This week I learned the true value of “Benchmarking”. Considering our current financial crisis, it is important to understand the true need for Benchmarking. According to WikiPedia, “Benchmarking is the process of comparing the cost, time or quality of what one organization does against what another organization does. The result is often a business case for making changes in order to make improvements.” As an employee, it’s time for you to figure out what it is your supposed to be doing at your company and make sure you hit your #’s. (ie: Sales hit their Goals, Marketing hits their ROI, etc.) As a business owner, benchmarking applies to almost every department for a company to be most profitable. You need to find your weak spots and FIX THEM (or FIRE THEM, depending on the situation).
For business owners, there is no single benchmarking process that has been universally adopted, but the most prominent methodology is the 12 stage methodology by Robert Camp (who wrote the first book on benchmarking in 1989). You can follow the image at the top of this post or use the following as an example of a typical shorter version of the methodology.
Identify your problem areas,
Identify other industries that have similar processes,
Identify organizations that are leaders in these areas,
Survey companies for measures and practice,
Visit the “best practice” companies to identify leading edge practices,
Implement new and improved business practices (Wikipedia).
If I’m doing it, I’m positive your companies are doing it and without a doubt, you should be doing it too! I’d hate to say, but for employees, I suggest you do what I do and sit down with your managers to discuss goals and #’s. It can only be to your advantage to have goals match up with your companies benchmarking statistics. If your boss isn’t benchmarking, then I suggest you urge him/her to do so and get in on the process. (Sucking up would be my #2 choice in times of financial crises!)
FOR ALL OF YOU BENCHMAKERS, break out your Excel Spreadsheets, tap into your companies reporting tools and start crunching numbers. Oh, and at the end, if you find out you’re the source of all problems at your company – you can always leave that blank
Sticking to the theme of this blog, I feel it is necessary to explain why I even bother blogging. Technorati sponsored a survey of bloggers in July-August 2008 only to determine, as their CEO Richard Jalichandra says it best: “Blogs are now mainstream media.” So there’s your answer!
According to Paul Verna, Sr. Analyst at eMarketer.com, “Blogging has become so pervasive and influential that the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared”. ComScore Media Metrix found that blogs had 77 million unique visitors in the US in August 2008, nearly double the amount of Facebook’s mere 41 million!
1/3rd of the respondents found in the Technorati survey were contacted by a brand/agency = $$. Money could play a major factor in their decision making. There’s also the SEO factor. Companies small and large use blogs to their marketing traffic, offering value and drawing more traffic…
Marketing and Money? That’s more than enough of a reason for anyone to blog. But don’t expect the traffic to happen right away. It takes hard work, lots of content, and most importantly – “readers”. I know the rules and I’m patient and will keep sharing how I am going to get from 0-100, 100-500, 500-1,000, etc.
Let me know if you found this valuable or inspiring b/c at the end of the day, it’s you who I am creating value for. Good luck! Feel free to post a link to your blog below!
My company, AC Lion, recently assigned me the task of finding a new Applicant Tracking System and Customer Relationship Management software. The ATS and CRM systems are a MUST for any staffing company of ANY size! Being that we are a niche market recruiting firm, our needs are particular to specific best practices and standard processes. Before picking out the correct solutions, I must define the two systems:
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a term applied to processes implemented by a company to handle its contact with its customers. [...] Information in the system can be accessed and entered by employees in different departments, such as sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. (Wikipedia)
Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that enables the electronic handling of corporate recruitment needs. (Wikipedia)
The rationale behind these systems is to improve how we track and also how we provide services directly to the customers. We use the information in the system for targeted marketing and sales purposes. One of the industry leading CRM’s is Salesforce.com, but my company decided on an ATS/CRM hybrid able to handle both candidate leads (B2C) and client-side relationships (B2B).
Another thing to consider is a web-based, also know as Software as a Service (SaaS).It really comes down to a few considerations. Cost of in-house servers and storage vs. a Tier3 network and fast internet connection. It really depends on your comanies budget and needs. We decided on web-based.
I am still on step #5, Contact each vendor….Below is a list from ERE.net of which I can say 3 of my choices and our current vendor are inlcuded:
cBizOne
Easy to use and contains all core functionality of ATS. Very customizable. Can host data locally or remotely (on access or SQL server). Cool quick searching UI.
PCRecruiter
Easily customizable and good performance for an ASP.
BullHorn
Highly recommended and praised. Performance good for ASP, UI and usability are good. Integrated email with cool email tracking feature.
HireDesk
Feature rich and very customizable. Awesome website integration where candidate can have custom job agents (most the same features candidates have on Monster) Large company, dedicated support staff and best support hours.
Sendouts
Outstanding usability and GUI design. One of two hybrid solutions. Good performance and overall solid system.
MaxHire
Its all Microsoft technology and the email integration and automation is very well designed.
I hope at this point you find yourself with enough information to get started. If you need further advice or a copy of my checklist, feel free to e-mail me at work – Red@aclion.com.
If you’re new to the Online and New Media space, then you need to understand how our current financial situation impacts our space. I myself see the future Ad Spending projections change on a quarterly basis, and with the current financial status of our economy, I can only expect to see these #’s change more often.
eMarketer.com - US Online Advertising Revenues
If you are worried about the effects of the current financial crisis on the US Online Ad Revenues, then take a look at these stats. For newbies, I really enjoy eMarketer.com graphs and information. They really help visually bring you up to speed while provide articles that are very informative and to the point. Novices and advanced alike, these graphs are worth it. (NOTE: You need to sign for their Free newsletter, otherwise all their info is archived for paid users after 30 days of publishing any article.)
