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Get Interactive: On measurement

Ok, let's wrap this series up with a playful jaunt into metrics and measurement.

Getting this tricky strategic quandary right requires two things:

1. Context
2. Creative Thinking

First, on context. What you want to know is how similar projects have performed in the past. Preferably how a bunch of them performed so that you can create a bell curve of expectation and identify specific tactics that will help you out perform the pack.

There are easy ways and hard ways to get this information. Unfortunately, the newer you are (and less investment money you have), the harder even the easy ways are.

As soon as you can afford it, invest in great competitive measurement tools. Comscore and Nielson have industry leading ones. Essentially they give you a short cut into the reports all your client's competitors are looking at ... from the amount of traffic, to the kind of engagement, to the time of day, to where people went before and after visiting that site. It's a glorious geek out.

Until then. Boot strap. First up - Quantcast offers a great free search tool for metrics of major sites. And,  a number of the big providers (like Compete) have blogs that offer a lot of proprietary data you can snag, search and archive.

Still don't have what you want? The next tier of research is case studies. On Marketing Sherpa. On agency sites. In Business Week. Get crafty. And think big. If your direct competitors aren't on the list, find companies that are either in similar categories or that tried similar tactics with an audience like yours.

Now onto creative thinking.

The easiest metric in the world is hits. Easiest because virtually any tool can track it and easiest because advertising people can quickly understand and compare it (it's the closest Web equivalent to the print gold standard: impressions). But, is it the right standard?

Imagine you're selling your house. Do you want to know how many people saw the for sale sign? Or how many people were interested in what's inside?

Your job at the agency is to recommend a metric that is directly linked to the sites goals and offers a unique insight into the audience or the tools you created for them.

A few sexier metrics:

1. Bounce rate. That's the percent of initial visitors who leave the site after seeing only one page. And a high rate tends to suggest that the marketing doesn't match up with the product. Whatever they expected to see, they didn't find it. And, weren't compelled to look further.
   What to use: Google Analytics


2. Conversion. How many people did what we wanted them to do? Buy or signup or play a game?
   What to use: Internal databases + Google Analytics


3. Sharing. How many people saw enough value in the content to pass it on? How many posted reviews, blogged, emailed, etc.
   What to use: Nielsen Buzz Metrics


4. Engagement. How long did people stay on the site? How many pages did they look at? Do they spend time with content meant for passionate customers?
   What to use: Google Analytics


5. Reputation. How is this campaign effecting how we're known? Is the overall coverage and conversation positive or negative - in what categories, against what parts of our story?
   What to use: Perception Metrics


6. Comparative trends. How does our indexed traffic (or other metric) look against our key competitors? Are we closing the gap?
   What to use: Comscore + Google Analytics

Ok, get out there and measure.

Get Interactive: 10 things you'll be glad you thought of

Sometimes interactive projects dramatically dissolve into mayhem. More often, they get tripped up on little goofs that are quickly blown way out of proportion. From my years of experience fielding late night / early morning irate phone calls (from clients and colleagues alike), I share with you 10 things you'll be glad you thought of:

1. Understand your client's technology environment. Not the servers. The desktops. Find out what browser? What version? What plug ins? What internet connection? And test the heck out of the site in that environment. In most cases, if the site doesn't work at HQ, your clients will assume it doesn't work anywhere.


2. If the site is complex, consider creating a content strategy. Start with the site map that you probably already have handy. Then sketch out all the raw content you'll need by page. (For example, newsletter signup page -  sample newsletter, privacy policy, etc.)
   
   Then, importantly, assign a name to each bucket of content. Not a writer. A content source. Who is in charge of tracking down all the white papers? The policies? The product lists? The prices?
   
   Tip: Think about what questions people will have on each page and use the content list to answer them.
   


