a brilliant analysis of what to do with that expensive analytics package. Summary: toss it and hire someone who knows what they are doing. Put the money in a person, not in an expensive product that produces hundreds of meaningless reports.

Why is this sound advice? Laws of information.

I keep trying to find simpler ways of explaining this, but it is difficult. So, bear with me and feel free to comment with any questions.

Information is bound to the same natural laws as gravity and physics. Information has to come from a creative source that can develop the information, encode it and transmit it. In the web world, we understand that as site development, design and coding. However, just as critical as the creative source to develop and transmit the information is a receiver that can understand and “decode” the information we send. In web marketing, we have multiple receivers, human and machine, and the decoding is different for each, based on the purpose of the information.

Building a website requires an understanding of search engines, as search engines are one of the primary methods of acquiring visitors and customers. However, once the search engine’s information requirements are met, the site has to be able to communicate a different message to the human visitor. Thus, our sending a message is two-fold. The message of our site must have results, and the expected results are different based on the two receivers.

The machine receiver, the search engine, runs algorithmic rules to determine the importance of a site and where to rank it for certain queries. To the human receiver, the site must provide compelling information and draw the visitor to take an action. The action can be to stay on the site longer, download information, make a purchase, register, or ask for more information.

This leads us to the ultimate goal of sending information, the results. What was the value of sending our information and was the purpose fulfilled? If the purpose of a website is only to gain rankings and the site ranks well, then the purpose is served. If the purpose of the site is to gain rankings and gain sales or leads, then the result needs to be measured in order to determine if the message is effective. In this case, the human is the only measure of value; a machine cannot “appreciate” a message, such as Homer’s Iliad. A machine cannot “appreciate” the combination of words. This is why search engines can be fooled to rank sites with low informational value for humans, but high informational value for machines. Yes kids, that’s called Spam.

This leads us now to why understanding website statistics is so difficult. Website statistics are created from log files. Either server created or JavaScript created. Despite the method, the data is the same. It is aggregated by a machine by how a machine “sees” humans using the site. Because of this, we see reports, graphs and charts, all generated by a machine’s view of the human visitors to the site.

It is easier for the machine to report on “bot” visits to the site, as it is machine reporting on a machine. However, to report on how human visits to the site are arranged is difficult. John Marshall explained this best when he commented on the uselessness of path analysis. “Your users are not cattle!” he exclaimed, “They do not travel your site in a pre-determined path.” Yet we believe a path analysis can provide insight, yet it fails dramatically, as there is no “typical” user to a website.

The key is this: Questions.

Questioning is the ultimate human ability. Only in asking questions can one uncover the data that is happening in website statistics. Drilling down and segmenting information, is a result of asking questions. Simply browsing machine generated reports will not provide insight, but asking questions of the data to find the mind of your users will uncover a gold mine of information.

Socrates would be proud, as this method of analytics fits his method of questioning, that questions lead to more questions. Except in this case, the dialogue is not between to people, but between the two parties to whom have the most at stake in the transmitted information; the human and the machine. Asking questions is an active process, forcing critical thinking, which is necessary to understanding website statistics. The Socratic Method helps us to release our preconceived notions by realizing answers may not be what we believe they are. In doing so, it opens us to effective communication; it enables us to be teachable, which is naturally human.

The past few weeks have been a blur – at least my kids still remember me.

It started by going to Toronto to speak at the Search Engine Strategies conference. I decided to attend a few of the sessions that I had missed at the prior conference and hopefully pick up a few new ideas. Fortunately, I attended Gord Hotchkiss’ session where he shared further results of his eye tracking study on search results.

Last year, Gord shared the first part of the study which focused on Google and how users viewed and chose results. There was some great information, such as the “F” pattern and the semantic map (love that stuff!).

Semantic Map
If you can get the semantic map, you’ll be well on your way to taking advantage of the “long tail” of search terms to your site. In a nutshell, if a user types in MP3 Player, that is the distilled term they are using to generalize all of the data and key words in their mind. However, once they type in the phrase, “mp3 player” the rest of the terms, such as iPod, 30 gig, 60 gig, flash drive, hard drive, pricing, Rio, etc. don’t go away. Instead, they watch for those related terms in the search results. Search results that contain additional terms beyond the ones types into the search query, can garner more attention, thus more clicks than even higher ranking sites.

Golden Triangle
This year, Gord’s study expanded beyond Google to include the other search engines. The pattern was essentially the same, however people spent more time on the Yahoo and MSN search results page. The conclusion was that the Google’s results were higher quality, as people were clicking through to results faster than on Yahoo, and much faster than MSN. The interesting factor was the “Golden Triangle” in the search results, that extended to an “F” shape on all of the search engines.

