Arkansas Internet Marketing and Arkansas Inbound Marketing Blog

There was a time not too long ago when it was cool to have a website. You didn't need to bother with concerns such as usability, conversion rates (site visitors into customers), and click paths since the internet was nowhere near as competitive as it is today. If you had a site that looked good, you were good to go. Let's face it, if you had an unsightly website you were still pretty good to go. If you actually got some business from your website good. If not, you were sort of pleased with that too. In the beginning a lot of businesses didn't truly think they could profit from their site.

Today the internet supplies substantial options for business sites to expand opportunities, raise their profits and increase their bottom line. For this reason, the internet has actually come to be a fiercely competitive space. In such a competitive atmosphere, you need to understand exactly what works and exactly what does not for your online spend. Without determining KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) you will never give yourself an opportunity to truly understand your online business opportunities.

Determining performance of traditional advertising such as direct mail or post card mailer marketing is achievable but can be somewhat difficult. You can easily say it worked or failed based upon total sales. However, it is difficult to determine the exact information such as what part of the advertisement was efficient, just how frequently individuals considered the advertisement or for how long?

With web analytics, we can easily get a much greater understanding of where and just how successfully you invest your marketing dollars. Web analytics plays a strategic part in determining success and notifying decision makers to susceptibilities within their online efforts. The value of web analytics is not just in its capability to collect and report data.  A key value of web analytics is to assist in determining site visitor behavior that presents a basis for "doubling down" on successful outcomes and driving modifications to the site that increase conversions - site visitors into customers .

For businesses that make use of web analytics in this method, 75% raised brand-new website visitors to their websites, 78% enhanced web site visit duration and 65% increased returning website visitors. 83% raised web page views per visit, 68% raised their conversion prices while 64% increased their number of visits per existing consumer.

The value of analytics is not merely in the measurement of the data. However, web analytics provides site owners the capacity to discover actionable insights and act upon the insights of the data. KPIs should drive action! Every KPI we determine must represent action. Developing an efficient web analytics strategy calls for more thought than cash.

Effective, goal driven Internet advertising is impossible without KPIs. Without KPIs, you are just investing in online advertising because it simply feels like the right thing to do. When investing in online advertising because it feels like the right thing to do without KPI's in Web analytics you may as well be throwing your money into a black hole.  With defined KPI metrics, you can invest cash based on solid data that makes sense. With KPI's you can make educated decisions about your next strategic moves online.

Web analytics is effortless according to every professional that offers internet analytics services. Go to their web sites and they'll inform you loud and clear that internet analytics is just a "stroll in the park". The truth is Internet analytics can be extremely challenging.

KPIs need to be part of your strategy. Web analytics is not an isolated project within a business. Web analytics must be part of your company analytic efforts. Just as you determine your desired sales and income goals, you must determine your web site KPIs.

KPIs are more about site visitors and Internet strategy than any modern technology. Lots of online marketers shy away from web analytics since it seems like something an engineer would appreciate doing. Web analytics is about determining customer behavior. Web analytics is among the most efficient devices to expand your business online.

Web analytics allows you to turn raw data into actionable insights that can lead to better outcomes. Numerous online marketers construct their own advertising programs based on information about another companies’ marketing history. Do not make this mistake! Exactly what worked for another company is not automatically going to work with your company. When you consider your sites web analytics it allows you to hear from your potential customers within the data from your web site.  Build your Internet marketing strategy based on what your web site visitors are telling you they want or don't want in your web analytics data.  This data represents the voice of your customer.  Are you listening?

Do you know what the KPI's are for your web site?  Are you reviewing this critical data monthly to know whether your site is doing what you intended it to do?  What are your desired outcomes or goals for your web site that you can measure with Web analytics?

Contact us at Vertical Studio today to discuss how we can help bring efficiencies to your online spend and increase desired outcomes.

Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor recently proposed a bill that would provide a 25% federal income tax credit for investing in small businesses.  You can see the details of the bill here.

We got a chance to catch up with several leaders in the startup community, both inside and outside Arkansas, and get their thoughts on Senator Pryor's bill.

"Mark Pryor’s American Opportunity Act is not only great news for investors but for the entire startup community as a whole, especially those who have a far greater chance of succeeding if they’re able to secure seed and early stage funding from local angel investors but who might be too early in stage for (or not need) funding from larger venture capital firms.   Our economic future as a country does not solely depend on the outcome and success of giant corporations who have already “made it” and those that encounter no hurdles or challenges in their earliest stages, but also in large part on that of smaller startups that provide tremendous value which may not yet be realized or have not yet made it past a prototype or minimum viable product stage.   These type of businesses and entrepreneurs are critical to our country’s economic success and are extremely important for job creation.  Mr. Pryor’s bill will help encourage investment in these types of early stage businesses and ambitious entrepreneurs, and is nothing but great news for the entire startup community."  

Michael Peace, Angel Investor & Owner of JMP Consulting, LLC

"Senator Pryor's proposed legislation would have a major impact on the future of the American economy by helping to unlock billions of dollars of private capital, and direct that money into the country's entrepreneurial high tech innovation sector. There are currently over 250,000 angel investors in the US, and this legislation has the potential to double that number."

David S. Rose is CEO of Angelsoft (www.angelsoft.net), the official software platform of the Angel Capital Association and the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds. Angelsoft is used by over 30,000 accredited angel investors to collaborate with over 100,000 high-tech entrepreneurs. Mr. Rose is also the founder and Chairman of New York Angels, the leading angel investor network on the East Coast, as well as an active angel investor himself who has helped to fund over 80 high tech startups.

