I’ve just completed an analyst briefing today at work and scheduling more.
Here are some tips for how to conduct an analyst briefing.
The Purpose of Business
From Dr. Peter Drucker:
A business enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation
If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And the purpose must lie outside the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. The customer is a foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. The customer alone gives employment. And it is to supply the customer that society entrusts wealth-producing resources to the business enterprise.
Because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. These are the entrepreneurial functions. Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of the business.
How Inbound Marketing Works
Megacomm: Analytics for Business Goals
I had the pleasure of speaking this past Thurday at Megacomm, Israel’s main conference for technical and marketing communicators. Paula Stern and the entire team always put on an amazing conference. I was privileged to be able to present.
At Megacomm, I spoke about how data analytics can be used to drive business results and the importance to measure business goals and the paths to meet these goals and go beyond the “What?” of traditional clickstream data to ask “Why?”
By asking different questions and using the right analysis we can improve our conversions and meet our goals.
My presentation is below:
Feel free to see it in fullscreen on Slideshare.
After my presentation, several people came up to me asking some great questions of what to do with the data of people who read their documentation. One good question I was asked was how to use more data to see where, as technical writers, they should focus their documentation to lead to greatest user satisfaction (and, of course, sales). I suggested a survey and asking them the 3 most important questions to ask your website visitors. What do you think?
These are great questions and I’m glad to see people in all fields using data to help them do their job.
Did you attend the conference? What did you think? Let me know if you have any questions or issues I should discuss next time.
Selected Tools:
Resources:
2011: Year In Review
Happy New Year
There’s No Such Thing as Social Media
Gary explains it much better than me. But I’ve said this before: Social Media=The Internet.
Gary Vaynerchuk is Wrong: There is a Social Media ROI
At last year’s LeWeb, my colleague and social media superstar Ayelet Noff asked my favorite wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk the question that we were all hearing in 2009, 2010, and finally forced to answer in 2011: What’s the ROI of social media.
Gary answered that that’s the wrong question – and it’s a problem. Gary asked, “What’s the ROI of your mother?” It’s not about data or Facebook friends or Twitter fans, he said.
He also said that ROI should be “relationship with consumer.”
But ROI of social media is far more than relationships. It’s not just about the The Thank You Economy
There are a lot of people getting paid for “social media” consulting because they know how to use Facebook but not measuring ROI. This is how we were all doing it in 2009.
In 2012, it’s time for accountability.
At work, I’ve been a passionate advocate for Twitter – not because I love it (I love whatever tool works) but because it has a high click through rate and is an appropriate tool to integrate with other campaigns to achieve one of my key business goals: qualified leads. But I’ll use whatever tool achieves that goal – Twitter or Facebook, a trade show, or a magazine ad. What matters is achieving the strategic goal – using whatever tool is appropriate given my budget and organization. Social media is part of ecommerce. I’ve made clear sales – actual dollars – directly attributable to blog posts.
What’s the ROI of social media? Here are some possibilities:
- Sales – immediate, tangible revenue
- Qualified leads, in whatever form – names/email addresses, downloads, form submissions, etc. – that are targeted and qualified, using your qualification definitions.
- Lowered costs
- Customer service questions answered
Define your KPIs first and maybe social media can help you achieve this. On the other hand, maybe not – either way you should be comfortable finding the tool to achieve your KPI.
Here are some answers from Groundswell, Forrester Research’s first book on social technologies, on how social TOOLS can be used to accomplish BUSINESS functions:
The ROI is tangible and quantifiable. Here is another example on how social tools can help save money in customer service can be seen here.
OK, I admit, this title was a bit of link-bait and I’m being a bit unfair to Gary – who knows that the ROI in social media is what we aim to achieve.
In a later interview, Gary made the point that most social media marketers are clowns — talking about Facebook likes and Twitter followers, instead of how social media is a channel to achieve business goals.
Gary made the point that you need marketers who know how to use digital tools to achieve business goals and hiring some 22 year old kid who knows how to use Facebook isn’t the right person to be managing your business.
It’s time to start being accountable – 99.5% of social media “marketers” are clowns – encouraged by marketers who are technoilliterates seeking out the 22 year old kid who doesn’t understand business – those of us who have been doing this for a long time, like Gary, Ayelet, and me all know that this a tool to achieve business results.
BBC – Technology of Business: How Israel became a hi-tech hub
Building a Social Media Strategy
The Lean Startup
Watch this interview with Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup. I just finished reading the book and it’s a must read for anyone involved in entrepeneurship or startups, whether development, marketing, sales, or whatever.