Tanja Balog

How to better your approach to segmentation

noreply@blogger.com (Tanja Balog) — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 21:57:00 +0000

Have you ever been on a client call where you have proudly presented your data and gave what you thought was an insightful recommendation? Only to find out that your data was based on wrong suppositions.

If you have, you must understand how uncomfortable the situation is.

Starting conditions

Recently, I set out to determine the best options for Retail Pre-VIP and VIP flows for one of our clients.

In order to do that, I used the segmentation features available in the client’s ESP (Email Service Provider for those who are not in the marketing business). As there are three separate lists, out of which two are retail lists and one is wholesale, I needed to focus only on the two Retail ones.

One of the conditions I originally set up was that the customer belongs to one of the two Retail lists. Then, I determined the average customer values in order to get a baseline I could use for comparison. The next steps included further segmenting and fine-tuning until I had reached the ideal 3-5% of customers and had some numbers to go along with that. IMPRESSIVE numbers.

Numbers do not lie

But, as it turns out, they can’t tell you that your initial supposition is wrong.

In my case, the spreadsheet could not tell me that the data included some customers that were in the Wholesale list. How so? Well, people can belong to more lists… The client informed us during the call that some of the wholesale accounts also belonged to retail lists.

So, I needed to redo the segmentation and present the updated findings to the client. The impressive numbers became, well, not so impressive numbers and the whole recommendation strategy had to change.

While this didn’t radically change in regard to the actual number of customers that served as a baseline, other values, such as CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) and AOV (Average Order Value) did.

And the numbers for the VIP customers changed dramatically.

Here is the overview of some of the differences (numbers have been altered as to represent the actual ratio but not the actual HSLV and AOV):

Poka Yoke

One small condition, right?

HUGE DIFFERENCE.

We have been talking about poka yoke (mistake-proofing) at work and how we should approach doing tasks. It is a great concept and it is showing results.

I think that, in my case, I should have also applied it to how I THOUGHT about things. If I wanted to include A and B, but not have C, the smart approach would have been to add one tiny condition saying: “exclude C”. It looks obvious now, but it was not when I started doing my task.

A good way to prevent these kinds of situations is to think carefully about the conditions you want to use to segment your target group and what they might imply, and then think some more. Only then can you start compiling data and doing your analysis. This will help you mistake-proof your findings and present data-based recommendations.

Remember, spreadsheets do not make mistakes, but we do, so we need to approach each date analysis task thinking about how we can mistake-proof the initial data. If the numbers are not so impressive…Well, …

CEOs: 3 ways to improve your WordPress websites

noreply@blogger.com (Tanja Balog) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 17:28:00 +0000

Being a CEOs of a somewhat small company, you must have wondered how to attract (and keep) customers on your WordPress website, therefore increasing the possibility of turning a potential lead to a happy customer. As a participant in the Northwestern Social Media Management Course, http://bit.ly/northwesternsocialmktg , I have learned that it is not only important what your content is but also how you display it and how you improve the user experience on your site, which is also emphasized in these two articles.

In his article, How to make complete strangers fall in love with your blog, which can be found at Jeff Bullas blog/website (@jeffbullas), Jawad Khan points out the importance of several things, one of them being the importance of brand and the landing page – if you are not already famous it must be attractive the visitors otherwise they will leave. According to the author of this article, other important things also include free quality content – images, info-graphics and videos and all that FOR FREE. The last this he underlines is the importance of Facebook groups for better engagement with your following. This article is great content, not just for blogger but also for companies which cannot afford a great marketing budget.

Found at halfblog.net at http://bit.ly/2nAvlOb

The second article, published by @wpbeginner on their website, 24 Must Have WordPress Pluginsfor Business Websites in 2017, give the WordPress users the list of some of the best and most efficient WordPress plugins out there. Some of those show you how to maximize the impact your content has while other are made to improve your SEO or to facilitate the interaction with the users of your site. Also, let us not forget the security issues all entrepreneurs face – but do not worry, the writer assures you that WordPress has got you covered on that as well.