3. Change of address plan: If the new site will be on a new server or in a new hosting environment, put a plan in place early for transferring the DNS and make sure you set expectations on the move. Let me explain the relevant terms:
   
   
   • A domain name is an easy way for people to get to a site - it's the "www." handle. Think: www.advergirl.com
   • The DNS (or domain name system) is basically the yellow pages of the Internet. It translates that friendly domain name into an IP address
   • An IP address is - simply put - a number-based computer address. Think: 172.31.255.255
   
   If you do move to a new server, you need to update that record in the yellow pages (i.e. update the DNS). This process can be a bear because you have to find the original records for the domain name ... where it was purchased, who has the rights to change it, etc. AND it takes up to 72 hours (usually 24) to "propagate" across the Internet. That means it takes that long to update all the local yellow pages. So, some people will see the new site right away (if their local yellow pages are updated first) and other people may not see it until days later. Oh, and, love this - there's no way to control that.


4. Think about search terms early. Make lists of how you want people to find you. Think of other ways they might express those same ideas. If you're working with Google on advertising, ask them for similar search terms. Go long. Then cull down.
   
   Get to 15-25 words that are important to the identity of the Web site. Lay them out like a tag cloud so that you can see which are most important.
   
   Once you get the client's buyin, arm your writer, your programmer, your Flash guru and your designers with the list. The writer will prioritize those terms in headlines and top-of-the-fold content, the programmer in code and tags, the designers in image names, etc.
   
   Trust me: It's a royal pain to retrofit later


5. Look for hardcoded links. One of the trickiest things to find when testing in a staging environment is hardcoded links. The ones that point to a specific server in the development environment rather than just agnostically referring to whatever computer they might be on.
   
   Two ways to catch them. Ideally: test the entire site in the live environment before you do #3 above. Or: Ask the programmers to run a painstaking search for the URL of the server they're working on. It should never appear in the code.


6. Understand your client's compliance obligations. Retail has to be ADA compliant. Most university's are W3C. Regardless of the protocol, it impacts everything from the timeline to the budget. Better to know upfront than hack it in later.


7. Set aside hours and budget for production graphics. Just because the main site design is approved doesn't mean there isn't tons of design work ahead. Headers, extensions, icons, you name it. Rolling that design out to every page and every application will create a library of JPGs. Make sure there's time to create them.


8. Ask your programmers to document their logic in the code. This one's about a pesky little thing called turnover. Either within your own staff or of the files to the client.
   
   Remember me mentioning how programmers are some of the most creative people you'll ever meet? Well, that's because they're writers and innovators in complex foreign languages. And, if you think art directors are a little confrontation about the 'right' way to do something, just put a couple of these tigers in a room together.
   
   The purpose of adding notes to the code is so that another person - at a completely separate time - can go back and understand the storyline. Can pick up where the first writer left off.


9. Test the goal, not just the path. A very cool user experience chic I know tells a great story about how everyone was sure this consumer financial app worked perfectly. Lots of people used it. Completed transactions. Didn't complain.
   
   Well, a few people thought it was confusing and went so far as to head out into the field with video cameras and the street addresses of a few willing customers.
   
   Once inside, these ad hoc ethnographers gave the customers a list of transactions to complete online. Each completed them and thought they were correct. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM DID IT WRONG. Screwed up their own accounts.
   
   Use in-person (even make-it-work testing with others in your agency) to make sure that users can not only blissful nav around working pages, but also successfully complete the available tasks.


10. Last one. Make a cheat sheet for you and your client. The logins to admin tools, reporting, etc. PLUS a tree of emergency contacts and the protocol and response time you've agreed to. Nothing - nothing - will escalate error to emergency faster than a desperate client unable to get in contact with the people who can solve her problem.

Get Interactive: Starting off a project right

Documentation can be a powerful tool or a project killer. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in writing it all down that we whittle away the precious hours we have for creation. So, if you have high demands and little time to meet them, here are the six critical strategic drivers and four crucial technical requirements to define and document at the start of every project...

Critical Strategic Drivers:

You Audience:

1. Who are they?
2. What do they do online now?
3. What will engage them to interact with us?

Your Client:

4. What is the overall business or marketing goal the Web site will support?
5. How will success be measured?
6. How will we drive traffic to the new site?