I got to see this again when Gord presented the same information at The Catalog Conference for the DMA in Chicago, only two weeks later. I was speaking in a session before his, so I didn’t have to go far. What they say about hearing things more than once is true . . .
Jakob’s Study
Very shortly after the conference, I saw Jakob Neilson’s eye tracking study. Nielson’s study included a search result page (from Google), a typical “About Us” page, and an ecommerce product page. Amazingly, the same ”F” pattern is seen on all three types of pages. This supports Neilson’s earlier studies that users scan pages, they don’t read them. This is something that I have been hammering away at recent SES conferences – using this study to help site owners make their content “scannable”.

(Click for larger image) 

What can you do?

• Make your content scannable – over 80% of users will only scan the page.
• Place the most important information first.
• Use action-oriented headlines, paragraph headers and bullet points (Don’t waste words).
• Be clear with your purpose – let visitors know quickly and easily what you want them to do.

In journalism, we called this the inverted pyramid style of writing. The most important information is in the headline – users should be able to surmise the content of the page from the headline. Then, using paragraph headers, summarize each paragraph so that users can quickly find the information they need as they scan the page.

You have a very short time to keep your visitor’s attention – these studies should show the importance of getting their attention and focusing it in the right place.

Jakob Nielson Eye Tracking Study
Enquiro Eye Tracking Study

Spending time at the DMA Catalog conference was a great experience. Getting a perspective of marketing from many angles was a great thing. I actually sat in on a session on using list marketing – it blew my mind a little, but then I pictured how they would view a typical SEO session.

I met many great people, Amy Africa was a great usability speaker and had one of the most practical sessions I’ve even seen. 48+ ways to improve your website. All of them were very practical usability and search ideas that just never seem to get old.

One of the highlights was meeting a group of guys from Mid America Motorworks, you have to understand that with my hobby of working on Classic VW Beetle’s, this was a treat – MidAmerica has one of the most extensive catalogs of Classic VW parts.

The cool thing was meeting the President of the company talking a little ecommerce with him. I saw his official title after he gave me his card, “Chief Cheerleader”. How cool is that? That really makes a business, when the owner of the company realizes his job – to inspire, motivate and grow the company – by being a cheerleader. Great job, guys, I really enjoyed standing in the coffee line with you.

The DMA Conference was a great experience in that there were so many channels and crossover that it was really a total retail experience for any business owner who needed an all-around perspective. Spending a few days with Heather, Detlev, Lee and Amanda wasn’t bad either . . .

Next up – DM Days in NYC.

I’m waiting on a delayed flight to Chicago, heading to the DMA Catalog Conference this week.  It will be interesting as my first session is the first session of the week, bright and early Monday morning at 8:15.  Somehow, I’ll need to register and get my badge and find the room at the mighty McCormick Place.

If you are in the Chicago area this week, drop me a line, as a few of us will be out and about in the evenings.  I’m sure that a visit to Buddy Guys’s will be on the agenda.  It’s not a good visit to Chicago, unless a trip to BLUES, Kingston Mines or Buddy’s is involved, as far as I am concerned.

I’ll be speaking on SEO Boot Camp - a basic crash course on Search Engine Optimization, with a little heavy duty stuff thrown in like accessibility and keyword long tail concepts.  I’ve heard that the attendees are all over the board in their understanding of SEO, so we’ll see what happens.  For the rest of the conference, I’ll be doing site clinics for merchant sites and offering advice on improvement.

Fortunately, I am in an airport that offers free wi-fi.  Enough can’t be said about free wi-fi in airports . . .

The LEGO Company has been making great moves lately, moves that are building the online presence of the company and rewarding loyal customers.

I remember playing with Lego’s as a child and they provided hours of entertainment – I’m very glad to see that the company and the Lego is healthy and growing, especially in this age of computers. Lego’s were one of the first toys I bought for my kids as I think it’s fantastic for childhood development and creativity skills.

From The Long Tail, LEGO has done many other things than simply selling a product, which they do well. They have invited participation from customers who become a limitless supply of product designers. The LEGO Designer allows people to create their own model, share it and purchase it. As a result there are thousands of customer-created models in all kinds of categories, and the Lego Designers choose their favorites to feature on the site.

The cover story of Wired last February, LEGO opened up development of Mindstorm Robotics. Lego started by open sourcing the Mindstorm NXT software – the core component of the robotics toolset. Coming later this summer, Lego will also release Firmware code for Software, Hardware and Bluetooth Developer Kits.

This is an amazing story of how a toy company started with a simple product and grew to take advantage of the technology of the age. Not only the technology but they have and increased their audience from children to those of us children that haven’t yet grown up.