How not to find a life partner

How people go about it- I know exactly the kind of person I want to go forward with. I have 10 options. I am going to talk/meet, analyse if they meet my checklist and respond accordingly. After I have investigate all the options, I will work through the trade offs and choose one.

This is realm of “Known Unknowns”. You know what you want to know about a person, so you seek to find those missing answers. That completes your spreadsheet and you apply some modelling techniques, hoping to find the “best optimized” match. However, things rarely work out like that, do they? Your answer is still elusive.

The actual situation- You know nothing <your name>. You have a far more complex and nuanced problem at hand. You are actually in the realm of “Unknown Unknowns”. You don’t know what you might like.

The only solution is to just sense and respond. If you sense a basic urge to follow through and engage more, do that. Just don’t analyse or compare. Take that leap. Trust your gut. Try honestly. Don’t try to control it. Let it flow. Wait for the patterns to emerge, for the pathway to reveal itself. As you try this multiple times, a breakthrough might happen moving your unordered thoughts to a more orderly system. Then you will know. No risk, no reward. If you don’t play, you never win. Don’t try to analyse your way to a solution. It won’t work. There are just too many variables.

The other alternative is to realize that this is a very chaotic system and if you don’t have the mechanism to handle it, take a top down approach and simply comply with the choice your family makes for you.

Product and Marketing from a CDJ point of view

Purpose of this blog

A 101 for budding marketers. I have tried to give a broad overall overview of the various digital marketing channels vis-à-vis the CDJ. It is important to understand that Marketing isn’t a soloed arm. Marketing isn’t just supposed to ‘get the word out there’ and ‘get traffic’. Yes these are the most important objectives from the top-of-the-funnel viewpoint, however if not done properly the final ROI will still not make sense. In fact in the world today for marketing and product need to be in sync more then ever before. Your Product is also your marketing tool and Your Marketing markets your product.

In fact marketing encompasses all verticals of a business. Customer Service is also good marketing since these customers then advocate your business and get you more customers. All possible touch points a customer has with your business creates a brand perception and that perception then becomes one of the major determining forces for your business success.

With that perspective in mind allow me to take you through the chart.

Top of the chart is Consider:

Consider basically means awareness. Getting the word out. Do people even know you exist?

That happens through 2 mediums:

1.     Paid Media: I am sure you are familiar to the term by now! J It is what it sounds like. You can pay to get your articles publishes in papers, buy billboard space, tv Ads, radio slots, display ads (site ads, Facebook ads)

2.     Owned Media: Your Facebook page, Twitter, Blog where you post good relevant content and people discover your product.

3.    Email Marketing: Ideally should be under Paid Media if you are buying a bulk database. Considerably cheaper then ‘Paid media’ but involves much more work.

Next is Evaluate Business

Consider an online business say e-commerce. You get to know a new e-commerce store from say a display ad. First we need to know if this site can even be relied upon. Will they even deliver the right product? How much time will they take to deliver? How is the support system? It is secure and all right?

This part of evaluation is to ensure you can Trust the brand.

You want to know how many other people trust this brand. Are the reviews very good? Do their products last long? Do they keep their money return promise? This takes time. It is hard work. Consider Flipkart. Primarily, the biggest USP that got it this far is Trust. I trust the brand to get me my stuff in time and I trust that I will get good service if there is a problem. There are other sites too where they sell the same products, some for cheaper. But I will need time to evaluate and know if I can trust them.

Content marketing can come in really handy here. Positive articles from industry experts, good reviews on other sites, good blog pieces give me confidence. Alternatively you can straight away check the site and see who the entrepreneurs are behind this company. Or you might just love the design and content of the site and decide you want to consider them for business. A good example will be www.donebynone.com. Check out their Facebook page and the fancy names they give to their merchandize or the way they showcase their products or the overall design. The user naturally feels welcomed.

Evaluate Merchandize

In this part a user evaluates the final merchandize. The quality and pricing are under the scanner now. Too pricey for its worth and the buck stops there. Sometimes the user likes too many things and cannot decide what to buy eventually not buying anything. Or might just not find the exact merchandize they wanted to buy. Both these problems can be tackled to at least extent.

‘Personalization’ / smart search allows the user reach their requirements quickly. Too many likes on a particular SKU for a user is like a crowd-sourced second opinion.

Or make a personal profile page of each user where all the favorite(d) items are stacked and make this page easily shareable through email or social media. A user can take personal opinion from someone they generally go shopping with or showcase it to the world. Either way, positive responses will propel the user to buy. Also, it brings awareness of your business and merchandize/ services to new people.

Now, lets say a user decides to buy ‘black loafers’ and searches the same on google.com. Your position on Google serps is obviously critical (you want to be in the first 3- eats up 40% of all destination pages) and that too depends on various factors related to your product (Title, URL structure, H1 tag, merchandize related content, user behavior on the site etc.)

Like I said, Product-Marketing integration goes much deeper then most people like to accept.

