Internet Marketing's Time ScentTrail Marketing

2013 Internet Marketing and Time

Time is different online. Inside the most dynamic content network the world has ever created there is only one time - NOW. As I discussed in How Entropy Is Creating Web 3.0 Under Our Noses the idea of past or future are difficult concepts in Internet marketing. This post is about how to understand Internet time if you are a ?marketer, how time is different online and how that difference should impact strategy development and plans for 2013.

Time's Missing Arrow - No Metric Stands Alone

When time exists in one state, NOW, time's arrow is missing. Past and future exist in predictive ways, but only in the abstract. Past patterns are not guaranteed to repeat. Read Taleb's Black Swan for more on our tendency to create patterns even when none exist. The archeology web analytics provide isn't useless as much as fought with danger (lol).

Five to seven Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) defining macro and micro measurements are critical. Web analytics are different than mere statistics because web KPIs are alive and tied together. Think of a Chinese finger puzzle. On one side is Traffic and on the other conversion. If you see abnormal activity in either metric without a corresponding move in the sister metric trouble is brewing.

How metrics need to be tied for your business is hard to say (varies by business), but that no metric stands alone is an important Internet marketing truth for all businesses.

Time's Missing Arrow - Real Time Is Better

Once you suspend past and future you are left with a rolling NOW. It is no mistake Google added the ability to see who is on your website and doing what NOW into Google Analytics. Google is a huge pointer. When they do something such as make real time analytics available assume it is important and a harbinger of things to come.

The closer your metrics are to what is happening NOW the better. The faster you can shape your approach to the content and impressions you put into the marketplace the sooner the top of your website's conversion funnel is tied to the bottom.

The Conversion Connection

You must, as soon as humanly possible, tie what you create to what is providing favorable response. Conversion can take many forms such as:

• Newsletter Signups.
• View additional pages.?
• Stay on your website longer than average.?
• Return to your website.?
• Buy something.?

The conversion funnel is a river. No matter where visitors join your conversion funnel you want them to move toward a positive action and then another positive action and then money. Even money has Internet alternatives such as:

• Inbound Links.?
• Embedding a video or a widget.?
• Writing a blog post about your website.
• Commenting on something on your website.?
• Reviewing your website or business.?

The Follower Conundrum?

Many say how damaging it is to watch your social media marketing follower and ReTweet counts. I disagree. I use following, Retweeting, LIKING and SHARING to indicate speed of adoption. Watch these numbers long enough and you will be able to predict the half life of a piece of content (the time it takes to determine half of what the content will do on the social web).

Once your intuition comfortably predicts a piece of content's future you will know if you need to keep posting or have earned a pause. Watch your social share trend lines to understand the types of content that spike the top of the funnel (pour new visitors in). Next tie what is working at the top to what is converting at the bottom and you've achieved what every content marketer is looking for. You've solved, at least for a moment, the Chinese finger puzzle that is TIME Online.

Next: How Internet Marketing Layers Time

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Thanks, Marty

Source: http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/12/internet-marketings-time.html

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