A Cool Tool Inside Google Analytics

Through numerous conversations over the past couple years I have come to the realization that there are different levels of sophistication in the sales and marketing community when it comes to Google Analytics. This recent blog post by James Constable explains what he calls a "hidden gem" within Google Analytics. Instead of relying on number tables to try to analyze the effectiveness of your campaigns, you can create easy to analyze charts to tell the story. It's true, a picture is worth a thousand words. Constable uses print screens to walk you through the process. His post is a great read for anyone using Google and Google Analytics.

As long as we are on the subject of web analytics, 7 Ways Web Analytics Can Improve Your Marketing is worth a quick read as well.

Analyzing YouTube Video Stats

CJ Bruce offers a comprehensive overview of the YouTube analytical tool, YouTube Insight.One of the neat things he points out is that you can gather a tremendous amount of intelligence about your own video performance BUT you also have the capability of looking at the stats of any other YouTube video-- including those of your competition.

Online Video 53 Times More Likely Than Text For First Page Google Ranking

That is what Forrester Research recently found and that is one of the reasons I bring up video in every conversation I have with clients and prospects. Many in the Online space believe that over the next 3 to 5 years video will be more pervasive than text. One of the other major reasons marketers are embracing Online video is that there is not another weapon in the marketing arsenal that cuts across all aspects of the customer life cycle. Video can be used at each and every stage. It helps generate awareness and interest in the early stages. It can be used in promotions and as an influencer in the purchasing stage and finally it can be used to maintain customer loyalty. In addition to all of the above video is the single best medium to engage and delight our target audience--the scientific/analytical world. It is fully measurable and a great way to generate sales leads.

Immediate E-Mail Follow Up--It's Imperative !

Marketing-guru and author Sally Hogshead likes to say that humans have the attention span of a goldfish---9 seconds. With that lack of attention span in mind,what is the optimum time for e-mail follow up in the lead cultivation process. How about immediately! One way to measure prospect engagement is to look at the click-through rate of a specific e-mail.Given how hard it is to generate " good-leads" it is amazing how just a little delay in our response to these leads can effect what happens next.

This recent blog post by Mike Volpe of Hubspot documents the decline in click through rates for an e-mail lead-nurturing campaign over multiple days after a website lead conversion. In other words, each and every day delayed in follow-up could result in 3 times less of a CTR compared to immediate follow up. These numbers really bring out the importance of staying on top of the lead nurturing process. Tardy follow up can be deadly.

I think there is one other lesson to be gleamed from the stats. If roughly 7%, at best, of our leads are engaging with our nurturing messaging is it really possible to have too many good qualified sales leads? One of the messages I get is that we all need more leads.

Crooks,Clowns, Cronies and Con Men--A Portrait of our Federal, State, and Local Political Leadership

I had some time this past weekend to catch up on my current events reading. It might appear from the title of this post that I am being unfair to those in the political class. I am sure we all know some hard working, decent people who have given their professional lives to politics and government, but on balance I think we are stuck with a bunch of sad sacks, political party be damned. I would even go a step further and add business leaders to the 4-C moniker. Over the past several years I have witnessed some pathetic examples of business leadership. It sure is sad, but we truly are reaping what has been sown.The articles highlighted below are just things that popped over the past couple days. A potpourri of craziness.

Exhibit 1-- Denver School System raped by bankers: Superintendent gains promotion to the US Senate.

There are multiple issues in this story. How did the Denver School System get in a situation whereby they were staring at a $400 million unfunded liability. The School Board's solution was to enter into a derivative "swaps" agreement with JP Morgan. The end results of their financial efforts: they still face a $400 million shortfall and still owe another $400 million because of the Morgan deal blew up in their face. The best part though is the guy that orchestrated the deal, the Superintendent of Schools at the time, Michael Bennet was eventually appointed to fill a vacant US Senate seat. He has the full support of the Obama Administration as he faces his constituents in a Democratic primary today. His explanation for the fiasco, "Nobody could have seen the financial crisis coming". Right

Exhibit 2--Matt Tiabbi skewers the players and pawns of both parties in the fiasco that is FinReg. I think it might have been Karl Denniger who pointed out that the Glass-Steagall Act was 40 pages and we would have been better off just reenacting it rather than wasting time with the new 2000 or so page piece of garbage that we are now stuck with.As Taibbi so skillfully points out, you would have to be worse than naive to believe that the cast of characters in DC are working for "we the people". The plutocracy is getting taken care of across the board. I knew Mitch McConnell was in the tank, but shame on Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Blanche Lincoln and a host of others.

