E-commerce Link : Take Action
Shifting Web marketing from the ‘money spenders’ to ‘money makers’
December 2009 By Jeff MolanderIs your digital marketing budget perceived as an expense rather than an investment in generating revenue? Are you perceived by chief executives as a money spender or a money maker? In spite of honest efforts, most marketing departments remain ill-equipped to create financial accountability or support enterprisewide goals using digital marketing.
I challenge readers to push the envelope tactically, and I recommend connecting renegade Web marketing tactics with vital business outcomes demanded by chief executives with the following action items.
Prove It: New Metrics
The new economy demands we connect day-to-day Web marketing tactics to tangible outcomes. Why? To prove campaigns work. From customer acquisition to driving increased revenue and retention—all eyes are on digital to create strategic outcomes with precious budget dollars.
Today we're increasing conversion and improving shopping cart abandonment. Tomorrow we're tying these tactical success measures to bigger metrics: customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, average order, lead conversion to sale and churn/abandonment rate. We're running an organized, behavior-inducing system. We're business advisers, not data reporters.
Whether it's Amazon, Newegg, eBay or Zappos, behavior has become the metric for today's success stories. Branding efforts that tell customers how we want them to feel or desire and assuming they eventually purchase are no longer enough.
Today's new digital model prompts continual customer transactions—monetary or otherwise. It nearly guarantees customer purchase and repurchase. Call it lead nurturing if you like; today's new metric is strategic, not tactical. Behavior—not crafty ads—spans the entire customer experience to create a brand.
• Action item: Tie tactical results inside search, social, e-mail, display and affiliate marketing to behavior-driven metrics by examining each for measurability—based on actual outcomes (subscribers, sales, leads converted, etc.). Make sure they're working in unison to push customers down the sales funnel.
Ask each campaign manager, "Can X campaign be tracked back to an eventual customer action?" If not, consider eliminating it or inserting a tracking mechanism.
If yes, ask, "Is it part of a larger system/process that prompts customers and pushes them toward purchase?" If so, you're ahead of the game! If not, identify ways to organize the campaign—prompt customers to take purposeful actions using other campaigns.




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