I started a business. It made me want to drink copious quantities, smoke myself into oblivion and hit my head against a brick wall. Instead I wrote a blog.
Site Launch Day: 20
User Count: 33
Going right: Managed to wangle this blog onto the Huffington Post. Oh. My. God. Someone up there likes me.
Going wrong: Not really anywhere near going 'viral'. Facebook (or facemash as it was known then) attracted 450 visitors in first 4 hours.
Comment: Never had this as a KPI in the first place, but wouldn't have minded if it happened.
I've tossed the word viral out on several occasions. But apart from telling you that what I want is for my business to grow through referrals, word of mouth and gaming I haven't put any goals or statistics to it - in public I mean. I do of course have a fantastic excel model behind the business plan on which I have lovingly run many, many sensitivity analyses (as well as margin analyses, cost behavior analyses and every other kind of analysis you can think of). Financial Analysis in excel is after all one of my passions.
But I notice that in this forum, I have been curiously quiet as far as stats go. In fact last night I was even - shock, horror - accused of dumbing down my expertise (he used the words "your charming blog" but I knew what he REALLY meant).
I guess the main reason is obvious. If I don't achieve them, this means PUBLIC FAILURE. (Cue: Blinking green neon lights in capital letters, in Anthony Perkin's high pitched motherly squeal).
There are several KPIs for my business from project development milestones, to number of reviews, to number of products to number of users, and conversion rates of users to clients and consultants over the next months. But let's start with an easy one. Goals for August:
- 50 Beta testers
- 50 reviews (people can submit several)
- Client Conversion rate 5%
- Consultant conversion rate 5%
Strengths: I know far more than 100 people. Am not asking them to spend any money. Feedback so far is very positive. Almost hit conversion rates for both already for number of users. only need to keep linear trend. Above s-curve user growth curve for the time being.
Weaknesses: I get the impression people are starting to feel bullied by my relentless tweeting/emailing/pushing. I certainly am. Lacking a presence to diffuse news stateside. If growth slows, may have to revise s-curve prediction outwards.
Opportunities: Google+ hasn't seen much of me yet....plus they're the cool people. Probably up for a little beta testing. Maybe will also go back to yahoo to find out what's up there. Time to sort out many bugs and get more feedback on the site and how people see it working for them.
Threats: Could be perceived as a spammer on g+ too early before building up a relationship with my connections. Gaming functionality not inbuilt yet so risk of losing initial enthusiasm.
Am exhausted with the amount of social media and self promotion I have to do and already suffering from the common English disease fearpeoplethinkI'mtoobigformybootsophobia
"Puffington" said my boyfriend. "Is that famous then?"
"Yes. Huh-uffington. Huff-ington." I huffed loudly on the Huff part. "Go away and look at it and then come back and congratulate me." I said.
"Am not surprised they said yes to it." said my boyfriend after having gone away and made me a congratulatory cup of Yorkshire Gold. As near to champagne as I'm likely to get for a while. As a programmer he understands far more what I do than my ex-husband - who was a personal trainer - did, but nevertheless thinks that I use far too many superfluous terms in describing it. That word was for you dear, look it up.
"Your diary is far more accessible than Investment Impact, but it seems as if you are becoming a full time blogger."
"In the short term." I said. "But already the Huffington Blog and the Urban Times are driving more traffic to my site than LinkedIn."
I'm guessing it's because the people who read Urban Times & Huffington really want to read it instead of LinkedIn where they are bombarded with constant updates of people trying to grab attention. Lesson, you can drag a horse to water but you cant make him drink.
Click here to beta test. But only if you want to.
Site Launch Day: 21
User Count: 35
Going right: Huffington exposure has driven traffic stats far higher
Going wrong: Have been told by Huffington Post that am too prolific. Have advised me to combine several posts into one so it doesn't appear as if they are "favoritizing" me. Also amount of time spent on site has decreased. Huffington is clearly blanket publicity.
Comment: As far as publicity goes Urban Times far more targeted. Doubtful if people will now scroll to the end of Huffington Posts. More and more admin required to manage writing side of Biz Dev. Not really complaining tho...
It's the start of every morning. The anticipation as the analytics web page loads to show me whether my ever increasingly desperate touting has gained me more visitors than the day before. Like anxiously watching your inbox for that post-3rd interview job offer to come through, it creates me more stress than it should really merit. What's done is done, I can't change the past. But unfortunately yesterday I found out you can watch the stats in real time.
08.50...6 visitors (only 50 more to go to til I beat yesterday's visitor count)
08.51...6 visitors (only 50 more to go to til I beat yesterday's visitor count)
08.52...6 visitors (only 50 more to go to til I beat yesterday's visitor count)
Well, you see how my morning passes fairly slowly.
In an effort to propel my visitor count ever higher, I have succumbed to the Google AdWords lure. Because frankly I know nothing about Sales & Marketing and clearly they do. A LOT.
(You may well ask, actually what DO I know, since I have listed so many things I don't know. Among the short list, I can cook a mean Boeuf Bourguignon - but that doesn't help me get customers. My boyfriend also says I'm pretty awesome in other ways, and although this might be more likely to get me customers, it's not really up for the selling - unless my website goes very poorly).
Most dishearteningly, despite my buying keyword searches, "Consultancy Firms", "Financial Analysis" and the like...my AdWords venture has so far resulted in this:
And have paid 21 dollars for that. So today, I am going to concentrate on those people who are theoretically registered with my site but haven't taken advantage of their free credits. Conversion from the apathetic. Reasons why
1. They think its a gimmick and I will spam them (partially true, there's no newsletter, but I can still write to you)
2. They are growing tired of the constant use of the word FREE in block capitals when it doesn't really mean FREE.
3. They are cunningly disguised spambots.
I can do nothing about the third, but for the first and second, I blame Dan Ariely. His book Predictably Irrational (marvelous, if you happen to like behavioral economics like me) told the whole world that the word FREE was a great tool for marketers. But it's been overused so much that people have wised up to the fact that - helloooo - there's no such thing as a free lunch. For a FREE download, your email address is mine. Gotcha. So just to experiment, I posted a link on LinkedIn putting a time limit on the free-ness of something. Apparently this creates urgency and unprecedented desire in something previously "meh". I'll let you know the response rate.
The thing is, apart from the interest in conducting an experiment the 'free' thing really does work empirically. I've seen it. And by empirically, I mean of course...my boyfriend. Who finds it absolutely impossible to refuse anything that is free. Especially birthday cake when dished out at work.
Unfortunately, the hypothesis therefore becomes - freebies work when they
a) Have no obvious clear ulterior motive. Obvious being the key word.
or
b) Serve some self interest already present.
or
c) Evoke delicious childhood memories.
Not sure that financial analysis, strategy and marketing consultancy can take advantage of the third.