Evaluate Need-Value Prop-Impulse

A user generally makes the buying decision when there is a need or if the value prop is too good to let go leading to impulse shopping. Of course you need to let the people know about the awesome value prop you are offering. Hence, the display ads with 40-90% discount. Businesses in India often tend to rely on discounts as a strong value prop to drive sales. Especially in the apparel retail industry discounts work wonders! Ask yourself if you really needed to buy all the items on your previous shopping list.

The most important job of any marketer is to know his audience.

Buy-Enjoy-Advocate Cycle

If the overall experience is good- promised delivery time and expected product quality- boosts the confidence of the customer to increase the order value for next time and he/she will also advocate your product. They will tell their friends and get you new customers for free. This part of the traffic coming through peer-to-peer networking is referred to as coming from ‘ Earned Media’. You earned this referral.

Interestingly new users coming through ‘Earned Media’ have a much smaller and faster buying cycle. They already trust your company. As soon as there is a need or whenever you throw a great deal, this new referral user is likely to make a purchase. So, it’s important that your ‘Earned Media’ is amplified.

Make it very easy for your users to express their satisfaction, may be incentivize positive feedback? Make a leader-board of your most loyal customers. Give them badges and special discounts and privileges. Talk to them, listen to their problems, and solve them earnestly.

Popular Marketing Channels

The use of all these channels obviously varies wrt the nature of the business.

SEM & SEO- Conversion rates are higher since the need is already established. If trust for your business is established or if your industry is not monopolistic this gives a faster conversion cycle since it gets a user with established need directly to the page he wants to see.

Email Marketing- Create good Engagement system if email is acquired from the site. Works great to create impulsive purchases. If buying a database, can use for branding purposes also. One of the cheapest forms of customer acquisition. 

Re-Targeting- Ever noticed display ads of a particular site you just visited follow you all over the web. Thats site re targeting. Used to re-engage the user and incite impulse buying and awareness of new launches/ campaigns. 

Affiliate Marketing- Make channel partners and work on CPO basis. Meaning you pay your affiliate partner only if there is a final sale through their traffic sources. Works as a good hedge. 

Content Marketing- Social media, blogs, PR- Useful at all levels of decision making.

Concluding, I will just say that before running any campaign, don't just think of your business and profit centers. Think from a users point of view. More chances you will actually hit that top/ bottom line number. 

Product, UX, Marketing, Sales, Customer Support- How to know who screwed up!

Ok this is going to be a quick post. Using your top level working knowledge of GA you can understand broadly what is simmering underneath.

The first number everyone looks at is the Top Line. How much revenues are coming in.

Top line is simply  - No.of orders * Average order value.
No. of orders = Traffic * Conversion rate


Consider a typical vanilla day, with no big marketing promotions/ discounts running on the site.

1. If the number of orders is a constant ( normalized to other 'such' days) and top line goes down, clearly Sales and Product pricing is the issue. Or probably a new low value popular product cannibalized the sales of other high value products.

2. If the "No of orders" is going down multiple scenarios originate :

A. Conversion Rate Stays The Same

Check Traffic. It is in the RED (wrt what its supposed to be )

The Marketing head probably decided to switch off one or more channels of traffic due to poor ROI. What is good or bad ROI is for another blog topic.

Or may be something did get screwed.

To drill further, check the Traffic - Source Wise.
Leave the rest of the forensics to the Marketing dude.


However, before you make up your mind to fire your Marketing dude it is worthwhile to check out the graph for Direct traffic + Brand organic traffic coming in. If thats on a downslope chances are all other marketing channels are following a similar trajectory.

Direct traffic + Brand search traffic is a good reflection of your Brand pull. This Brand pull is not 'always' in the hands of the Marketing Officer. It might be getting heavily influenced by Customer Support or Delivery or Quality issues or because of heavy competition. Brand then becomes the responsibility of all the business functions.

Generally, first the Return Traffic for "Direct traffic + Brand search traffic"segment will show signs of weakness. As negative word spreads the direct traffic takes an even more steeper slope.

B. Conversion Rate Dropped

Conversion rates are a function of -

- Quality of traffic- Quality refers to your traffic-product fit.- Intention to buy from your store. If the fit is poor you will see higher bounce rates. Controlled by the Marketing dude.


- Quality of the stuff you sell- If your products are not worth buying, people are just not going to buy. Simple. Check the conversion rate for the Returning Traffic only for just Direct & Organic traffic sources. That's a pure indicator.


- Pricing- If your customer segment is very price sensitive, product pricing becomes absolutely crucial. Users check multiple stores for the same or similar products. This becomes tricky for a product manager since you have to balance conversion rates and average order value. As a store manager you want people to buy costlier stuff but stuffing more costlier products also mean less people buying ( aka lower conversion rate)
Check the conversion rate for the New Traffic. Again, for just direct and organic traffic sources. That should be a good indicator.


-Ease of purchase- If users have to spend a lot of time finding what they want, they will get tired and bounce off. This probably would not be an overnight change, but overtime this can be very significant.
This is where product personalization, recommendation engine & site search robustness come in.
Directly impacts conversion rates.


-Social Elements- Adding features that  social influence, urgency, social proof, etc is known to engage customers further and develop brand trust.


