Posts Tagged ‘Analytics’

When 7 equals 350 million

Posted by Eric on February 13, 2009  |   No Comments »

Just got done listening to a webinar by the good guys at HUBSPOT.

I love what these guys do and what they have to say. This most recent webinar was called “Viral Marketing: How to Create a World Wide Rave”.  It was really awesome.

My favorite part of the webinar was one of the introductory stories.  It’s the story of when 7 equals 350 million.

The story was told of the lady who was tasked with the job of marketing the brand new Universal Orlando Theme – The Wizardly Word of Harry Potter.  She had an almost unlimited budget for marketing.  She could do anything she wanted.  So she thought about her options:

  • Direct Mail Marketing
  • TV Commercials
  • Super Bowl Commercial
  • E-mail Marketing
  • and, I’m sure a ton of others

So, what did she come up with?  The slickest super bowl commercial ever?  A million dollar give away?  

Nope, she set up a special – by invitation only – webinar.  The webinar was scheduled at midnight (you know – the whole Harry Potter wizard thing).  Invitations went out to a whopping SEVEN people!  That’s right – only seven.

How were the seven people picked?  Again, did she pick major news people, journalists?  Theme park revieweres (assuming they exist)?

Again, nope.  She simply picked the seven most popular Harry Potter bloggers and invited them to this special invitation event.

All seven agreed.

Her bosses, of course, were beside themselves.  I can only imagine the questions – why aren’t you buying magazine ads?  Why aren’t you buying tv commercials?  Why aren’t you hiring a super exspensive Ad Agency?

She didn’t have an answer UNTIL 24 hours AFTER the event.  

So, what happened?  Of course, we know the story.  All seven bloggers immediately wrote posts about the event.  They posted pictures about it.  They put information on facebook, they tweeted about it.  And, within 24 hours, over 350,000,000 (that’s right – million) had heard about the new park.  

And, it isn’t just a random collection of 350,00,000 people.  It was 350,000,000 people who had some sort of interest about Harry Potter – exactly the kind of people you want to know about your brand new Harry Potter theme park.

All I can say is “WOW”!  The simple truth is that you can’t buy that kind of publicity.  Literally – no matter how much money you have, you can’t buy that.

So, the question is what does a story like that mean for you and me?  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Here’s a couple of my very short and very brief thoughts:

  • NEVER underestimate the power of social media
  • Be real – form a TRIBE – get the book TRIBES from Seth Godin to see what I mean
  • Giving up control can have AMAZING results – to do something like this – you have to be willing to give up some control.

Other thoughts?  Let me know.

SEO and Analytics and Avinash

Posted by Eric on September 18, 2008  |   No Comments »

I’ve been reading a book by Avinash Kaushik called Web Analytics An Hour A Day (website / blog link) lately.  

I am also thrilled about being able to work with The TQM Network (website) to do a video interview with Avinash.  As you might know, The TQM Network is in the business of helping companies and individuals share best practices, ideas, insights, and more in order to grow together.

Together, we are doing a video interview with Avinash and would love to have input from all of you about what we should ask him.  Simply click on the contact us tab and give me your thoughts.

Another Survey?

Posted by Eric on August 15, 2008  |   No Comments »

While listening to Avinash Kaushik on JMP’s podcast (www.jmp.com), I heard about 4Q – a very simple (and free) suvey tool to start to gather some information from you site visitors.

You sign up to use the service, make some basic customizations, upload your logo and voila – you are ready to go.

I’ve got it instlalled on this site.  About 30% of you should get an invitation.  30% of those who visit the site will be presented with an overlay that says they have been picked to answer a very simple 4 question survey (hence the name 4Q) about their experience with this site.  If they agree, a new window opens up at the bottom of the screen ready for them to answer once they are done at the site.

I haven’t had the service installed for any time yet, so I have no idea about how effective it is.  But, we’ll see.  According to Avinash, something simple like this is a great way to gather data. 

Typically when we think about analytics, things like muti-variant testing, A/B Comparisons, Regressions and all other sorts of complicated statistical things pop into our minds.  But, by simply asking people visiting our site - 

1.  Why did you visit our site

2.  Were you able to accomplish your purpose

3.  Why not (if no)

By simply asking people answers to these questions, we can figure out a tons of information.

It looks like a great service.  I’ll keep you up to date on what I find out.

Web Analytics?

Posted by Eric on August 13, 2008  |   No Comments »

Just watched this video on FastCompany.tv:

fastcompany.tv/

Made me think a whole lot more about how I use – or better yet – fail to use a simple free Analytics systems – Google Analytics.  This simple and free program gives me the ability to know a ton about who is visiting, what pages they are visiting, how long they stay, what links they click on, etc.

It’s really a great tool.  I simply don’t pay enough attention to it.