You don’t see contractors build a house from the roof to the foundation. So why would you do the same with your marketing? When tactics drive strategy you end up with an unstable and backward result.

Picture credit Pointclickhome.com

In that instant the little yellow canary inside my head dropped dead. The fumes of misinformation and general cluelessness KO’d the poor bird.

First, Alexa is flawed. So please stop quoting it. More importantly, stop focusing on website traffic. It’s not a useful metric, unless you’re earning money from ads in which case impressions do matter. No sane owner smiles at the amount of foot traffic their retail store had that day, they’re happy with the cash in the register. Diddo for your website.

What should you measure? Nielsen said it best, the formula for website success is:

B = V × C × L

Where

• B = amount of business done by the site
• V = unique visitors coming to the site
• C = conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who become customers); note that the concept of conversion applies not only to ecommerce sites, but to any site where there is something you want users to do. For me it’s people subscribing to my feeds and downloading my PDF resume and visiting my LinkedIn Profile. You can apply a dollar value to these actions.
• L = loyalty rate (the degree to which customers return to conduct repeat business)

Everyone is trying to increase traffic, this is evident in the number of articles showing you how to get your writing on the front page of Digg. So, if everyone is gunning for volume you can win by better persuading your visitors to take action and providing a reason for them to return over and over.

Focus on conversion and increasing loyalty. Please stop glorifying traffic. If not for yourself, for gods sake, do it for the canaries.

You won’t find purpose in a dense text book, or on dusty chalk boards. It is a essential philosopical endeavor, that sets out to provide meaning, and direction, by answering open-ended questions.

What is your organizations reason for existing?

What common thread of passion is held by our people?

What fuels your motivation?

The answers set the basis for values that executives, managers and employees will use in their every day decisions. After that soul searching journey you will have the foundation for building a distinctive company.

Even so, I bet there’s a lot of nay sayers who doubt the value of this new media. For those of you who fall in this category, let me ask you two questions:

1. Are you looking for a better way to build relationships with your customers? Yes.
2. Is your personality an important ingredient in attracting and retaining customers? Yes.

Then consider social media. When you strip away the technological jargon it’s simply about putting yourself out there, with the goal of creating a meaningful, two way dialogue with your customers. You’re already doing this when you talk to a person over the phone or in person. Social media allows you to present your voice in the word of mouth conversations people are already having about your business online.

The real power of the medium is evident when it’s coupled with a clearly differentiated company, in an industry that has been slow to adopt the technology. Case in point, Greenwerks, a Chicago based contractor.

Greenwerks niche is green design, construction and retrofitting. To enhance their position as an eco-conscious the company website includes a blog providing examples of how the company minimizes their carbon footprint, in addition to presenting simple ways for you to lead an environmentally friendly life. The strategy is augmented with traditional avenues such as email marketing, attending green trade shows and events. Far from just presenting themselves as an environmentally conscious, the people at Greenwerks run their business true to that purpose. A crucial part of the mix, social media allows Greenwerks to lay bare their consistent actions, showing their authentic self and influencing the creation of a ‘green’ meme (association) tagged to their business.

Compared to other “green” contractors, Greenwerks has a well defined position that places it well ahead on the curve of eco-responsible companies.

I wonder if they drive bio-diesel trucks to work?

Update 5/24/08: I just learned that Greenwerks is going to be featured on Discovery Channel’s Renovation Nation. Filming began this month. Congradulations to Chris Campbell and everyone from Greenwerks! You can view their audition video here.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait…

Error on the side of caution and tradition, content to tweak existing products and services.

or…

Be bold, reshaping and creating things that are completely new.

Each has its rightful place. The tough part is figuring out which to choose. Congratulations Kraft, on knowing when to take the bold path.