AnaBlog

There is an increasing need for financial services in the retirement market. The size of the baby boomer segment and the value of its assets have made possible a big market with revenue opportunities for financial services companies.

This market has been growing in the past years and many companies offers services for retirement plans. In these days, is important to enhance the service using digital media. The mobile and use of web tools is crucial for a marketing campaign for any retirement financial service company.

A good example of a company that has been including Digital Marketing is Ameriprise Financial. If you go to the webpage, http://www.ameriprise.com/default-home.asp, it has a well structured content design with links that connect you to any financial service information required. It includes some of the Web 2.0 concept tools explained in a previous blog. The user can connect it with its social media platforms: Facebook, Linkdin or Twitter.  Also, the company developed an application, easy to use, that helps the user to find any financial advisor, manage the accounts, find an ATM or contact the company for help. In addition, the webpage includes related information like stock prices data and some thought leadership, publicizing articles related to retirement plans.

I searched in youtube for the word “retirement” and the first video that I found was about the retirement services in Ameriprise. Also the link got me to the Ameriprise channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Ameriprise. This is a sample of how active companies must be in order to communicate its services using youtube, or any useful digital media to generate advertising. These videos have the advantage of no-time limit. Moreover, it can communicate the service in a detailed way.

All this web tools help the user to have a better experience with the company and the services. Companies must include digital marketing services and activities to get closer to their consumers and take advantage of the digital web tools. 

One of the most important moments for the internet is the surge of the Web 2.0. This concept has evolved from a previous one called Web 1.0. But what is Web 2.0 and why is so important? To explain this, first we have to understand what Web 1.0 is.

Web 1.0 is the concept that defines a direct interaction between producer and consumer through internet. This interaction only goes from producers to consumers sharing static information. It has a top-down approach where users can only view web pages but they cannot reflect on its content. The information is not dynamic; most of the users act as consumers of content and the information is closed to external editing.

Web 1.0 evolved to Web 2.0. This change opened the door for the information sharing. Web 2.0 uses the World Wide Web as a platform not only for sharing information, but also for interoperate based on a user-centered design. This evolution also brought numerous forms of interaction. Some examples are social networking, blogs, video sharing, web applications, wikis, storage data and mashups. 

This information sharing system changed the view of internet as a platform of communication. It gave power to the consumers, not only to view information from producers, but also to make comments about products and services, to give their opinion and share it to their community. This changed the way producers communicate with consumers and how they create products for the market. Everything started to be consumer and user centered.

Advertising evolved from being just static information to include the cost per click. Users can decide if they want to find out more about the offering. Internet and social networking became an important media for companies.

After this emergence of Web 2.0 on the internet revolution, started the phenomenon of Social Media. Facebook is the leader of social networking. This represents another important moment for the history of the web. Social Media allows people to stay connected and share day-to-day information, becoming the most popular online activity. People use social media platforms to share videos, pictures, news and any other event. This was a consequence of the open concept of interactive sharing information.

Web 2.0 is also evolving to a new concept called Web 3.0. In this case, the information becomes more personal. Web 1.0 was passive interacting with static information, Web 2.0 is active based on intelligence shared and now Web 3.0 is about artificial intelligence. Web 3.0 introduces the concept of semantic web. According to the World Wide Web Consortium, “The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries.” Computers record what humans are doing.  

The evolution of internet is a continuous process. Web 1.0, Web 2.0, now Web 3.0 and it will continue changing. All these changes have given the power to the consumer to redirect the emergence of new ways of communication. It started with the need of having access to information. However, it evolved very fast as a way of interaction and the future is known. 

Dinner time

We have shared lots of dinners. We don’t have a TV so during dinner time we used to watch YouTube videos.

One thing Argetineans are good at is advertising campaigns. I found some of them really funny. Here are some of my favorite videos we used to watch. I hope you like them!

(sorry for the missed translation)

Using Bad Words

After a while, I noticed that Argentineans speak with a lot of bad words. It is not something on purpose, is just the way they speak. For me was a little shocking the first time he told me: “Sos una hija de &^*%%%” (You are a son of a &^%) WTF?! We were laughing and I didn’t take it bad. I told him: “Respeta!” (Respect me!). It never happened. He kept calling me that way… 

In Venezuela we say bad words, but never so strong and direct.