Exhibit 3 -- This story boggles the mind. How about an August surprise where the Obama Administration orders Freddie and Fannie to forgive the mortgage debt on "underwater mortgages"--loans where more is owed than the home is worth. I don't even have a comment to offer on this one.

I'll leave the issue of massive unfunded pension liabilities out of this rant. That's for another day. Something to ponder, given all the problems we face at the municipal, state,and federal level plus $3 trillion ( yes TRILLION) of unfunded liabilities staring us in the face, why would anyone put their neck on the line and seek an elected position in government. I hate to be cynical, but even those who flat out suck seem to do well financially once they do their government "service". It's the new fast track to wealth in our economic system.

The Sad State of Our Political Affairs

There is not much to say. I fired up my computer and was confronted with this story about Charlie Rangel's Ethics Committee problems. ( my home page is the NyTimes) There isn't any commentary necessary. It's another sad example of a "Public Servant" who really isn't a public servant--- shame on me, I always respected Charlie.

I thought I'd take a quick peak at Mish's site to see what I missed in the economic world. It was Opening Day at Saratoga after all. Right after reading about Rangel I come across this about the political operatives in Bell, Ca. and all I can offer is that it is almost impossible to have any faith in our current structure. I am open to any suggestions. Maybe it's possible to label these two stories as "bad apple outliers" but I fear that that is wishful thinking.I quoted the Psalms last post, why not Ecclesiastes this time:

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief."

I might not put Hemingway in the same category as Scripture, but this line sums it up just as well:

"Was there ever a people whose leaders were as truly their enemies as this one?" - Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the BELL Tolls, Ch. 13

Paul Krugman's Latest-- A Misplaced Faith in the System?

Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize for Economics and I don't. The argument could be made that he knows a hell of a lot more about economic issues than I do but after his Op-ED piece today lambasting the FED and Ben Bernanke I am wondering whether Professor Krugman and his economist brethren have an overblown faith in the economic system and in the powers of Central Bankers and policy makers to effect the economic system.

Krugman's article criticized Bernanke and the FED for not going the extra mile in combating the problems in the economy. Krugman believes and he points out that Bernanke also clings to this belief that the FED does have extra tools at its' disposal to fight the deflationary spiral the economy is facing. For example.

" It can buy longer-term government debt. It can buy private-sector
debt. It can try to move expectations by announcing that it will keep short-term rates low for a long time. It can raise its long-run inflation target, to help convince the private sector that borrowing is a good idea and hoarding cash a mistake.
Nobody knows how well any one of these actions would work. The
point, however, is that there are things the Fed could and should be doing, but isn’t. Why not? "

I stopped "officially" studying Econ after my sophomore year at Colgate. A semester of Macro and trying to get my head around the Edgeword Box Diagram drove me over the edge. Economics is called the "dismal science" but labeling it a science is inaccurate and an attempt by those who practice it to elevate the intellectual importance of their craft.

It really isn't rocket science. Our economy went through a multi-year process whereby all we did was stimulate it. We went from .com boom to post 9-11 zero % financing to house flipping, to house as ATM consumption. We stimulated ourselves to "pull-forward" demand for probably the next decade. I don't know what these prize winning economists don't get about that. We are in a spot where there is nothing left to stimulate. A substantial % of US homeowners owe more on their home than it is worth. We have a debt hang-over on a personal level, a local government level, a state government level and the Federal government level yet somehow good Professor Krugman is looking to convince us that borrowing more is the answer to our problems.

Krugman and his crew worship at the altar of a false god. For whatever reason they have "faith" in the wisdom of policy and policy-makers. As he stated in today's column:

Like other economists, myself included, Mr. Bernanke was deeply disturbed by
Japan’s stubborn, seemingly incurable deflation, which in turn was “associated
with years of painfully slow growth, rising joblessness, and apparently
intractable financial problems.” This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to
happen to an advanced nation with sophisticated policy makers.

King David had something to say about this many years ago. Krugman's misplaced faith reminded me of it--Psalm 146:3-4. We might all be better off keeping the giant slayers' words in mind as we continue to listen to prescriptions offered by our monetary princes.

Put not your trust in
princes,

nor in the son
of man,
in whom there is no help.
4
His breath goeth
forth,

he returneth to his
earth;
in that very day his thoughts perish.