Can you see the wood for the numbers?

Search marketing is a wonderful tool, and any marketer worth his or her salt loves the data and evaluative tools it delivers. The old adage, ‘If you can’t measure it you can’t use it,’ comes to mind.  But I’m getting increasingly uneasy about the the amount of weight given to this one dimension. Client review meetings devote an inordinate amount of time to going over the stats, slicing and dicing the data. Nothing wrong with that, but I would like to start re-dressing the balance a little. Putting the user more centre stage rather than the numbers.

It’s easy to count the user sessions, track the visitors and measure the conversions, but often, when we look to improve the performance, the focus is upon the numbers, the keywords, the content and the clicks. Performance may be greatly enhanced by going back to the user and the user’s experience.

It’s easy to see why the focus tends to be upon the numbers – quantitative data is easier to collect and easier to analyse. Qualitative data is harder to amass and analysis takes more skill and experience than just wielding a calculator. Social psychologists use a number of approaches to qualitative data including ethnographic studies. One of the most interesting is perhaps grounded theory which, simply put,  means approaching the data with a completely open mind and no preconceived questions to ask – the theory being emergent from the data itself.

Unfortunately, when all the quantitative analysis of web stats has been done, qualitative decisions are often made on the basis of hunches and anecdotal evidence, with no real input from the user.

Perhaps getting back to the user and spending more time on the experience might deliver even better results that can then be evidenced by the stats. I feel sure that some of the predictable and unimaginative sites we see today are the product of too much data focus. They look as though they were built by statisticians – not humans.

 

Digital project management – an underated discipline

There are hundreds of companies and individuals out there to help companies with their digital projects, from web developers to search marketers. But the biggest issue seems to be managing these projects. Big organisations may have a team of managers charged with digital or new media marketing and management, but many do not… and few SME’s have such a resource.  So most organisations dump digital projects on some already overworked marketing or IT person. Most of the problems I see with companies unhappy with their digital marketing stem from failures in project management.

It isn’t a difficult discipline, but does require a broad knowledge of the industry and available technologies and solutions. But above all, it is a process, involving all the tools familiar to project managers in any industry. A good digital project manager – internal or external – is worth their weight in gold.

• Agreeing and setting objectives – obvious but so often overlooked
• Strategy planning – not a 100 page document, the best strategies are less than one side of A4
• Identifying internal resource – do you have the people? Who will execute and manage the project long term?
• Selecting third party help – absolutely critical. There are some great people out there, but a lot of cowboys as well. Your web developer is not necessarily the best person to mount an email marketing campaign or handle your search marketing.
• Identify performance indicators and measurables.
• Creating the digital brief – a verbal briefing is not enough. The terms of the brief should include deliverables, performance indicators, cost indicators and timescales. This will form the basis of contracts with external suppliers.
• Evaluating proposals and tenders – are we sure the outside suppliers understood our brief, and do we understand their proposals.
• Negotiating – life is never straightforward and compromises have to be made
• Liaison – keeping all parties connected
• Reporting – how is the project progressing?  To brief, on time, on cost?
• Time and budgetary control – speaks for itself, but needs constant vigilance
• Sign off – know when the project is over, don’t let it drift. Easier to manage if you set discrete stages.
• Evaluation and tracking – did it work? Quantify the results.

Yes there is a lot to be done and a lot to control on even the simplest projects – this is why things often fail through lack of tight project management. Use a specialist if you can. A friend of mine uses the analogy of needing a shirt: you can either go out and spend £20 on a shirt or you can make one.  You can learn how to do it from a book, buy material from the market, stay up late at nights cutting and sewing and at the end of the day you have saved yourself £20… but would you really want to go out in a shirt you had made yourself?