positioning content for success – a metrics driven strategy

© COPYRIGHT 2013 SAPIENT CORPORATION & AZZARD CONSULTING

Positioning Content for Success: A Metrics Driven Strategy

REBECCA SCHNEIDER, PRESIDENT, AZZARD CONSULTING

KEVIN P NICHOLS, DIRECTOR AND GLOBAL

PRATICE LEAD OF CONTENT STRATEGY @ SAPIENTNITRO

AZZARD CONSULTING

AZZARD CONSULTING

Today’s Agenda

1. Introduction

2. Definitions

3. Content Personalization

4. Taxonomy and Metadata

5. Production and Content Lifecycle

6. Content Effectiveness

7. Governance

8. Mobile

9. Pitfalls

10. Feedback and Contact Info

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1. Introduction

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Introduction

Rebecca Schneider President, Azzard Consulting 18 Years experience in Information Management Industries: Retail, Auto Manufacturing, Financial Services, Technology

Kevin Nichols Director, Global Practice Lead, Content Strategy, Sapient/Nitro 17 Years experience in the Web Development Industry Key Clients: MIT Open Courseware, Hewlett Packard, Sprint, Intel

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!   ROI for Content Strategy is one thing. . . But, how do we leverage metrics for content development??

!   We will answer which metrics are necessary to: ! Measure content efficacy ! Refine personalized content experiences and ensure future success ! Develop useful metadata and taxonomies ! Measure what’s important for publishing and content lifecycle ! Ensure effective content governance ! Capture the important information specific to mobile ! And, avoid metrics and analytics pitfalls

Why do this presentation?

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2. Definitions

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!   Metrics ! Tangible measures of inputs and outputs.

!   Key Performance Indicators ! A set of metrics used to quantify success of an organization’s activities.

!   Analytics ! Conclusions drawn from metrics.

Metrics Definitions

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!   Quantitative measurements: numbers, facts. It’s the “What.” !   Examples: ! Web & Mobile

! Conversions ! # Visits

! Time on Site

! Media ! Click-through Performance on Advertisements/Banners

! Search ! Internal, Organic, Paid – keyword usage

!   When to use ! There is a need to demonstrate a quantifiable return on investment. ! Too much anecdotal information is being used to make decisions.

Hard Metrics

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Soft Metrics

!   Qualitative: stories, feelings/motivation. It’s the “why.” !   Examples ! Primary Research

! Focus Groups

! Secondary Research ! Marketing Trends

! Social Listening – Digital Anthropology ! Online Behavioral Analysis

! Surveys ! Customer Satisfaction

!   When to use ! Trying to understand customer behavior (needs, motivations, perceptions). ! Further understand the hard metrics data.

!   Warning: do not use qualitative measurements to the exclusion of all else.

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3. Content Personalization

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!   Tailoring the online experience to a specific user: !   Terms to describe aspects of personalization:

Content Personalization

Targeted offers Intelligent Customer

segments Business Rules

Dynamic Pages

Contextual Ads

Ad Server

Relevant Guided Selling

Recommendations Personas

Targeted Messaging

Targeted Content

User Generated Content

Cross-Sell

Intent-Based search

Up-Sell

User Types

Counter Offer

Need Based Shopping

Social Marketing Behavioral Targeting

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Favorite Metric: !   Click stream (customer journey through site) ! Clearance Page > Men’s Coats > Shearling Coat > Add to Cart >

Purchase Completion

Other Metrics: !   Length of Visit Per Page ! Decision/Compare: Snow-blower Comparison

!   Depth of Visit ! Research: Samsung 50” Flat Screen TV (Product

Specifications)

Where does the customer go? Where can content be personalized?

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What is the customer interested in? Their reason for coming to site?

Favorite Metric:

!   Customer Interaction History (profile or cookie-based) ! Accessories for previously purchased item: bracelet charm

! Similar products (artist, genre): music, books

Other Metric:

!   Top Keyword Searches ! “Clearance”

! “Earphones for iPod”

Photo from Pandora

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Favorite Metric:

!   Purchased Product ! Product as part of series: Game of Thrones Season 1,

Season 2 to be released, etc.

Other Metrics:

!   Site registration ! Register for special content: Whitepaper

!   Viewed Product Information ! Product/Brand Blitz: Car Promotion Microsite

Where and when does the customer convert (e.g. filling out user profile, adding item to shopping cart, purchasing product)?

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4. Taxonomy and Metadata

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Improving taxonomy (navigation, search) metadata (filters/facets) and to further enable findability.

