I know... The title of this blog is a little perplexing.  I will get some interesting looks around the office for writing such a title, but it's for good reason.  If you are a B2B company and are not using email to build relationships, nurture relationships and sell your products, you are probably missing a big opportunity.When we talk to B2B companies, many of them make a statement along the lines of "Our customers won't buy our products through ecommerce?"  In many cases, this is a legitimate assumption on the surface.  Maybe you are a manufacturer that sells through distribution.  Maybe the average purchase price of your products is in the tens of thousands of dollars.  Maybe there is a hight level... Read More

Here is a quick tip on how to dramatically improve the quality and results of your web analytics and optimization program in just a few minutes. We find it's 100 percent effective in our work with online retail, media and publishing, and dozens of other businesses.Problem: Our web analytics data doesn't seem all that actionable. It's interesting, but not actionable.Solution: Advanced segmentation doesn't have to mean complicated. 1. As always, start with the "actions of economic value" to you. Specific engagements, leads, sales, up-sales.2. Segment all of your traffic between those that exhibited the behavior, ie, bought, filled out the lead form, or completed the specific engagement activity --and those that did not.3. Compare... Read More

Recently clients have been getting smarter on analytics and post email drop statistics.  They want to know why that email bounced and what a hard bounce is, a conndied is and a nobox is.  Here is a little summary of what happens to prevent emails from reaching your recipient's inbox.  If you are designing your own email there is a lot of technical work that you need to put in with regards to design, coding, tracking links and images and managing bounces, spam and deliverability.  These days there are email providers like MarketTraq Email that do it all for you.  Additionally, email marketing vendors like us use dedicated mail servers that are capable of sending thousands of emails per hour, unlike your... Read More

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Email marketing, especially if it is properly integrated with analytics, provides an abundance of data.  The reporting can get really expansive, so it is really important to focus and report on the email metrics that matter most ...    1. List GrowthFirst of all, it is most important to have a statistically significant list (of more than 5 emails), because you want your metrics to be representative for user behaviors, you also want to be able to segment in many different ways.  Secondly, you want a healthy growing list.  Net growth rate is an important metric to measure.  It tells you whether you are doing a good job promoting and recruiting for your email marketing program.  Make sure to pass... Read More

Think about it, how do you send your friend an article that really interested you?  Probably by email or as a post on their wall, right?Email complements most marketing tactics perfectly, whether it is to acquire, retain or convert prospects.  Email has the ability to mass target but also to segment, to deliver fresh content but also to deliver engagement and most importantly it is an opt-in vehicle.  Social networks are opt-in too, which is why they are so potent, to get the content you either have to follow, fan or friend the content source.  This is not like lay back and be served display or tv ads, both email and social pages are telling you to go find what you are looking for or requested to know... Read More

Google Analytics is a great tool, but it is greater if you can help it be as smart as possible by tweaking certain things.  The human element is what makes it "Analytics" after all.Filtering out internal traffic is one of those things.  If you are analyzing a high volume of public traffic on your site and you are trying to make marketing decisions based on the trends you are seeing, and on top of that you and your colleagues are compulsively accessing your own site, your data is probably skewed (that is if what your intern does on your site does not move and shake your business).  What you want to do is add a sub profile to your main profile.  The main profile will have ALL traffic, so that you always have a... Read More

Sitemaps can often be an afterthought in the website development process. However, they can help in your search engine optimization efforts. There are two types of sitemaps, each with its own benefits for SEO. XML Sitemaps The XML sitemap protocol was originally developed by Google to make it easier and more efficient for search engine robots by putting all the URLs of a website in one place. It also provides a way for webmasters to inform search engines of new pages on their website. While having an XML sitemap and submitting it to search engines won't necessarily affect search engine ranking, it can help get many of your pages indexed in search engines, especially if you have a large website with a large number of pages. HTM... Read More