One time he called me “Shegua” or “Yegua” in Spanish. The right translation is the women of the horse. For me it doesn’t mean anything different and of course I thought it was a bad word. He tried to explain me that it was not and whatever… I think I never understood it right.

I cannot mention all the words, but it is something you have to get used to or in some cases you end up talking like that. 

I decided to take the Digital Marketing course because as a marketer, in these days, knowledge about the digital explosion is crucial.

My first approach started reading Web Analytics 2.0 of Avinash Kaushik. This is a fascinating book, full of interesting insights about how to analyze a website and online behaviors.

The book has several technical terms that are important to understand when talking about Web analytics. The first definition refers to the strategy of the Website. It is mentioned as the Trinity Strategy. It was quoted from a previous book and it is structured in three key elements: Behavior, Outcomes and Experience. To manage a Website successfully, you have to use several metrics to measure its performance through these three key elements. 

The first element of the Trinity Strategy is the Behavior that the users adopt when clicking in your site. In order to understand the behavior, you can get a general sense counting the number of clicks you get into your website. However, it is not enough to say it is good; you have to go and look beyond that. There is not a simple metric that could help to easily analyze this behavior. Avinash mentions that it could be analyzed through other metrics like Customer Engagement. Some people used to measure Engagement with the time a person spends on a website. Again, you can not make that assumption. The quality of the time is not always positive. A person can spend a lot of time trying to get technical support and it could be the same time looking for information about your products. For that reason, to measure behaviors is not that simple. Avinash explains a way that works better for behavior. That is Degree of Engagement. It is related not to the number of visits, but to the frequency of those visits. But it still doesn’t reflect if it is positive or negative. At the end you have to go to primary research.

The second element is the Outcomes. It is related to how the website is performing or if it is generating revenues for the company. A simple way of measuring it is using Conversion Rates. You can calculate a Conversion Rate by dividing the outcome by the number of visits. The outcome depends on the type of website or company. If it is ecommerce, it is a purchase through the website. Also it could be downloads or tasks performed. On the other hand, Visits can be considered as the number of sessions in the website or arrange the number of visits from the same browser as just one, called “uniques”.

The Conversion Rates can also be divided into Micro and Macro. The Macro is related to the main outcome or Goal of the company. For example, selling books or software downloads. The micros are other tasks that can be performed in the Website, such as job search, or product information. These Micros should be analyzed too into the traffic generated in the Website.

The third element of the Trinity Strategy is Experience. It is related to the Voice of the Customers. Why the users are behaving the way they are. You have to get into their minds to understand what happens once they get into your website.  To understand this last component you have to make a primary research. It means surveys and every experimentation and testing activities.

There are other interesting metrics mentioned by Avinash in the book. Bounce Rate, Exit Rate, New visits and Time on the site are some of the. They are useful to understand what is happening in the Website.

One tool that is recommended is using Google Analytics to get this information about your website. It is accessible for everyone to participate in the websites business. As Avinash mentioned “Google biggest impact was to create a massive data democracy”.  It started with just a few people using it and now it grew to thousands very quickly.

Reading this book made me aware of a lot of information about Web Analytics and how it can measure the Digital world. Now I want more information. Let’s see how it goes with my course and how I can increase my knowledge on the topic. 

The Beginning

It started because I needed a roommate inBoston. I always thought that it would be better if it was a girl, because it would be easier to live together. But it was not like that. A good friend of mine introduced us in a hallway at Hult. My friend was Argentinean and I thought to myself “noooo please that this guy doesn’t be Argentinean” (My conception of Argentineans at that moment was that they were unbearable)…. And it went like that… He opened his mouth and said Che, voz estás buscando roommate? (This is “Are you looking for a roommate?” in Argentinean). I think you could notice the deception in my face and I said eehhmmm YES. Ugh, I was not sure of what I was doing.

We have been living together for 9 months. From now on, I am going to tell you more stories about that journey in this blog.  I hope you enjoy them…