The problem with a lot of digital research is it’s, in a word: obvious. And obvious research is a waste of time and resources. Even if it does get you a hit in media or is referenced in social, it doesn’t actually help anyone (or your reputation).

Conducting research for the sake of research is pointless: the data gathered should be enlightening in some regard.

With that, I submit, for your approval: the single most obvious study ever. I’m not mentioning the brands because they don’t really warrant a mention (you can click the link and read through if you care to see). The study determined the following:

• On a certain social network cute animal pictures received more engagement than corporate logos
• Using cats and puppies in ads receives high engagement yet grows a less relevant community
• Ads without images (just text) within a highly visual network don’t perform as well as ads with images
• Images of people and products perform better than logos

Obligatory reaction:

Of course, not a shred of this information is not already known or even useful. And anyway, unless you’re something like a pet food brand, you are scraping the bottom of the marketing barrel to use random animals to attract a community instead of building a following with a passion for your industry. It’s actually kind of shameful.

The social space is saturated with these types of studies and shows what can happen when everyone has access to piles of data. But we don’t just need more information or obvious studies. We need people with serious data chops able to conduct meaningful research, create useful analysis and uncover insights that matter.

Everyone should demand that brands, analysts and media do better and avoid the obvious / cliché.

image credit: Shutterstock

If Your Study Is This Obvious, It’s A Waste Of Time is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing. You should follow Adam on Twitter and Google+ .

Restaurant owners are faced with the challenge of having a greater web presence than ever before. It isn’t enough to have a great looking store front; consumers are looking for you online and even more so, on their mobile devices.

Your restaurant business depends on many basic factors such as location, good food and a good staff. However, none of those things matter anymore if you don’t have a good site and mobile experience enticing these consumers to come to you. If your content isn’t accessible and as easy to navigate as it is informative, you are missing out on hundreds if not thousands of customers. Below are some of the best practices restaurant owners need to be aware of regarding their site.

Think of these as the new reality and not just futuristic suggestions because if you’re not currently using any of these practices then you might as well leave your ‘closed’ sign up for good.

Out with the Flash, in with the WordPress

Flash software is slowly becoming less and less useful as consumers are using more and more mobile devices. Flash isn’t visible on iPhones or iPads and doesn’t add any value that helps you rank higher in search engines, but the good news is that there are alternatives available. Some of these alternatives are WordPress, HTML5 and CSS3. There is a lot of information that needs to be on your website like menus, an online reservation form, events calendar and blog.

Using a Content Management system like WordPress gives you complete control that is easy for you and the consumer to use. It is easily maintained and can evolve with your business as soon as you realize you are here for the long run. Speaking of evolving, getting rid of Flash is a good start but you also need to make sure your site looks good on a mobile device (check out Google’s Go Mo initiative for an easy way to go mobile now).

Many sites also have a separate website for mobile devices, but if you choose to use Responsive Web Design Technology you only need one site. With Responsive Web Design your site will automatically format to the correct size and become touch enabled so it is usable on your Android, iPad or iPhone.

Online menus with prices – kill the PDFs

PDF menus are no longer good enough because they require the user to download, wait, zoom, and try to read. They’re also slow (and a pain) to open. Your website needs an individual menu page with a nicely laid out format including descriptions, pictures and, most importantly, prices! The prices on a menu have a great impact on the consumers dining decision so it is important to make this clear.

Menu(s) are important because people like to see if you offer breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe they are just interested in your dessert selection or perhaps they would just like to come for drinks and appetizers. Whatever your menu selection, make sure it is easy to navigate and that each item includes a price. People like to know what to expect when they are dining out and a detailed menu provides just that.

Add a Photo Gallery

Sushiritto in San Francisco brings their delicious and unique food to life on their website.

Even though you have great pictures of your food and drink selections on your menu people like to see pictures of your restaurant and cuisine as well. People like to see pictures of your friendly staff and others dining, enjoying themselves and just having a good time at your restaurant. If you have events at your restaurant be sure to include these pictures on your site too. These pictures give consumers a feel for your atmosphere and again help them know what to expect when they walk in.

A full gallery page can have anywhere from 10 to 30 updated pictures. It is important not to have an overwhelming amount of pictures because they could have a hard time finding what they are looking for fast enough and lose interest.

Contact information is key

When people visit your website they are usually only looking for a few key pieces of information like location/directions, hours, and food options. They should quickly be able to see the location and hours on your homepage. People need this information to get to your restaurant. Make sure you have the address on your site in a text format that can be copied and pasted.

