Engage. Consider. Convert.

I help marketers find the insights that change how they connect their solutions to consumer needs.

A to B

If you have questions and data, I'm an analyst for hire. Things I can help you with:

  • Determine the metrics that matter. How do channel metrics relate to customer behavior and thus ROI?
  • Develop persona from consumer interactions with your company and brand. Who are they as people?
  • Analyze marketing from the consumer point of view rather than tactic's. For instance a constant open rate for email is rarely the same people each time.

This site includes some core ideas, various projects that illustrate an analytic point of view and a section on 'education marketing' as one example of my thinking in practice.

Marketing in the Fluid Fog


In a world where everything is now interactive and people are the media we no longer know what message consumers receive, how they got them or when. And even it if we did, technoogy is so fluid it would all change by tomorrow. As a result of these two trends colliding, the path from awareness to purchase can take any number of twists and turns - even forward and backward in the classic funnel. All this is perfectly logical - for a single consumer - however, the resulting myriad of paths to purchase must look like a tangled web or a thick fog when looked at in aggregate from the office of the CMO.

So, we are in the age of channel blur where using Red Laser to price check while reading reviews on Yelp and looking for coupon codes in the deleted email folder while standing in a store is the norm. This requires a new approach to marketing because while we may be accountable, we don't have control.

I even use this idea as the main theme in a presentation given to clients and groups...

FluidFog

Content Drives Conversion


For a number of industries - particularly high consideration products - the path to conversion first goes through engagement and consideration. Thus, one marketing objective is to simply get in the prospect's consideration set. Because if you're not there then the admissions, sales or store team has an impossible job to do. And it is interesting content that breaks thru the ozone layer we've all erected to filter out unwanted messages that starts the process. What we don't know a priori is what an individual might find interesting or the method by which she consumes it. In this new world we need to surround the consumer with a variety of content to improve the odds of getting thru. Think quantum marketing where we now have to deal in probabilities rather than the orderly nature of Newtonian marketing of cause and effect.

This leads to content optimization and the need to classify content from an analytic perspective.

We Decide Emotionally, We Defend Rationally


Neuroscience teaches us that decisions can't happen without an emotional component; marketing describes that as aspiration or need. Once made, the decision we explain ourselves based on rational facts. So the speeds and feeds of my digital SLR are used to externalize my choice of a Nikon, not the fact that it reminded me of high school and all the school photographers and A/V staff had them.

The implication is that we need to offer up a variety of content to help faciliate decision making. When presenting this concept, I put it in terms of EPIC Content to reflect four dimensions that we can use to direct creative teams.

  • Emotional - branded content that focuses on the aspiriations or need state of the consumer
  • Promotional - the incentive that is often needed to induce trial
  • Informational - the comparative nature of search, check lists and rational elements
  • Communal - recommendations or other messages conveyed by human interaction (think social technology)

So, maybe we should be thinking more about how to orchestrate content to help people choose.

 

More on my background on the About page.

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