The Adaptive Marketer

A New Approach To The Marketing Funnel

So, this week I was very pleased to participate as a speaker in a Webinar for Information Management and Syncsort.  The topic was bringing Web Analytics Clickstream data into a Data Warehouse.   Oh, stop yawning already....  It was actually really interesting - and some really valuable things came out of it. 

In doing my homework for the presentation, one of the conclusions I came to was just how valuable it is to develop a much tighter process for processing all the data we're generating in our online efforts.  If you think you're neck deep in reports with Google Analytics - just think of all the report combinations you could come up with if you wanted to start measuring Analytics combined with CRM, combined with Product Usage data.     

A Care Package For Everybody Who DIDN’T Go To SXSW

Are you at South By Southwest this week?   No?    Yeah, neither am I.  I would have loved to go - but just am too busy with client-work (which is a good thing by the way).  How about you - are you stuck with clients?  Stuck at work?  Just didn’t want to go?    Well, with all that’s being blogged, tweeted and generally discussed this week – you might be feeling a little lonely out there if you’re not walking up and down the streets of Austin.

In that spirit, I wanted to put something together for everyone who didn’t make it to SXSW this year.  Think of it like a little care package; a few things to keep you busy until late next week – when all those SXSW’ers come home, hung over and full of stories.  With any luck, and if you complete the below – you’ll not only be able to hang with those stories – you might even make a few of your own.

Without further ado… If you would have gone to SXSW.....

There's Peanut Butter In My Chocolate - Social Media Is Polluting Your Web Analytics

So, okay…. We all know Twitter, Google Buzz and myriad other social networks are becoming part of the marketer’s toolbox.  And, with that comes the URL Shorteners.

They’re so popular, in fact, that they’re built into almost all of the client-side applications that both you and your audiences are using for Tweeting out content.  Whether you're using Hootsuite and generating Ow.ly links - or Tweetdeck and Bit.ly links - or just using URL Shorteners to tidy up your Facebook pages, it's a big piece of our new technological tool box.  

But it's good to be mindful that using these URL Shorteners can be a double-edged sword and some thought needs to go into how you’re handling URL Shortening and your Analytics Strategy.

Feeling Lucky? 3 Marketing Lessons From Chat Roulette

Come on… You know you’ve tried it… Or, you want to… Yeah?  If you haven’t – well let’s just say you should probably do it without the kids around.  Let’s just say that the likelihood of a quick lesson in male anatomy is pretty high.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Chat Roulette is a site where you can have an anonymous video chat with random strangers.  If you don’t like what you see, you simply click “next” and you’re thrown to another random person (as um.. the case may be).  The same, by the way, goes for them.  If they don’t like you – you’ll quickly find yourself discarded. 

I tried it for the first time this last week.  It’s actually oddly fascinating.  And, it struck me that there were PPC, SEO and Social Media strategy reminders that we can take from Chat Roulette.  What are they, you might ask…

Well here you go…

Are You Extraordinary? Marketing Lessons From The Healthcare Summit

Have you ever been to one of those corporate off-sites?  You know the ones I mean - where the agenda is filled with all kinds of progressive, well-intentioned paradigm shifting, super-important initiatives.  And then, when you get there, it’s nothing but a series of 45 slide PowerPoint presentations where the presenter reads every word of each slide.

This is usually followed by checking email in the hallway (to get real work done), then a lively “life coach” in the afternoon that you just know lives in a van down by the river.  And then it’s all wrapped up with an awards dinner of chicken, beef or fish, a bad comedian and copious amounts of alcohol.