Users also need to be able to call and speak to a person because they just have a question or two that they don’t want to search your website for. If they cannot find your phone number they will move on to another restaurant with a phone number they can find. For this reason, make sure your phone number is found prominently on the home page as well as every interior page. Also be sure and track mobile conversions like click-to-call and ensure you’re marketing your contact information in key places (i.e. be sure and add your site to Google Places).

This article was written by Future Buzz community member Audrey Welch who works with the Wand Corp., a Restaurant Management solutions company.

Most Restaurant Sites Are Awful: Make Yours Better is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing. You should follow Adam on Twitter and Google+ .

So it was cool to see a handy flowchart released on Scribd by Creative Commons Australia for how to know which one you should use. I’ve embedded below for your convenience, it’s worth a printout if you create digital content but are new to using Creative Commons produced works or licenses.

Using Creative Commons licenses properly is an essential skill for pretty much everyone producing any type of content online. So if you’re new, get comfortable with it today: the works released under CC can add a lot to what you create (either via adaption, remix or simply re-use with attribution).

Also a quick fun-fact: as an artist, I release all my art under creative commons licenses (and actually have been featured on the Creative Commons blog which, as a CC supporter, I found pretty cool).

[hat tip: PetaPixel]

[Useful] Flowchart For Which CC License You Should Use is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing. You should follow Adam on Twitter and Google+ .

As we’ve shared in previous posts on measurement, you have to think beyond the last click to understand digital conversions. So I’m especially excited to share a tool created by our team at Google which visually shows the digital customer journey to purchase.

The tool draws on Ecommerce and Multi-Channel Funnels data from more than 36,000 Google Analytics clients that authorized sharing, including millions of purchases across 11 industries in 7 countries. Purchase paths in this tool are based on interactions with a single ecommerce advertiser.

Here, you’ll find benchmark data for:

• How different marketing channels (such as display, search, email, and your site) move users towards purchases. For example, some marketing channels play an “assist” role during the earlier stages of the marketing funnel, whereas some play a “last interaction” role just before a sale.
• How long it takes for customers to make a purchase online, (from the 1st time they interact with your marketing to the moment they actually buy something) and how the length of this journey affects average order values.

This data is interesting not just from the perspective of how you fare in your own industry and location, but also for helping others on your team understand how digital marketing channels sit in the purchase path. No single channel has a monopoly on consumer attention, rather they work together in harmony. Your brand needs to be visibile across channels in the correct way in order to move users from awareness and consideration through to intent and conversion.

I hope you’ll find this data interesting and useful. Check out the tool here.

Visualizing And Valuing The Digital Customer Journey is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing. You should follow Adam on Twitter and Google+ .

 1. Periodic Table of Google Analytics

Google Analytics Certified Partner Jeff Sauer over at Three Deep Marketing has created an awesome play on the periodic table of elements with his analytics interpretation. Check out the full post on his blog. I especially like that he offered this in multiple formats (PDF, infographic and interactive graphic). If you’re going to do something similar for your niche this is a great example to follow. If you’re putting a lot of work into content, always repurpose across formats in addition to channels. You’ve already put in the hard work, this is one of those last mile efforts.

2. An Introduction to Google Analytics for E-commerce

Thomas Holmes has put together a wonderful (and free) introductory guide to Google Analytics for e-commerce. While advanced users are already aces at using analytics for e-commerce, it is an area many new users are still sharpening their skills in. Nab the guide on Thomas’ site – it’s visually quite good and the content will get you up to speed quickly on just how easy it is to use Google Analytics for your e-commerce site.

3. The Small Business Guide to Google Analytics

This is a simple and effective idea created by the team at Simply Business. They really just aggregated a bunch of content others had already created in a useful way. Check it out here. If you want to see just how successful this tactic was, just glance at the social KPIs next to the content on the site. The Simply Business team understands the strategy outlined by one of our previous guest bloggers, Andrew Hanelly: if you can’t be the source, be the resource.

Anyway, I hope you’ll check these out not just to learn more about analytics but also get inspired for ideas of content in your own category. Creating this type of content is not just useful and helps your organic marketing KPIs, it gets attention from the brands involved. As I manage social for Google Analytics, I’ve already shared all of these assets with our communities reaching millions of analytics users. If you align your marketing with the goals of other brands you’re always going to win, it’s in their interest to help you.

3 Useful (And Creative) Analytics Resources To Check Out is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing. You should follow Adam on Twitter and Google+ .