Online Marketing Complaints

These are the complaints I hear most often from people in charge of online marketing:

 1. Reams of customer data—NO idea what to do with it – Computers and the Internet make it easy to collect all kinds of customer behavioral data, but the result is often piles of numbers and yardsticks without any insight into what they mean or how to move the needle.

2. The measures show what the customer is doing, but not why he’s doing it – Many measurement systems reveal nothing about the driving factor behind behaviors. Following site visitor paths throughout a web session will show where a customer has been and what they bought, but it provides no information about the customer's website experience, satisfaction, or loyalty. Did they visit 15 pages because they were incredibly engaged or because they couldn’t find what they were looking for? Tracking sales data is absolutely essential, but it doesn't grant insight into what they didn't buy, why they didn’t buy it, or what it will take to get them to buy it next time.

 3. If there are satisfaction metrics in place, they are not consistent and scientific– Medical diagnostic tools stand up to the rigors of science and academia. The health of a business deserves the same scrutiny. A scientific approach helps create consistency and predictability as managers determine the cause-and-effect relationship between customer satisfaction and future behaviors. A consistent metric allows for benchmarking over time and against other that are competitors or best in class.

4. The value of a website is measured only by its sales or its ability to generate leads– The website should be an integrated channel with the rest of your business. Even if a consumer doesn't execute a purchase on your site or submit a request for more information, their experience will shape their future buying decisions and their overall impression of your company.

5. Most metrics provide only an instant snapshot of customer behavior without long-term implications – Just as it's important to measure website traffic on a continuous basis, companies should be measuring customer satisfaction continuously to observe the impact of seasonality, competitive activity and other changes in the market that effect the demand for their products and services (e.g. high gas prices, legislative changes, weather, etc.).

6. Most metrics look at the past, but reveal nothing about the future – Most web metrics have no predictive quality. Sound investments are based not only on what the customer has done in the past, but on what she will do in the future. Driving a car forward while looking only in the rear-view mirror invites disaster; similarly, businesses can not only rely on making decisions based on the past.

What other challenges are you facing when you think about the metrics you have in place? We’ve structured our product to address all of these issues, but are there others that keep you up at night?

Comments

[Marc]

Great article.

Your readers might want to try www.Measuredup.com a leading customer service review website where people share reviews with other users and with companies. Companies that are involved with and value customer service read Measuredup to keep up on what people are saying and to be able to improve customer service.

It is free and easy to use.

[Earn Money Online On The Internet At Home]

My complaint on internet marketing is people getting into the trap by out their work to the third party and their jobs are not done well for which the third party has to be paid.