-Customer Support- Keep a regular check on the Customer C-Sat and D-Sat score. One of the most crucial and revealing number. If business numbers are not helping enough to make sense of the current situation it is best you call the customers themselves ! Check the support@yourdomain.com and feedack@yourdomain.com emails. There is a good chance the solution to all your problems already lie there. They usually are...

Application of Interest Graphs- Uncovering The Mystery

For the uninitiated let me try to explain very quickly what they mean. 

The Interest Graph is a representation of the relationship between people and things.

In general, the ’things’ are things of interest to the people or things people care about. Actively or Passively, Passionately or as a Fringe interest. They can be- celebrities, brands, objects, topics, events, industry, people, anything really.

                

This concept probably arose in contrast to the Social Graph, which is a representation of the relationship between people and other people, as popularized by Facebook .

                                              

                   

It’s often a 1-way relationship or an asymmetrical relationship as opposed to a Social Graph which is typically a 2-way "friend" relationship.

  

Also, now the talk of the town has become something called the Taste Graph.  

Taste Graph is just a way of saying “refined interests”.  Saying something like you like sports, movies or music is a broader Interest graph, but saying you like Tennis and Dark Humor Movies and Rock Music gives more depth to your Interests aka a Taste Graph. You can ofcourse go deeper and say you like Nadal and Tarantino and Jim Morrison, refining it further.

Ok. So what’s the fuss about?

Knowing what you are really interested in can be put to a lot of use. Useful to You! 

Creating such an engine however requires a lot of heavy thinking and designing rather complex algorithms and tree structures. 

Using this data to give relevance to users is not an easy job and certainly not cheap. Not always accurate too. 

However, in most cases the juice is worth the squeeze. 

Here’s why:

1. Digital marketing- Creating awareness about products you might be interested in based on your browsing history. Based on your interest graph/ taste graph, ads can be served that are more relevant to you and have a higher probability of catching your attention. Hence generating better CTR's and better ROI.

2. Product Recommendations- Amazon is the best example. The site has all the elements of the equation: your purchase history, product search history and even product correlations (people who bought this also bought that).

Note how in each of the above cases you don’t explicitly mention your likes and dislikes. The system "learns" based on your behavior and passes recommendations. This is a method of what is called 'implicit data collection'. 

On the other hand asking for your preferences and then personalization is a way of collecting data 'explicitly'. 

However, using explicit information from Social Networks to provide recommendations might prove tricky as the bio created might be a projected image instead of a true image.

Other Interesting Applications:

3. Content Discovery: There has been a lot of movement in this category with regards to personalized recommendations .What news topics might interest you, which songs you are likely to like, which movies you are likely to enjoy and all of this with a fair bit of accuracy.  

However there are some significant challenges here. What if they don’t have enough data about you to make good recommendations. Even if they did, there is a risk of the signal being merely incidental or the recommendations thereafter getting too repetitive.

Maybe, they should just ask you. Also, you have no reason to project an image to an algorithm! Companies such as Hunch have attempted to address this by asking users to share interests explicitly, with the incentive that users will get more accurate recommendations in return. 

However, this approach has some psychological hurdles. The amount of data that one has to volunteer in order to get a decent recommendation or deal is so high that he/she might as well just search for the product directly. The return on the effort put does not fit in. No ROE if you will. 

What can therefore be a high enough incentive to collect user data by directly asking them?

Welcome to the World of 'Social Discovery'

In the easiest of languages 'Social Discovery' means one user finding out relevant information about another. 

Can two Interest graphs talk to each other and activate 'Social Discovery'. For instance- 

4. Employee - Employer Discovery: An employer is always interested to hire that perfect guy with the right skill sets and the right culture fit. 

Most individuals as we know are mostly, at least, passively looking for a new job. 

Some not happy with the pay, some unhappy with the work hours, some with the work culture, most cant stand their immediate bosses and a hundred other reasons. A research conducted says that in the services sector that number stands at a staggering 83% !! Sorry state of affairs- yes. But does this also represent a big opportunity to match the right employer to the right employee. Clearly, a keyword search based system to match doesn’t seem to be working out that well.

Its probably time for companies to start creating their own Interest graphs and publishing it to attract the best fit talent. For individuals to start creating their own about.me pages with information about their professional (Linkedin) AND their lighter side (Twitter handle) 

Can systems then map the signals present in the two Interest graphs and send auto suggestions...!!

Can this finally mark the end of the ubiquitous resume !

5. Dating & Matrimony - 

Probably the most romantic use of Interest graphs can be to solve the biggest problem of them all. Finding the right life partner!! Now we are really talking! 

Certainly a product built on the Interest graph fundamentals seems to have the best chance of driving those initial conversations, help break the ice between the individuals, so crucial for the success for any product trying to ignite the chemistry!

Btw, the social graph layer to back identities might prove mighty useful here.

Well, Leaving the rest of possible applications to imagination and discovery.

Like it or not, the web Is changing every single day. It keeps on growing bigger and we keep on getting more addicted and dependent on it. The internet needs direction. We need to start moving from searching the internet to using it. 

The personalized web some argue is going to be the future of the web. And the personalized web is actually just one interest graph away..