Taxonomy & Metadata

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Taxonomy & Metadata

Favorite Metric:

!   Top successful searches ! My Little Pony, iPad Cover

Other Metrics:

!   Organic, Paid search keyword ranking versus conversion (which keywords yield higher conversion rates) ! Notebook vs. Laptop

!   Click-stream to specific product category. Are users going down the right path? ! Homepage > Furniture > Children’s

! Homepage > Children’s > Furniture

Photo from puuikibeach.

What’s working for users? Are they finding what they need?

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Taxonomy & Metadata

Favorite Metrics: !   Bounce rates (entered a page from outside the site,

then immediately left) ! More useful than exit rates.

! Luxury hotel page, but looking for a B&B (“breakfast in bed”)

Other Metrics: !   Exit rates (looked around the site, then left from a

particular page) ! Exit rate can be considered successful (when leaving

after accomplishing a task) ! Product purchase: iPad Cover

! Product non-purchase: Wrong item? Wrong size? Stock availability?

!   Previous page prior to search (potential navigation problems) ! In home décor page, but then search for floor lamp

Photo from Valencia Bed & Breakfast

What’s not working for users? Where’s the breakdown?

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Taxonomy & Metadata

Favorite Metric:

!   Search terms used frequently that return no results ! Bathroom plunger (toilet plunger)

Other Metric:

!   Search terms used often in ad hoc description fields ! Mutual fund distribution, Roll-over

What terms should be added to taxonomy or metadata to enable better findability?

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Taxonomy & Metadata

Favorite Metric:

!   Refined searches

! kitty toy > cat toy

Other Metrics:

!   Search terms that are variants of a preferred term

! soda vs. pop; bubbler vs. water fountain

!   Terms used in taxonomy, but not in SEO metadata. Does the SEO metadata need to be updated?

! bed lifters, bed risers, bed storage

!   Organic, Paid keyword rankings

! manila file folders, green hanging folders

Photo from taiyofj

What terms do users employ in search? Have they been leveraged?

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5. Production and Content Lifecycle

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!   Entire end-to-end process in which content is acquired, created, managed, published and optimized or retired.

Publishing & Content Lifecycle

Manage Content

Publish Content

Enhance Content

Acquire/Create Content

Governance

Evaluate Content

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Favorite Metric: ! Time (cost) saved in optimizing (refining content)

! Revision pushed to web.

Other Metrics: !   Time (cost) saved in all other steps of the content

lifecycle ! Acquiring

! Third party content.

! Creating ! Original content

! Maintaining (content review cycle) ! Current , Redundant, Outdated Content

! Publishing ! Push to web.


What is the benefit to improved content lifecycle processes?

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos

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What is the benefit to new product introduction? ! Time reduced to take product to market (due to content bottlenecks)

! New Surface Windows 8 Pro to purchase website.


Photo from SpicaGames.

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How can content quality be improved? Favorite Metric: ! Drop in number of errors in content.

! Tagging: outfit vs. welding kit

Other Metrics: ! Decrease in content redundancy (also reduces

cost) ! Sales vs. Marketing

! Decrease in time necessary to respond to user feedback, errors in content and/or changes to published content. ! Alert to correction (spelling errors, etc.)

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Favorite Metric: ! Increase in internal organizational satisfaction due

to better findability, ease of content creation, maintenance, etc. ! Survey Tool (Foresee)

Other Metric: ! Number of users in organization using CMS.

! Ratio of users vs. total number

What is the ROI of robust localization processes? ! Reduction in localization costs due to streamlined

CMS processes ! Cost per word reduced for localized content.

How can internal user satisfaction increase?

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6. Content Effectiveness

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Content Effectiveness

WWW.COMPANY.COM IN-‐STORE

She clicks the e-spot to view more She clicks on the product to view more

details. As she adds to her

“favorites”, recommended

products become even more relevant.

As she approaches her local store, she

receives a push notification on her

phone, letting her know about new accessories.

Entering the store, Michelle is greeted by

Ken, a sales associate. He has Michelle’s “favorites”

ready for her to view, which he pulled up on his

tablet.

Using her iPad, Michelle visits .com to

look for new products. She notices an e-spot on

the homepage for a featured product that is

her favorite brand.

Michelle saves product to her “favorites” and

continues to browse the product catalog.

Michelle has saved 6 products to her

“favorites.” Michelle updates her customer sends her “favorites” to

the nearest retail location.

Using the sales associate tablet, Ken

is able to pull up Michelle’s profile,

where he accesses her store loyalty

coupons.

Michelle, an existing

customer, receives a text message

from retailer.

SMS

Mobile Web

Desktop

Mobile App

Tablet Web

Tablet App

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2 4 6 5 3

Focus on the content journey, content quality and overall fit for the user.

TRIGGER

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How is content relevance measured to determine the most effective messages?

Favorite Metric: !   A-B Test of one message versus another.