"Most new high wage-rate job growth comes from technology-based start-ups.  Venture capital has become less available and more conservative over the past ten years as traditional exits such as IPOs are scarce at best. Senator Pryor's proposed America Opportunity Act acknowledges that early stage business creators are the critical job creators.  For early stage innovation-based business, angel investors provide the crucial risk capital available from no other conventional source.  Providing a federal equity investment incentive of 25% reduces the considerable downside risk associated with these critically important investments, such that the available investment pool should increase dramatically.  Similar programs have been available and very successful at the state level in a variety of states including Arkansas.  I applaud Senator Pryor's leadership in putting this bill forward, and I sincerely hope this measure receives broad bipartisan support.  Frankly, federal measures such as this are long, long overdue."

Jeff Amerine, PMP

"I think a tax credit for angel investing would spur entrepreneurial growth.  There are many more potential angels out there that have not yet started investing, but have the capital to do so.  The reason they're likely not investing yet is that they don't feel like they understand the process -- and if they do, they recognize that it's hard to produce a positive return as an angel investor.  A meaningful tax credit like the one proposed would likely sway many more angel investors to fund early-stage entrepreneurs."

Dharmesh Shah - Founder of HubSpot and co-author of Inbound Marketing

Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm based out of San Fransisco, announced they acquired Internet Brands for $640 million.  Hellman & Friedman paid roughly 6.4x Internet Brands' 2009 revenue of $99.8 million.  

Interestingly, just last week Accumen Holdings, a start up from Arkansas presented at a Venture Forum in Little Rock.  Certainly, this acquisition in their space can't make them do anything but smile.

I do have one concern about these media companies.  Their processes and algorithms must be awesome.  But, they are playing online business like a pure market.  So what prevents other large (or small) media companies from entering the space.  Are the visitors/clients to/of CarsDirect.com really that loyal to the brand?  If they aren't they'll be easy to draw to the next thing.  Now maybe that is all accounted for.  But it seems like the downward pressure on margins and the lack of personal touch would make it difficult to sustain these businesses over the long haul; much like the old Adsense arbitrage websites.  

All of that aside, and my concerns might be absolutely unwarranted, I would continue to bet on any business that has developed the processes to make a strong entrance in the online business realm.  

UPDATE: Bob Brisco's comments on the deal can be found here.  



This is a little experiment we are going to run this year to see how well search behavior can predict actual outcomes.  We are using Google's Insights for Search tool to watch how people search for the Heisman candidates.  

At this point you can see that Mark Ingram would be the front-runner, but Terrelle Pryor has quite a bit of momentum.

If we wanted to take it a bit deeper we could see which major media markets were searching, since that is where voters are more likely located.  We will dive into that later in the season as the race for the Heisman tightens up.  

Be sure to subscribe to our blog to get weekly updates on monitoring the Heisman race through Google.  

We'll be at the Arkansas Venture Forum on September 15th at the Doubletree Hotel in Little Rock.  

If you'd be interested in learning more about Vertical Studio's solution for growing online businesses with conversion rate optimization or as an investment opportunity we'd be happy to talk to you.  

Okay, so it didn't fire out of the gate.  Clearly not another Netscape... Did you expect it to be?

But a local ad network did just pull in $54 million.  That is a success story; especially in this "dead" IPO market.   

The 'Local' issue is a very significant problem in the current market and ReachLocal has a good solution.  I've often thought about how stronger Local Internet Marketing could play out here in Little Rock, AR.  Needless to say, I think it would be a strong media option.    

Best of luck to ReachLocal.  I would not be surprised if they are hot acquisition target in the very future as Interactive Marketing continues to grow and there are any signs of a economic recovery.  

Twitter CEO, Evan Williams, laid out the rationale for the acquisition pretty clearly:

"Careful analysis of the Twitter user experience in the iTunes AppStore revealed massive room for improvement. People are looking for an app from Twitter, and they’re not finding one.  So, they get confused and give up. It’s important that we optimize for user benefit and create an awesome experience."

There you have it.  Interestingly, earlier this week Fred Wilson said that he wanted developers to stop building apps that just patched holes in the core offering and start building apps around various vertical industries or striving for that "killer app".  Well, Tweetie is a "fill in the gap" app.  I would say this was Twitter's shot at developers saying they mean business; "Build killer apps or we will continue to marginalize you."

But what is the revenue model for Twitter app developers to develop the "killer app"?  To this point, that isn't clear yet.  New developments between Twitter and the development community will be interesting to watch over the near future.  

I first saw this video on the blog of my friends at Future Now.

As I was first watching it, I imagined the beggar as typical online business.  He is set up and occasionally some revenue trickles in.

You can even imagine his business metrics (you have metrics for your online business too).  Possibly, 1 in 100 who passed dropped a coin in his can.  And for the sake of ease, let's say those individual coins were dimes.  So for every 1,000 people who passed by the beggar made $1.00.  Ouch! 

So the new words on his sign made the entire difference!  He went from a conversion rate of 1% to 5% and it looks like he may have also increased his average donation as well.  For the sake of ease, we'll say that patrons began donating two dimes.  Now for every 1,000 who passed by he made $10.00! 

A few simple words made the whole difference. 

How well is your website working for you?  Could an improvement in your copy start to make the difference?