Editors note: This is part two of a three part series, you can read the first part here: Part 1: Embracing the world of web intelligence
In the second part of our feature about embracing web intelligence we look at the insights that can be gained. How can web intelligence be turned into meaningful and actionable customer intelligence?
Here we set out a simple checklist that we work through with our customers to chart the way forward to better customer intelligence and engagement – with the ultimate goals of developing the business, driving sales and enhancing customer relationships.
To effectively exploit web intelligence, Business Development and Marketing teams must place several factors into the equation. Among the top considerations are:
- Data ownership and management
- Developing the skills to convert web intelligence into customer intelligence
- Developing new internal processes
- Evaluating ROI and more
Charting the way forward
Charting the way forward involves working through our simple and practical checklist to put into place proven best practices that we’ve tested with customers:
- Start by identifying key champions and sponsors, discuss the common challenges and agree a way forward.
- Plan to demonstrate your ROI early in the process.
- Undertake a soft launch prior to wider communication internally and make sure you generate traffic to your site, through any one of a range of marketing activities.
- Prepare to use your web intelligence initiative to more closely integrate the Business Development and Marketing functions.
- Understand that it’s not technology that drives value but the internal processes to leverage the insights and begin to build customer intelligence.
- Enforce clear internal ownership with any new marketing initiative.
- Recognise the need for expertise, support and evolution. In our experience, the organisations that get the best results are those who take time to evolve, and who apply the skills to gain insightful customer intelligence.
Engaging customers
One advantage with your newly developed web intelligence will be the ability to carry out online body language profiling. The practice plays an important part in better engagement of customers.
Trovus research categorises website visitors based on behavioural profiles, such as those arriving at websites through web searches, those who clearly know the brand and so on. It pinpoints typical web visitor journeys as well as the information and pages being read.
Armed with this information it’s possible to improve your levels of customer engagement, because you’ll know when a company wants to engage online or might benefit from contact. You’ll be able to plan your marketing and business development activities accordingly. One benefit is the ability to gain insights into you web content and the effectiveness of its delivery. This is critical to driving better customer engagement, as we found with our customer Avnet.
A case in point
A web intelligence project with Avnet Technology Solutions shone a clear spotlight on how to develop and evolve the company’s website in order to better engage with customers and prospects. With the help of Professional Services, Avnet was able to analyse visitor traffic and browsing habits.
The company today obtains clear insights by examining profiles of web visitors, looking deeper at visitor details, and analysing information such as source, landing point and browsing patterns. From this, it’s clear to see the most effective parts of their website, who is interested in what and when interaction is at its best. Armed with this information, Avnet can now develop its website in the optimum way. This is crucial to encouraging strong customer and prospect engagement and building relationships.
Learn from others
Our simple checklist is founded on tried and tested approaches. Not everything will necessarily work immediately and there may be a need to vary approaches. But overridingly, this checklist is proven to break down the barriers, being based on real experiences from companies who are pioneering in the areas of web and customer intelligence.
In many cases they have moved from ‘passive’ adoption through to completely embedded web intelligence practices and processes where the value is understood and demonstrated. We could do no worse than learn from the efforts and examples of these pioneers.
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Charting new territory. How will powerful trends like Big Data and social media impact your customer and web intelligence activities?