! Test two different value propositions, headlines or product images to see which performs the best. ! Shopping Cart Icon vs. Shopping Bag Icon

Image from Pixabay. Image from BizzBuzzMedia.

vs.

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How is content relevance measured to determine the most effective messages? (cont.)

Other Metrics:

! Rate at which content is viewed (frequency and duration)

! Product specifications vs. Product “quick look” – which results in a conversion?

! Multivariate testing of content on high-priority pages.

! Test placement of various items on a page, various messaging and/or several different labels or headings.

! Should filters be listed at the left or on top?

! Determine the most popular content: Content that is ‘trending’ with traffic and engagement time:

! Use a trends app to measure which content is most used.

! Popular whitepapers, Investor relations information, Cat videos!

! Know the most successful content– in the eyes of the customer:

! Rate at which a specific piece of content will result in a conversion.

! Product videos that generate a high rate of purchase.

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Favorite Metric: !   Number of visits to convert (E.g.: purchase a

product) and time to convert ! Customer returns after completing research

Other Metrics: !   Actual browsing path versus assumed (pre-defined

browsing path) ! Home > Support > Drivers ! Home > Product > Support > Drivers

!   Where and when a customer exits prior to conversion ! When forced to register on news site after viewing

several articles, is conversion completed? !   Bounce rates

! Where and when a customer jumps to search from navigation and key terms used in search

Awareness

Consideration

Preference

Purchase

Retension

How do you determine an effective content journey and if the customer arrived at a desired destination?

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Favorite Metric: !   Rate at which content is being shared via social ! email, post to facebook

Other Metrics: !   Rate at which content is downloaded

! User Manual/Instructions

! Survey the user on site or page performance with user feedback tools ! Foresee

! Determine problematic areas through bounce rates and exit rates

How do you determine user satisfaction with site or experience?

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7. Content Governance

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Operational and organizational models needed to manage and ensure the continued success of content.

Content Governance

Governance Committee

Working Groups

Brand Accessibility Legal Taxonomy Content Strategy

Operations Technology Marketing Publishing Taxonomy Strategy

Executive Sponsor

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Content Governance

Favorite Metric: !   Time to implement content changes based on governance

decisions. ! Major taxonomy change (structural shift) vs. minor taxonomy change

(label change) ! Addition of information to support new product set

Other Metrics: !   Time for governance committee to review content requests. !   Time to complete a content review cycle. ! ROT (Redundant, Outdated, Trivial)

Is there governance structure in place, with defined governance workflows? Is it effective and successful?

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Content Governance

Is the content up to governance standards?

Favorite Metrics: !   Accuracy/Error rates Other Metrics: !   Currency !   Effectiveness – based on testing, web statistics, surveys.

http://www.zillow.com/howto/DataCoverageZestimateAccuracy.htm

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8. Mobile

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Mobile (Smartphone)

Metrics captured for mobile can be very similar to those captured for other form factors. However, the analytical perspectives will differ because of the physical nature and practical constraints when dealing with smaller form factors. Also user tasks are different from Web behavior. For example*: !   68 percent mobile searches result in a map look up !   61 percent of local mobile searches result in a phone call !   59 percent of mobile users interact with businesses via social media regularly. *Source: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/4-myths-of-mobile-metrics

Image from William Hook.

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Mobile (Smartphone)

Is the content experience delivered effectively?

Favorite Metric: !   How long does a user spend on page? ! Time spent on pages optimized for mobile

! More time may indicate user cannot achieve or find information.

Image from thebarrowboy

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Mobile (Smartphone)

Is the content experience delivered effectively? (cont.) Other Metrics: !   How is search used?

! Taxonomy/metadata related metrics – with a focus on mobile OS. ! Low search utilization may indicate user cannot find search functionality.

!   How do users interact with form fields? ! Track interaction with Form fields

! On mobile sites, one field is recommended per page

!   How often does the phone orientation change (switching from vertical to horizontal)? ! Generally, higher rates will correlated to higher exit rates. Exception: functionality requires orientation change (e.g. viewing a

video)

!   How is social media being used? ! Survey amount of traffic entering from social media.

!   How are Smart Phones being used in-store? ! Track user behavior – bar code scanning

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9. Pitfalls

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Pitfalls

!   Avoiding metrics and analytics pitfalls:

! Statistics and damn statistics

! Not all data is good data

! More data does not equal better data

! Ignoring common sense

! Ignoring indicators (you can’t pick your favorite)

Image from Robbie1

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10. Feedback and Contact Information

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Questions

!   What did you want to learn that you still have questions about?

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Keep the conversation going.

Rebecca Schneider [email protected] !   azzardconsulting.com !   http://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaschneider

Kevin P Nichols [email protected] !   kevinpnichols.com !   Twitter: #kpnichols !   LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-nichols/0/b50/160

THANK YOU !