Having read these two articles, and experience gained from the online lectures at the Northwestern University Social Media Marketing course, I recommend the following three action you should take to maximize the impact of your WordPress site :

Killer Landing page – If user do not like what they see, they WILL leave, so thread carefully
Boost SEO – it is paramount for your business that it can be found easily, so you have to be relevant now
Empower your users – It is crucial for the user to have the control on your WordPress site and that the information they provide is safe with you

So, starting today, improve the WordPress experience for your potential customers by making all the jigsaw puzzle pieces fit!

My name is Tanja Balog and am currently participating in the MOOC at the Northwestern University Social Media Marketing class. I have a keen interest in digital marketing as well as content creation having graduated literature at university. I am looking for jobs involving data analysis and content marketing. You can find me at @ooopschan.

Why make a blog?

noreply@blogger.com (Tanja Balog) — Sun, 08 Jan 2017 14:16:00 +0000

The real question is WHY NOT?
It seems that nowadays everyone has a blog so one has to wonder - why not me too?

Well, there are reasons why not:

1. You need "followers".
Unless you are a person who cultivates a lot of contacts and has a really well devised social media strategy (you might not even be aware you have one - you are natural - good for you!), making a blog can be a nightmare. (This is a nightmare for me as I am not that social nor well connected!). Why make a blog if no one will read it? (I will talk about this later.) True, but for some people.

2. You need to be active.
Duh, you actually need to blog. You have to post something from time to time otherwise, why have a blog. (Personally being disorganized and interested in a lot of things - see actively trying to do a lot while in fact doing nothing! - this is the biggest hurdle i hope to overcome).

3. You need to have interesting content.
Let's face it - nobody is interested how you washed the dished after having watched an interesting film. I do that, my mom does that, why would I read about it? But if you talked about the film and what impressions it made or how you've got an interesting technique of cutting down the whole dish-washing process...Now we're talking! On the other hand, someone might be interested in your daily activities - either you are very famous or you have stalkers - take your pick! So I suggest not blogging if all you will do is give your readers a daily recap of all that you did that day or the previous week, etc.

4. Your content should include more media.
This is the one I struggle most with as I like to write but just writing today won't get you anywhere. You need to be more interactive. This is my opinion so it might not be a rule or something but that is how all this seems to me now.

This would not be a reason against but something I hate seeing everywhere now. If you can't write the language well, please don't write a blog (I am a language teacher and a linguist and I think languages have been degraded enough as it it). Use a shorter way to express yourself. FYI, my mother tongue is not English, so i am off the hook if I make mistakes. :P

Reasons for? Of course.

1. You get to promote your content.
Let's face it we live in a world of constant promotion. We are either promoting ourselves, our kids, our life style, our work, our art either we are paid to promote someone else but it cannot escape anyone's notice that any form of social media is used so that other can see you in a way you want to be seen. How many selfies do you take before uploading the one that makes you look perfect? How many times have you corrected your sentence to make you seem cooler or what not? (In my case, I tend to type some words wrong over and over so auto correct for me lol plus if I say I don't like when people use bad English/French/Swahili, etc I have to be careful myself, don't I?)

2. You get to share and learn.
You are not even aware how much content you read/see comes from someone's blog. I have learned a lot by reading other people's blog posts. And if that person is an expert in what they do and they write about it so that people who know less understand - BINGO! I am sure you have some knowledge you can impart too. And someone will read it and think how they've found out something they hadn't known.

3. You get to know people.
I know, i know - we need to get out more and hang out with people and not read their blogs. But this is also a great way to communicate things that you might not want to share in person. And this is also mass communication - you are talking to all those willing to listen. Maybe someone will read what you have written and say - hey I would really like to know this person better. Weirder things have happened. AND I am talking about normal people, not stalker variety ones.

4. You get to analyze your thoughts.
It might sound weird but people used to keep journals to help them deal with issues or enable them to sort out their thoughts. Blogs can be used in a same manner - they can help you get all that mess out of you head and then put some order on paper / screen. plus, you can read the entries in few years and think - OMG did I really think like that. Great way to keep track of your personal progress too.

All this said, let's get to business, This is my blog!