Thomas Obrey
Co-Founder, COO
PixelMEDIA
tj@pixelmedia.com
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Proving Web Site Value - It's More than a pretty (user) face
Gone are the days when Web sites were considered an additional business expense that could be paid for with excess money left over in the marketing budget. Today, Web sites are often times the single most effective business initiative as well as the main tool to disseminate the company's brand and message.
Far too often, however, companies struggle to understand how to effectively measure the success of their Web initiative. Like many key business efforts, executives know they need a Web presence, but they aren't always sure how to make the most out of it - or more importantly, how to measure whether or not a company is achieving a positive ROI from their online presence.
Measuring Success - It Starts from the Beginning
While many companies are eager to measure the success of their Web sites the minute they "go live," the important steps for measuring success start well before your company logo floats its way across a computer screen. It is vital
that you start with a proven process and although it is sometimes important to be unique and creative, you should always be willing to learn from patterns that have worked for others and that have resulted in success.
The very first step is to determine what you are, and what you are ultimately trying to accomplish with your Web initiative. Whether it's sales, increasing brand awareness, training or any other aspect of business, keep in mind that online goals need to tie in with overall short and long-term company goals. A common mistake is striving to achieve the holy grail site with full customer personalization, total back-end system integration, and an award-winning design on the first attempt. Trying to accomplish too much at once generally leads to an overextension of resources and ultimately, failure.
Rather than looking for the one, encompassing solution, it's best to break initiatives into short, attainable phases. By focusing on phases that are
relatively quick and easier to implement, you can more readily achieve a few, instant successes. These successes are often the catalyst needed to help gain the support and trust of management, proving that the Web is indeed a medium that can produce results. This approach will likely open the door to additional management supported Web initiatives.
While some companies think of the Web as a one-way street for a company's message, a key and often overlooked component of an effective Web site is the exchange of information between the site and the user. When developing a site, it is important to not only understand what you want to provide users, but also what you want to receive from them. In developing your site you should be able to answer the following questions:
- Are you attracting new people to your site?
- Do you know who is coming to your site, and for what purpose?
- Are users finding what they need?
- What is the health of your lead
qualification process?
- How proficient are you at converting leads to sales?
- What behavior indicates that a visitor is ready to buy?
- What attributes describe your best customers?
By answering these questions you will be able to collect a baseline about your current users, their needs and general traffic patterns. This data can be utilized in your Web initiatives, providing a metric for measuring business goals and aligning communications campaigns.
Once you have determined user patterns and business goals, you can work to provide offerings that will best close the gap between the two. For example, if you are looking to hire employees, you could develop an online Human Resources department. When faced with Support requirements and the rising costs associated with these activities, you could develop a Customer Service Extranet that would help alleviate the high costs tasks associated with traditional call centers. There is no shortage
of options available to you when defining and deploying Web initiatives. The key driver to any successful rollout is to craft those initiatives around well-defined business goals and objectives.
The End Result - Proving Value of Your Online Presence
Once you have created a Web site that is aligned with your business goals and closely examined user behavior to develop a site that produces a free exchange of information, you are now set to close the gap between those user patterns and company goals. But how do you measure whether or not your Web initiative is successful?
When measuring the effectiveness of your site, it is important to consider the metrics that will be used to track the success of your past and future Web initiatives. When determining the metrics for measurement, keep in mind the following:
- Concentrate on measuring the vital key variables rather than on the numerous trivial variables a Web site could produce
- Measurement
should be linked to key business drivers and overall company goals
- Measurement should be a mix of past, present and future initiatives to ensure the organization is concerned with all three perspectives
- Measurement needs to have targets or goals established that are based on research, as opposed to arbitrary numbers
Once you identify the key metrics that will be utilized in your assessment, it is important to quantify the results of your initiatives. For example, when you launched a new customer service extranet, what change occurred in the call center volume? Did it meet expectations? If you added a new lead-tracking database, did overall sales or grade-A inquiries increase? What would 100 additional leads a week mean to your bottom line?
By following these important steps, the mystery of proving your Web site's value will finally be solved and you can be confident that your new online presence is indeed helping you achieve your short and
long-term company goals.
PixelMEDIA, Inc. provides strategy, design, and implementation services for
Web, multimedia and IT initiatives. The company has built a solid
reputation by developing practical solutions that create tangible results
for sales, marketing, human resources, customer support, development, and
the entire enterprise. PixelMEDIA offers a complete range of strategic,
creative, and technology services to leading companies including Teradyne,
Nokia, CIGNA Corporation, C-Port Motorola, and Logica.
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