uk-netmarketing Archive (2011-2015)

Hi Caroline -
 
When I started as an Internet Marketing Strategy Consultant in the early 90's
people would ask, "How do we make our website better?"
 
My response was, "Better at what?"
 
When I switched over to a focus on analytics in 2000, people would ask, 
"What should we measure?" 
 
My response was, "That depends. What are you trying to accomplish?"
 
The resulting conversations would take days and be remarkably political.
 
What is the purpose of your website? Your campaign? Your department? 
Your company? Those questions are not as easy to answer as one might 
imagine.
 
But you are very much on the right track.
 
You said, "We want to monitor popularity of subscription types."
 
Wonderful! 
Why? 
 
"... and we're also planning price changes."
 
Ahhh... I'm I correct to assume that you want to determine your best prices? 
Excellent. 
 
The Net MBA site can help http://www.netmba.com/marketing/pricing/
as can good old Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing_strategies
 
But there are more than "25 Pricing Strategies" let alone price ranges.
http://www.slideshare.net/onebillsoftware/25-pricing-strategies-for-subscription
-and-online-commerce
 
You have 6 price points x 3 time periods x 2 payment engines and want to track
retention and churn
but you have no time or budget for analytics. And you're worried about advanced
algebra.
 
Yeah, me too. 
I majored in Shakespeare.
 
So my very best suggestion is to really hone your business questions to a fine
point and then
reach out to any of a myriad of analysts who eat algebra for breakfast. They can
calculate 
churn variances across multidimensional clusters in their heads and roll out
visualizations  
so beautiful, you will buy a 3D printer just to touch them.
 
But. ...and this is a big but.... they cannot intuit your business problem. They
cannot look at 
the numbers and say, "Well, the answer is right here. It's obvious." 
 
Because they don't know the question.
 
"We want more visits, likes and retweets," is the typical mistake.
"We want more of whatever we can measure," is what has held online analytics
back for years.
"We want more subscribers," is too simplistic but not off the mark.
 
WHY are you setting up analysis of your subscription data?
 
Our business goal is ________________
 
We think we might get there if we can _________________
 
Is there some way the data can tell us if our hypothesis is workable?
 
Then you hire an analyst to translate your question into the language of numbers
so
they can ask the data. Then you hope they are numerically talented enough to
derive 
an answer and linguistically talented enough to communicate that answer back to
you
in a way that makes enough sense to make a business decision.
 
But without the business problem to solve, all they can do is tell you how many 
Likes you have on Facebook.
 
Subscription management is not a dark art. Deciding what you want out of it is 
business strategy. Start there.
 
I hope that's helpful.
 
 -------------------------------------------------------------
   Jim Sterne  <mailto:jsterne at targeting.com> jsterne at targeting.com
  +1 805 965 3184 x 4
  Founder  <http://www.emetrics.org/> eMetrics Summit
  Author   <http://bit.ly/SocialMetrics> Social Media Metrics
  Chairman  <http://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/> Digital Analytics
Association
   <http://emetrics.wordpress.com/> Blog   <http://twitter.com/jimsterne>
Twitter
 
From: uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com
[mailto:uk-netmarketing-bounces at mm.chinwag.com] On Behalf Of Caroline Bottomley
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 12:11 PM
To: uk-netmarketing
Subject: [uk-netmarketing] Key metrics for subscribers
 
Hello all,
 
We're just setting up some analysis of our subscription data and I'm wondering
if any of you have advice on what's important to measure?
 
We want to monitor popularity of subscription types and we're also planning
price changes.
We don't have a lot of time to spend on analysis, but we've got quite
complicated data - 6 price points over 3 different time periods and processed by
2 payment engines (paypoint and paypal)
We're doing some simple monitoring of customer retention, which seems a lot
easier to work out than all the algebra involved in analysing churn.
 
I'm aware this might be a bit of a daft question, but have a nagging feeling
that subscription management is a bit of a dark art. Any advice or opinions much
appreciated, as ever
 
thanks
Caroline
 
 


Caroline Bottomley
@radarmusicvideos <https://twitter.com/radarmusicvideo> 
facebook <http://www.facebook.com/RadarMusicVideos> 
RadarMusicVideos <http://www.radarmusicvideos.com/home> 
 
Radar connects labels and artists to professional music video directors
worldwide.
 
Andrew Bayer's video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow2SEn1kTK8>  made via
Radar:
- Just selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick and featured on CBS news
Alt-J's video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVeMiVU77wo>  made via Radar: 
- Over 10 million YouTube views, still going strong


 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.chinwag.com/cgi-bin/mailman/private/uk-netmarketing/attachments/20130614/1b829528/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 15919 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mm.chinwag.com/cgi-bin/mailman/private/uk-netmarketing/attachments/20130614/1b829528/attachment.png>