The Fairest Metric of Them All
Posted in online marketing on April 5th, 2010 by fubarrioAs an aging technocrat, I enjoy sitting (hiding) behind mountains of information, disconnected from the reality that each bit of datum represents a real person.
What are that person’s hopes, goals, fears, dreams, and aspirations?
It’s incredibly easy to lose site of the fact that your website, landing page, sales letter, opt-in page (whatever), is a one-on-one selling tool that needs to tap into your target audience’s emotional triggers if it will ever be successful.
Yes, it’s true that there are sites like Corporate Raiter that aren’t trying to be ‘commercial’, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not selling anything. I’m ’selling’ you on the fact that you should read beyond the headline. I’m trying to entice you into coming back and seeing what is new. As you read through the content, I’m pleading with you to continue reading to the end of the post. I want you to believe that the ‘ah ha’ piece of information that will ‘change everything’ for you and your online experience is in the next paragraph.
For newbies, just starting out, they can look at the blinding number of statistics I track on my web properties and be a bit overwhelmed. Even on the not-for-profit Corporate Raiter, I’ve written blog entries detailing my traffic metrics by looking at google analytics to check my traffic flows, the number of comments, my goolge page rank and my alexa ranking.
However, the reality is, for most website one metric trumps all others: Gross Profit / Marketing Dollar
This, obviously, gets back to that whole ‘efficiency‘ thing I talked about in an earlier post.
If you think about your website like a ‘black box’ whose sole purpose is to turn marketing dollars and effort into profitable sales, how efficient is it at carrying out that task. And, as machines often do, how does that efficiency change over a range of volumes?
Those website owners who understand this metric and how it effects everything they do will have a natural ‘feel’ for the size of their market or niche. Some markets are so large and under served that you can increase the energy you put into the site seemingly forever without getting to the point of dimishing returns.
However, in most cases you will quickly determine the ’sweet spot’ in terms of the ratio of effort which returns the greatest amount of profit for a given niche.
Excellent advice, thanks. I’ve seen too many people spending too much time for too little reward. Sometimes it just takes seeing the simple things written down to really bring them home to you.
You got that right – dollar volume and net profit are what it’s all about in product marketing.
Great post; thanks for sharing the link to the Gross Profit website!
Great article, I learn a lot.
Yeah, you have to be able to change the small things to make a huge difference in your sales/profit.
Thank you for sharing good information. I am still looking for
design for my own social blogsite .Good Luck from Germany .
Too many people want a lot of a little…and there is nothing wrong with that, people just can’t be afraid of a little effort
Thanks! I try to spend as little as possible when promoting a product, however sometimes if you spend a little more you can end up making much more.
Good post! I kept on reading looking for the “aha moment” that would change everything, very well written.
don’t slouch on marketing and advertising, it can come back to bite ya.
Thank you too much for this great subject .
I enjoy reading your subjects .
Best of regards
Great post; thanks for sharing the link to the Gross Profit website!
I like it you sharing your advice, Gross Profit is really one side of marketing you really have to focus on.
You got that right – dollar volume and net profit are what it’s all about in product marketing. But don’t forget customer aquisition cost
Too many people want a lot of a little…and there is nothing wrong with that, people just can’t be afraid of a little effort
Excellent advice, thanks. I’ve seen too many people spending too much time for too little reward. Sometimes it just takes seeing the simple things written down to really bring them home to you.
“As an aging technocrat, I enjoy sitting (hiding) behind mountains of information, disconnected from the reality that each bit of datum represents a real person.”
Haha, that made my day
You have a great post here, truly informative. Very well written I shall be bookmarking your website and subscribing to your feed so i can always read articles of this quality.
Very usefull post would it be OK if i translate into German for my sites subscribers? Thanks
Thanks so much for sharing this interesting updates. So glad to have come across reading this informative updtaes; be back for more readings.
We are also looking marketing services but not sure how to do that? SEO or social media marketing services
So true!! If you are putting your time and effort into a project that is not rewarding you financially, then it can very easily become a burden. Knowing how to make use of the many tools out there can make all the difference. I would say being innovative and keeping focused are important for success!!
You are right, at the end one has to return to reality where the money is the only way of surviving.
I also am behind a PC almost all day
If you really want to profit, you must be techwise when it comes to the numbers. You must know how many ppl that come to your website are converted into sales. You must understand how to reach them through click ads, etc.