Sunday 10 October 2010

What is so cool about delivering Actionable Insights?

As a Conversion Rate Optimisation Professional (CROP?) I have to deliver Actionable Insights to my clients. This means that if I have to tell them that their website is the Internet equivalent of an Ugly Baby then I have to back up my damning appraisal of their efforts with quantifiable opportunities for optimisation.

WTF?

Look, if a website sucks, it can be made to suck less. I state how to do this, what it will cost and what return the investment will yield and when. Standard good business practice, no?

So, the form goes (in my own paraphrase, this is not normal vocab!):

ME: Dude. Your site sucks...
CLIENT:(tiny hurt look, bottom lip aquiver, tear budding on corner of their eye) Oh...
ME:(Wise and sage like) But lo! All is not lost and we know why!
CLIENT:(Hope springs to their darling visage) Hussah fine sir! Pray tell and explain to us the details of your machinations.
ME:(earnest and serious) Because of A, B and C you are leaving £X on the table every month. Do Y and Z by investing £T and you'll make £X back in 6 months and then get into mega profit. (£T is some proportion of £X depending on the issue at hand)

And the cool thing here is the turnaround from hurt and hate to adoration, frantic note taking, nodding and maniacal zeal is almost instant.

The eagerness to get on and do whatever it takes to improve the site is partly driven by the realisation that in making their site better, the Internet as a whole exudes a little extra polish. It's like an insurance policy underwriting their intent to optimize: by improving their little corner of the good ol' WWW that they have the opportunity to refine the balance between the good sites and the YouTube comments. Make their bit of the web suck less and by definition everything gets just a little bit better. We can say how much better too with a fine degree of accuracy.

They get to make a better honest buck in the process.

I do too.

'Tis a fine and correct feeling.


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