I found it interesting how the the above graph shows the increase and decrease %’s of each sector. “The negative growth for classifieds closely reflects economic weakness,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer. “Whether used on eBay to sell products, on job sites by employers, or for real-estate sales, classified ad buys tend to be short-term purchases with short-term objectives. In contrast, most display-related ads, such as banners or video, are contracted ahead of time. For that reason, they are less of a mirror of the current state of online advertising than classifieds,” Mr. Hallerman continued. I really enjoy how eMarketer breaks down the stats so you don’t have to jump to your own conclusions.
In a recent MediaPost article, “fears for the future will cause consumers to cut their spending, while companies carefully inspect their budgets to find cost savings.” In the October Issue of Inc. Magazine, there was an article Strategies for Tough Times, What the smarters business owners are doing to cut costs, find funds, and manage staff in a slow economy. They brought up 5 diverent ways to save money (layoffs not included). You should definitely check it out. They suggested trying “Do-It-Yourself Marketing” and potentially save your company up to $66,000. (WARNING: It promotes NOT hiring a marketing consultant!)
Jack Myers, (This “Media Futurist” is editor and publisher of several newsletters and websites targeting media, advertising and entertainment professionals) said it best “The media marketplace is transitioning from one in which demand has exceeded supply (even as supply has grown exponentially)…to a marketplace in which the availability of supply is outpacing demand.”
eMarketer - Online Advertising Spending
Here’s a projection based on IAB and PWC research that will give you a sense of where our space is predictedon heading in the next 4 years. Remember, this could change! But it is necessary you know today’s prediction of tomorrow. It’s part of your job as an internet marketing “ambassador”.
I recently attended the Affiliate Summit Social Media Conference in NYC. It took place last Sunday, October 5th at Baruch College. It was a rather small venue compared the Affiliate Summit East in Boston, but their goal was clear: “Social Media Success!” And to be honest, I picked up mixed reviews from the affiliates in the crowd.
Dan Crowther & Me
The summit started off with Keynote speaker, Don Crowther, Social Media and Blogging Expert. His advice was very effective for Experienced and Beginners alike. In reference to Social Media Marketing: “If you do it wrong in this business, it can be a huge dissadvantage!” He went on to bring quite a few surprising key facts: Facebook almost equals the amount of Google pageviews, Myspace actually got more page views than google last year, YouTube almost doubled Google! Then he went on to discuss strategy. I wasn’t too happy to hear his opinion that Movable Type Publishing was better than WordPress because it had better search engine rankings. When asked why? “B/c it’s paid for”. Unlike WordPress, you pay for MTP which means better quality service. Well – according to everything else he was telling the audience – if you apply these social media tips, it won’t matter which platform you use! “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, just do it appropriately!” (~Don)
He ran a very interesting test. He took 5,000 of the top terms in Google (Money terms worth 50 cents or more for the #2 spot) and he found that “18% of all first page results were social media – 2 sites per page!” And he showed us quite a few examples where the social media site outranked the actual company. From this he derived that all a company needs is GOOD SEM on one side and SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING on the other. And here are the tools he referenced: Squidoo, HubPages, WetPaint, Twitter, StomperNet.com, Google Keyword Tool, Last.Fm, Digg, and many more (MANY MORE!). As for Video, you should be doing Video Reviews, Video Blogs, etc. . He referred the audience to Camtasia and Screenflow. It’s the software you use to record your Desktop. Very applicable for training, powerpoints, presentations, etc. Also, bringing in Guest’s for interviewing creates amazing content. Then promote it in one of 2 ways. You CAN go to each video site and upload each video individually or use TubeMogul to do it all in one shot and manage your trafic.
One final warning from Dan. “Follow the Best-Practices: DO NOT USE AUTO-BOOKMARKERS, ONLY BOOKMARK YOUR A+ BEST STUFF, SUBMIT OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF (6:1 ratio), DON’T COPY AND PASTE THE SAME DESCRIPTIONS”.
In my opinion, I could have easily left at this point feeling accomplished. But there was no way I was going to miss the next session: “Gain Friend and Infuence, With Video – Learn how to leverage video to increase brand engagement, time spent on site, and page views. Explore the tools and techniques to use when testing out video” Totally worth it. The session involved the following:
Not as valuable for me as the first session, but the audience remained hooked and interested as I looked around the room. I particularly enjoyed Melissa’s participation. I knew I recognized her. Besides acting as Director of Marketing for Buy.com, she is also Co-Host of the TV show, BuyTV, that airs weekly on G4. And I’ve seen Steve Rosenbaum at quite a few local events including the most recent Jeff Pulver Breakfast. To properly cover this one, I took down quite a few valuable quotes:
Steve: “I think you’ll see longer videos as time goes on”
Steve: “The advantage of short = you leave the audience wanting more”
Melissa: “If it’s not Rich Media, it’s not interesting!”
Steve: “There’s an enourmous amount of money out to find quality pre-roll!”
Steve: “YouTube is a failed Social Network!”
Yea…as you can see, they covered quite a few areas of video. And it was worth getting a picture in with Melissa as you can see in the flickr SlideShow at the top of this post. At this point there was a break for lunch and networking. I met up with Jim Kukral and found that to be quite valuable. He was one of the main reasons I took my blog in a new direction (as you’ll start to see in the coming weeks).
…but at that point, the room was starting to clear out! I mean COME ONNNN, it was a Sunday! Half of the crowd was probably hung over form the night before. All I can say was that from what I attended, it was well worth it in terms of quality training and networking. Check out their next event in Vegas if you can make it!
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