Guidelines for Interviewing Influencers and Stakeholders

That ain’t no filet mignon.

The trends and information you garner from your website should not only be considered a valuable measurement for internal business, but should also be used as a convincing tool for presenting to influencers and stakeholders. As we all know, going beyond unfounded claims and collecting data that can actually be pointed to will always achieve a degree of authority and persuasion. Don’t tell me why I should invest with you, show me why.

Make sure your Web information is distributed equally within your company. The more teams you involve, the stronger your attack will be. This serves to root the necessity of Web metrics further into your company. Demonstrating the benefits of Web analytics is obviously what we’re striving for here. But if you can prove that it’s actually an integral part, if other teams outside the Web management branch can also attest to the integrity of your tactics, then you’ve attained an undeniable presence. Forming a cooperative approach between your analytics and e-commerce systems incubates your forecast egg, proving to be an additional dimension to your accounting and accountability.

Remove the guess work from your numbers and you’re sure to impress your audience. Take care to avoid becoming confident with hollow numbers. It’s most necessary to completely understand what your numbers signify. Telling a stakeholder exactly how many times the promotional page was and is foreseen to be visited is fine and well. But leave no shadow of a doubt. Include ramifications, theories, and projections that bolster these page visit statistics. Streamline your analysis so that it’s completely clear, causing decision making to be a process built on concrete; not wetlands. Those who are far removed from the Web management side often perceive the online aspect as lacking solidarity. They’re locked into the classical school of thought, perceiving revenue as produced only through core business. Thus, ensure to base your presentation on precise, detailed goals and correlations.

Vacuums Are for Cleaning

Apply your findings to trends in the market place, global happenings, or the results to Monday night’s football game. The point is, your Web analysis shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Form a regular course of action where your data is studied and given depth. Depth is an essential ingredient here. Remove your data from the two-dimensional world of the spreadsheet, understand its behavior, and give it a personality. Surely, this palpable form will be much more appealing to those involved in the interview process. This degree of organization grants exponential levels of confidence for your influencers and stakeholders. Harnessing the activity of your website will inevitably lead to hard evidence of how your company is generating wealth, and more importantly, how it can improve.

Clearly define your objectives and activities. A stakeholder should be presented with exact goals that the website is to achieve. With these goals in mind, you can clearly illustrate the significance of your Web analysis, tying together click-through rates, and forming a prospective customer’s path to and through your site. When such a path is demonstrated, the stakeholder understands exactly how their investments will be applied; with measurable projections. This way, the overall analysis dataset can be deconstructed, so that individual data packets can be applied to varying levels of strategy and planning.

Always Keep the Consumer in Mind

Let’s not forget that all your demonstrated data is consumer-driven. Yes, there are real people behind those clicks. Setting up a customer forum where marketing communications can be carried out is vital. This enables an understanding of your numbers. Again, we want to provide our stakeholders with reasons. Explain how your Web metrics are leading to a greater understanding of prospective customer behavior, thus conquering one of e-commerce’s inherent evils, shopping-cart abandonment. Direct consumer communication can answer these abandonment questions. From this, you can develop ways to reconnect your lost prospect to your site. In basic psychology terms, remembering something is always easier than learning it for the first time, using the synapse formed from the initial point of discovery. You’ll want to capitalize on this and demonstrate that you are dedicated to recapturing these lost targets.