Crucial Technical Questions

1. Where will it be hosted?
2. What development (platform, database, language) preferences do you have?
3. What information (behavior, opinion, contact info) do we want to collect?
4. What will we the site or its content need to integrate with?

Getting interactive: Teaching interactive in your organization

Maybe you're reading this series because you're a lone voice. The one person who is always bringing up an interactive or social idea in meetings. Ideas that are most often met with a combination of:

• Yeah, that's not really for our audience.


• Who besides you has ever even heard of that?


• And, that's not what we do.

It's so, so tempting to just spew statistics on adoption. To paint the mainlanders as hopelessly out-of-touch. But, who ever really changed religions over statistics? If they don't believe, they don't believe - and your fervor only further marginalizes you.

The challenge is: How do you change the conversation? How do you get people to see the possibilities that you see?

Part of the answer is teaching the experience. Chances are, you learned it on your own. Early adopter DNA, right-place-right-time, fiddler by nature, whatever. The truth is, most people don't learn that way.  Now that you have, it's time to pass it on, to teach people about the tools and places that made you a believer. Here's how:

The trick to teaching online is finding opportunity. Most people won't want to learn just to learn (see objections below). It's your job to find that one irresistible angle of relevancy that flips the opportunity cost equation. Need to do research on the cheap about recent college grads? What about Facebook. Need to find a new day care for your bratty kid? What about Angie's LIst. Need to get a handle on the buzz about a potential new client? What about Twitter or blog search? Need to talk to employees on a more human level? What about a blog?

Once you've found the opportunity, it's the process that makes the difference:

• Guide the experience: Walk them through how it works in a live environment. This is how you sign up, this is what a community looks like, this is how you search, etc. And tell relevant stories about how people like them (as individuals or business leaders) have used these tools.


• Translate: Tell them how it works. Not so many details that's it's overwhelming. Just enough that you don't seem like a fantastical wizard full of secrets when really most of the concepts are pretty practical and straight-forward.


• Simplify: Now backtrack and make what you learned really simple. You want to explain it in 20 words or less. Words your new online buddy can repeat comfortably. Metaphors appreciated. (For example: You text message, right? Well, Twitter is a lot like that. You write a short message and send it. But, when you hit send, it goes to everyone in your address book vs. just one person.)


• Debrief: Ask open-ended questions. What did you think of the experience? How could you see using this? What questions you have?


• Send her on a solo experience: Ok, your turn. Log on, try it out yourself. I'll check in with you tomorrow


• Debrief: Repeat above.

Sounds fairly easy, right? Well it is and it isn't. It is easy because people are fundamentally curious. Given the right environment, we like to experiment with new things. And,it's not easy because creating that right environment is really hard. Humans are cautious out of fear of embarrassment and inadequacy. We don't want to be The One who can't do it.

You'll get objections. Here is how to overcome a few of the most common ones:

Objection: It's too hard, I can't get this
Answer: That's the great thing about online. Because the audience is so broad and diverse, it's the responsibility of user experience designers to ensure that good sites are really simple to use. If it seems too hard, it probably is. You just found a bad site.

Objection: I'm not the kind of person who ...
Answer: Wait, I thought you talked to friends all the time (or shopped or watched movies or whatever). It's the same thing you're already comfortable, just in a new location.

Objection: I don't have time
Answer: I hear you. For the first week or so, it will seem like it takes more time to (talk, shop, be entertained, find news, etc.) online. But once you get the hang of it, it will make (that thing) so much faster. In fact, there are even lots of tools that put all your interests in one place - so, you don't have to be constantly jumping from site-to-site to get the information you want.

Objection: It's for young people. It's not for people like me.
Answer: There are definitely some sites that are aimed at younger people. But the Internet is huge and contains content and experiences by and for people of all ages. There's no special trick or knowledge necessary. In fact, some of the most successful online companies are run by people just like you.

