tIt's that time of the year. Time for March Madness.
The first theme of March Madness to think about is strength of schedule. Who gets into the NCAA tourney and who doesn’t often depends on what teams you beat, and how good those teams were. Why is that so important? For the same reasons companies look to benchmark their performance against their peers. It helps you determine whether your performance is good, bad or average.
So what does this have to do with web metrics?
First, all things can relate to the game of basketball. But more importantly, let’s examine the role of benchmarking in our web strategy.
Chase your prospects, not your competitors!
It is good to be able to compare to your peers and other leading
websites, but that should not be the driving force in identifying where
to focus your improvement efforts. It is not about matching your
competitors, but rather about making improvements in those areas that
will improve your prospects’ satisfaction and their likelihood to
become a customer.
With benchmarks, quality is the key!
Benchmarks are great. But if you have a poor measurement device, your benchmarks are worthless. Without accuracy, precision and reliability you have nothing. Actually you have less then nothing. If you have a poor measurement device it may give you a false sense of security that know what to do. You are better off ignoring poor data and going on instinct. The saying “Garbage In, Garbage Out” definitely applies to poor measurement.
