The Potential of Web Analytics and Why We Love Cookies

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

I don’t often have the need to read about — let alone want to celebrate — an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulation change. Thank goodness there are more interesting things in life.  But last month was an exception.

In case you missed it, federal agencies conducting social marketing and public education campaigns with a web component now have an improved opportunity to analyze how their campaigns are working.  Thanks to the OMB, Federal websites can deploy “persistent cookies.”

Not to be confused with the insatiable Cookie Monster within us all, “persistent cookies” are actually pieces of text that are stored by a web browser on your computer’s hard-drive.  Software can synthesize this information about your computer’s web activity and that of other computers.  By tracking cookies, collectively, across all computers, we can assess how a marketing campaign is working digitally and determine how to improve our marketing efforts.

Web analytics is a term used to describe just that: the measurement and analysis of digital channels (websites, social media and email) for the purpose of understanding and improving an organization’s online user experience.  It is, nowadays, an online marketing best practice, compulsory for commercial marketers. It should be equally important for federal and social marketing campaigns.

While commercial marketers worry about how they fill their online shopping carts, Federal agencies and social marketing campaigns have an even bigger worry.  They need to worry about their progress in moving people towards behavior change: a long and complicated journey. Relative to the shopping cart, there may be many more “clicks” along the path of building awareness, changing attitudes and generating action.  It’s good to know what’s happening along the way, address what works and doesn’t work and make sure that every visitor is at least a little closer to your behavior goal, not frustrated by a failed website visit or disappointing experience.

More specifically, if you are a Federal agency using web components as part of a social marketing and public service campaign, what exactly might you learn with web analytics?   Here’s a just a short sampling:

· You can track the trend in overall penetration of a social marketing campaign.  Top-line web analytics metrics like website visits are a proxy for the reach of a campaign (especially one that consistently mentions web addresses in the creative).

· You can learn what parts of the website are getting used, how they work to further engage people or result in them leaving the site.  Web analytic reports show common entry and exit pages (where people start and end their visits) and the navigation paths in between.

· You can figure out which media or outreach channels are working for you by driving traffic to the website and ranking their effectiveness. Web analytics helps you to compare visits and conversions from, say, social media versus email, and within the social media channel Facebook versus Twitter. (You can even track offline efforts that use vanity URLs to drive viewers to the website.)

· You can find out how to improve visitors’ experiences and drive them beyond the home page into key areas of the site.  For example, the web analytics technique “split testing” (where different visitors are shown slightly different content) can compare the impact of specific messages and improve landing pages.

As a case in point, Noral used our public health client’s web analytics data to measure the number of monthly visits before the campaign, then compared subsequent efforts against that baseline.  The software’s reports also helped us choose — based on metrics like bounce rate, time per visit, and pages per visit — the best landing pages for web surfers who encountered the campaign online via its syndication feed (RSS), social media profiles, and search engine marketing (SEM).  To validate the campaign’s investment in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, we performed custom analysis of web analytics data to confirm that visitors enticed by search engine ads were engaging with website content as hoped.

If you’re not using web analytics, the OMB has given the green light.   A good first place to start is by checking out your options for web analytics software, such as Google Analytics, WebTrends Analytics OnDemand, and Omniture SiteCatalyst.  But after you‘ve read all you can about cookies (and had a few  to digest), check out Noral’s web capabilities and our GSA contract to deliver web-based marketing services to Federal clients.

Posted in Government, Health Marketing, Marketing, Sectors, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media, Uncategorized, Web, Websites | 1 Comment »

Top of the radio hit parade: Health PSAs

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Here we go with the top issues of the radio community service directors this week: the most mentioned and highest-ranking concerns from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico, hot off the charts of the National Media Survey of Radio Community Service Directors!

Getting right down to the nitty gritty on the hit parade, the numero-uno chart topper is the health of radio listeners.  This was the consensus of the 100+ radio community service directors surveyed across the United States.  Health came in as the most important specific issue for stations to support and the issue they most wanted our government to take on with public service advertising.

After mentioning diseases affecting their communities, radio media directors flipped their focus to human behaviors associated with health.  These ranged from a person acting on a prevention-related service (e.g., vaccinations) to modifying lifestyle choices (e.g., eating healthy).

The findings underscore the very consequential role that public service advertising plays with respect to health.  While human behavior is hard to change, it is possible, and public service campaigns are a proven means to that end.

But that’s not where the positive news end.  The hits just keep on coming!  Not only do radio media directors believe public service advertising is very or extremely useful, 12% project a rise in the time allotted for PSAs.  A further 82 out of 97 predict that PSA time will remain stable, even in these continued tough economic times.

So, in the immortal words of Casey Kasem, “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars. And keep your radio tuned right where it is.”

Along with listening to America’s Top 40, we now have another reason to stay tuned:  Our radio stations are committed to solving the health and social issues affecting our lives and those we love.  That’s a “hit” that’s likely to be holding steady on our charts for quite some time to come.

Posted in Health, Health Marketing, Market Research, Marketing, PSAs, Research, Sectors, Social Marketing, Social Media, Surveys | 1 Comment »

A New Year’s Resolution for Health Communications?

Friday, January 8th, 2010

It is no surprise that health-related behaviors, such as quitting smoking or losing weight, top the New Year resolution lists. We all know that losing weight and not smoking are two of the most important lifestyle changes a person can make to help effectuate long-term health. Unfortunately, such important decisions to improve one’s health often fizzle out a few weeks after the New Year’s toast.

Successfully changing and sustaining a personal health behavior – even when we desperately want to – is extremely difficult. Many factors in our day-to-day life trigger old habits and weaken our most gung-ho resolve.

Health experts advise us to start thinking before the new year arrives about what it will really take to make a change and follow through. They tell us to plan ahead before starting a new diet or throwing that pack of cigarettes away. They suggest that we tap into the supports, motivations, and tactics it will take to succeed. But even with a well-thought-out plan and the best of intentions, some of us still fail.

If a person is convinced and wholly committed to changing a behavior at the start of a new year, yet still struggles to follow through, imagine what many health promotion efforts face? Even though it seems common sense to want to live longer and be healthier, health promotion efforts often need to address audiences who may not want to change, or believe that the change will prove useful, or even understand the relevance of the suggested behavior change to their own lives.

We are so eager to get to our goals, even as health communicators, that it’s tempting to “get going” on communication strategies before “digging deep” to understand where the audience is coming from. But just like health experts tell us to plan ahead, social marketers should likewise take a look at external and internal influences on a desired behavior — before developing an intervention. External factors such as policies, access, and skills can hinder or motivate change. Internal factors such as knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in ability to adopt a new behavior are equally important.

Some of the questions social marketers ask, before developing campaigns and programs, flush out the complex worlds people live in day to day: What does the audience perceive as barriers to change? What do they identify as potential benefits for targeted behavior? Are there competing behaviors or external forces that may create a hurdle? What will those who influence them (such as a spouse or friends) think about the change?  Will they support it or thwart it? What messaging and channels do they identify as most effective in helping them change and sustain a behavior?

Sticking to New Year’s resolutions is almost impossible if we don’t know and understand ourselves, and the environment we live in, pretty darn well. This rings true for health communication campaigns and programs as well. Let’s ring in 2010 by making a resolution to truly understand what influences, motivates, and supports our audience, as the key to successfully changing behavior.

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Posted in Health, Health Marketing | No Comments »