Objection: I'll never know as much as ...
Answer: Everyone uses the Internet a different way. Yeah, there will always be a segment of power users who go way more broad and deep than most of us would ever even be interested in trying. Everyone else finds what works for them. Gets a little humble to learn how. And, then adds a little at a time until they find everything they need.

And, to help make the process as successful as possible, here are a few practices of good online guides and teachers:

• DON'T use keyboard shortcuts or quick links. Follow the most logical path. The one an adopter would be able to repeat.


• DON'T use your own accounts. They're probably pretty mature. Packed with content. Start where beginners start.


• DON'T use universals. Everyone knows this, everyone does that. You want to make them feel savvy, not behind.


• DON'T expect them to engage just like you do. You've been doing some version of this for at least 5 years. Your engagement has been informed by evolutions of technology and behavior, by your own preferences, by your complex network of memberships and choices ... yeah, they're going to be different


• DO seed abbreviations carefully. A little well-placed "insider" speak creates a sense of inclusion


• DO make it easy to feel savvy. Small victories. Repeatable experiences.

 

Getting Interactive: 5 things to NEVER promise

As you're sitting in the meeting you'll be tempted. The client will be getting excited about a great campaign she saw, an almost irrationally funny video he forwarded, a big crazy deadline that was just passed down. Whatever. The energy will be there. Creating temptation to PROMISE. To promise big. To guarantee what comes next.

But, as you wade into the interactive waters, solemnly swear to never let these 5 career-killer promises cross your lips:

#1 Don't Say: Yeah, we'll do something viral. There's an element of common sense here: Truly viral campaigns - the ones that take off and spread organically to millions - are extremely few and far between. If you promise to be one of them, you're rolling dice at an extremely high stakes table.

But there's plenty of research, too. The top-of-mind example is Duncan Watts - the Yahoo researcher who took on juggernaut Malcolm Gladwell.

In The Tipping Point, Gladwell theorized that creating viral behavior was potentially possible because there are a limited number of truly Influential people out there. People with credibility rich enough and networks deep enough to, well, seed a virus. Get one of them on board and you've got all the reach you need to have America cheffing up elves or watching people jump into jeans.

Watts opened a much broader study an determined two key things:

• Influence is much more democratic. Truly viral campaigns are as likely to be started by average joes as the most popular kids in the world


• And, if society isn't ready to engage with an idea, it will never take off.

Great quote from his recent (cover story) interview with Fast Company:

Perhaps the problem with viral marketing is that the disease metaphor is misleading. Watts thinks trends are more like forest fires: There are thousands a year, but only a few become roaring monsters. That's because in those rare situations, the landscape was ripe: sparse rain, dry woods, badly equipped fire departments. If these conditions exist, any old match will do. "And nobody," Watts says wryly, "will go around talking about the exceptional properties of the spark that started the fire."

Instead talk about: What success looks like.How much pass-along is reasonable for the content and investment?  Is reaching 3x the people you paid to reach good ROI? I think YES. Is reaching 30 million people on a $15,000 budget likely? I think NO. Possible, but very unlikely.

#2 Don't say: If we build it, they'll come. These days, we are nearly assaulted by choice. So many choices that finding, let alone decision-making has become increasingly complex. The Internet is home to 170 million sites. All of them competing for ranking, for reputation, for attention.

A great idea, a great site has become little more than tabletakes in the fight for that attention and engagement. Building traffic,reputation and community requires an investment separate from the much-more-straight forward creation.

Instead talk about: What's our seeding and publicity strategy? How will we let people know about the site? Word is that traffic giant Career Builder leverages the sheer number of their employees to seed new campaigns. Each employee is asked to tell 10 people about a new site (like Monk E Mail)

#3: Don't say We're full service, you don't have to worry about a thing. There was once a beautiful time when the big war in business was sales vs. marketing. Do we have bad tools or wimpy closers? Alas, as the two monoliths have come together for good (and a little occasional evil), marketing has taken on a new foe: IT.

