How to Stop Playing Hide and Seek with Customers

In part 1 of our Demand Generation marketing series, we discussed best practices on devising a brand strategy, deciding on the right mix of marketing programs for your online business and mastering the art of the customer experience.

John Hessinger, our Director of Demand Generation, is back to provide a comprehensive look at analytics tools, marketing technology and to address popular questions from his first post, How to Drive Traffic and Boost Sales with Demand Generation.

There are a huge number of effective tools in the marketplace to fit the needs of your business. They each have their place in terms of their sophistication, ease of use and cost (currency and human resource). Many businesses – large and small – do just fine with a free, off the shelf web analytics toolset. The only limitation of these free tools that might drive you to pay for a more robust solution would be data volume limits.

There is also a new wave of reporting tools coming out to serve social media marketers, many of which are also free, such as Klout and SocialDon. Here’s a decent list of free tools across multiple categories. Companies like Google have done a tremendous job of bringing a suite of free tools together for the everyday business owner, which help you track, measure and manage your online marketing performance (note: I have no connection to Google).

Web Analytics: Google AnalyticsSEO: Google Webmaster ToolsSocial Media: Klout and Facebook InsightsPPC: Google AdwordsAnalysis & Reporting: Good ole’ Microsoft Excel, when you want more flexibility than the analytics tools’ custom dashboards

Spreadsheets. As unrefined as it sounds, every good marketer lives and breathes spreadsheets. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with a wide variety of technologies that, when used effectively, can really supercharge your marketing efforts: massive data warehouses, multi-channel optimization tools, data visualization software, etc.

But without the ability to understand and easily distill the basic KPIs (key performance indicators) and conversion metrics for your business, the fancy expensive tools don’t add much value. As for favorite data-driven marketer-geek technology, one step up from spreadsheets is, of course, a database. But I digress…

While the focus of my response is largely geared toward “paid” marketing channels, there are a number of activities that can produce great results for the price of sweat equity, including some of the popular social media platforms.

People consume a wide array of media to learn about products and make decisions. Using your unique voice to get your original content in front of them is key. Some social vehicles provide easier broadcasting capabilities, while others take time and effort to build a substantial follower base. The short answer to your question: Yes, social media and SEO can provide valuable long term growth, especially when you dedicate the energy to keep them going.

For more specific information, Matt and Lauren have written some great posts on both SEO  and Social Media.

Thanks for the insights! Still have more questions for John? He’s happy to help. Simply write them in the comments section below and we’ll make sure he gets back with you.

Happy selling!

John Hessinger, Director of Demand Generation, is responsible for developing strategic marketing programs that encompass all stages of the customer lifecycle. His workgroup leverages all aspects of marketing including SEO, SEM, e-mail, web development, and database / marketing analytics.

Prior to Volusion, John held senior level marketing and product management roles for global companies such as HomeAway Inc., Dun & Bradstreet, Hoover’s, Inc, R.S. Hughes, and Novell. In these roles, he had direct responsibility for developing the strategic marketing plans and for developing targeted customer communication strategies to drive new customer acquisition and improve retention rates of existing customer segments. In addition, he was responsible for driving the ongoing improvement of the web experience in order to increase engagement and online conversion.

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