If the house IT department chooses to wield Intimidation Tactics, the marketing department can become very hesitant to even try to do anything on the Web. And, when they're pressed into action, they may want to hand off the entire project - just call me when it's done.

As tempting as it is to say yes, you have to hold the line. Even if you're already familiar with the marketing strategy and the customer, you still need your client for three key things:

• Content: Most sites require real content - not just copywriting. You'll need access to experts within the organization, content developed for other projects, etc. Only your client can open those doors and make sure you have the latest, most relevant information


• Socializing / Ownership: You want your client - and her boss - to take ownership in the site. To have touchpoints and input along the way. To go to the mat to make it successful once it's launched. And, importantly, to be able to explain the how, what, and why to other internal stakeholders.


• Integration: You also need the client to build the bridges of integration. With IT, with sales, with business intelligence. Work suffocates in a vacuum.

Instead talk about: How can we coordinate the details for you? Be a great translator who can dig past the gobbledygook of lingo and politics to understand the real motivations and value of each of the stakeholders.

#4 Don't say: We can take your brand into social media. Technically, you can build a Facebook page for the global giant you rep. And, yes you can do searches on Twitter. But you can't make a brand social that just isn't. If there's something worse than not being part of the conversation it's pretending to be part of the conversation.

If the brand isn't there; if the ideas of conversation and authenticity aren't championed by its leaders, you'll quickly head down the path of press-release style content, monitored comments, and irrelevancy.

Instead talk about: Option 1: Be a good steward and tell them to invest the money in making their brand social. Or in sponsoring someone who already is. Option 2: Talk about a campaign. It's much easier to make a campaign, a single clever idea, social than it is a brand. Luckie recently produced some great results for a tourism group by taking that mindset. I'll share that case next week. 

#5: Don't Say: We'll make that happen directly with your other vendors. The online world changes minute to minute. Servers crash. Applications get cloogy. Opportunities get missed. There's plenty to be responsible for with your own work, let alone taking on someone else's ship. And, trying to manage a 1:1 contract as the third wheel.

You want to make it easy for your client, but not at the expense of making yourself crazy.

Instead talk about: What kind of integration meetings and partner summits might make sense to ensure that everything is seamless? Can we take a role in making that happen?

Getting Interactive: Meet your team

A few months ago, I posted two tools for AEs getting started in interactive: one on development and the other on process.

When I wrote those, I was thinking of young AEs working on a bigger team. But emails and comments since then have unveiled an entirely different audience: mid-level and senior AEs charged with creating an interactive practice inside a traditional agency. Setting processes. Educating adopters. Getting teams to work together in entirely different ways.

No small feat. Even in agencies that have been working at it for a decade.

For these brave souls, I'm going to kick off a short series on seeding the interactive practice. Today: The team. And later this week: Promises to never make, Getting a project started right and 10 things you'll be glad you thought of.

The Team.

Welcome to the project kickoff. Let me re-introduce you to each other and yourselves. New rules apply.

Interactive Account Exec
The role: Voice of the client
Think of them more like: A font of information and insight
Think of them less like: A salesperson
Their biggest impact is on how the site: Is measured
What you should ask them more often: What do you think about this?

When it comes to interactive, AEs draw the lines that connect the dots. They get the bigger marketing strategy. Understand the dynamics of the client's IT department. Own the scope, know the deadlines and can define success. They find content and history everyone else said was lost forever. Bring the insights - not the data dump - to the table. And, are tight with the traffic managers who ebb the flow.

Strategist
The role: Voice of the customer; champion of the brand
Think of them more like: Synthesizer of compelling ideas
Think of them less like: A rationalizer
Their biggest impact is on how the site: Engages
What you should always send them: New sites you've found, articles on outcomes, fresh ideas

Working on interactive, strategists surf around and listen a lot. They know what our customer currently does online. And, have a sixth sense about what will engage them to do more. They read between the lines and surface a bigger idea. They understand how we can be authentic in unfamiliar spaces. And, deeply believe in delivering value to both parties - the customer and the company. They write up direction or simplify a creative brief. In small agencies, they'll sketch up a wireframe and lay out a content strategy.

Programmer
The role: Architect of function
Think of them more like: A creative linguist
Think of them less like: 000100010010001111 (wait, did I say anything?)
Their biggest impact is on how the site: Works
When you should bring them in: The beginning. The very beginning. Right away.

They are some of the most creative people you will ever meet. They write complex, interconnected languages. Scavenge innovative ideas. They simplify complex interactions. Build value around content. And, importantly, come up with ah-ha new ways to do things. They're shy around clients, occasionally belligerent with peers, but always drive to make the users experience better, faster, more engaging.

Designer
The role: Architect of impression 
Think of them more like: A co-creator
Think of them less like: An artist
Their biggest impact is on how the site: Looks
What you should give me the room to do: Push the brand

They may have grown up in print design, but they get the Web. Work like a square, don't look like one. Yeah, they get that. They love interaction. And motion. But do what's right for the audience. They bring a fresh aesthetic. A point-of-view old hands would have missed. They stretch outside of traditional roles to play with multimedia. They never execute a wireframe, always interpret it. The kick sacred cows. And wait impatiently for compliments

Writer
The role: Architect of involvement
Think of them more like: A voice of big, bold personalities
Think of them less like: A wordsmith of unread tomes
Their biggest impact is on how the site: Communicates
What you should never say to them: "No one reads copy"

They bring stories to life. Speak in ideas worth passing on. They may know how to write a 16-page brochure, but can also write social headlines, navigational nudges and clever copy as well as any native. They dive deep in input. Rethink how information is communicated. They think bigger than a single page. They educate. Entertain. Encourage. They proactively collaborate with programmers and designers to be part of the development, not just plugged in to it.   

Your shared role: Creators of an experience. No one specialist can do it alone.

If you do this right, you'll soon be big enough to hire all those other roles you truly need - like project managers to document; traffic people to flow work; information architects to create hierarchy; experience gurus to... you get the idea

Interactive Toolkit for Account Executives

Sometimes the most difficult part of the process is knowing where to start and how to add value.

Today's worksheet for AEs getting started in the interactive space details each of the major steps in the development process and easy ways to over-deliver and add real value at every step of the way.

Want more? Download yesterday's worksheet on the key components of a Web site with smart questions to ask even your toughest clients.

Interactive for AEs

As traditional agencies stretch farther and farther into the interactive space, long-time print, branding and broadcast AEs are being inundated with demands to basically speak a new language. They're at once floundering for the right answers -- heck, even the right question -- with clients and trying to deliver on the been-there-done-that demands of designers and programmers back at the agency.

Since I haven't yet run into a boot camp for teaching interactive to AEs, I thought I'd gather my notes and try to help:

Today: Overview of the key components of a basic site and smart questions to ask along the way

Tomorrow: Topline development process and ways for an AE to add value at each step

If you're just getting started selling & managing online (or remember when you were) and have questions or horror stories, please share them in the comments - together we can build other content and tools that might be needed ...

Web design ROI

It's annual planning time again in client-agency world. A magical time of year when we examine all the possibilities, compare them to the budget of time / people / and money and proceed to wildly whack away at the dream.

It was in the midst of this cacophony of contentious meetings, PPT slides and bound reams of review books that a favorite AE of mine came to me with this question:

Last year, we recommended that the client redesign their consumer products site, but traffic still hasn't increased. What now...

So, we figured out "what now."

But, if we could go back a year, I'd rather ask the question: what metrics should be on the table to define the ROI of a Web site redesign?

Traffic - in my opinion - doesn't even make the list. That's a metric of SEO or advertising or marketing... not really design. Design's* role is being more effective with people who land at the site - not getting them there.

*I'm assuming design = usability design, copy, art direction and programming

Here are my top picks for metrics for your next annual plan: