Category Archives: Measurement

Project View // Alpha

Posted on by Josh Stauffer

Even with the very best project management system in place it can often be fairly difficult to help everyone in and outside the office understand where all of the various projects stand and who is working on what. Having something that very clearly provides that sort of oversite is incredibly beneficial to not only the project management team but also upper management and and all of the ‘doers’ on your team as well.

This has been a topic of lingering and consistant discussion at every agency I’ve worked at for so far in my career. It also happens to be something that I have yet to see implemented really well in a way that helps out every part of the team, not just a specific section. Sure, it’s easy to throw up a whiteboard and scribble out all of the projects your teams working on but you have to reorder things constantly and no ones checking that board on a regular basis but the PM. Or you could try using something like Basecamp that lays out all of the milestones and events your team has to get done, but I’ve found that using a calendar feed to help with your deliverables just muddies up your entire calendar.

Project View // Alpha is our attempt to create a piece of software that works for our team, which means it may not work for your team. The features below are things we wanted right away realizing that we’d need to add in an admin interface later.

  • Highly visual and intuitive layout
  • Ability to add individual employees and vendors as resources
  • Ability to add project deliverables and assign client, status, due dates and estimated hours per resource to it
  • Calendar style view of deliverables for the next 3 weeks
  • Ability for the software to generate and reorder deliverables based on a priority ranking system, more on this below
  • Ability to place deliverables on hold and still view them
  • Ability to easily see each resource and the estimated hours across all projects for the next 3 weeks along with an additional lump sum of the remaining hours beyond 3 weeks.
  • XML driven data structure for ease of use
  • Ability to view the output projected onto one of our office walls, through a browser page login off site or through a desktop app that pulls in the latest feed if an internet connection is available.

Now it just so happens that these kind of software applications are a passion of mine and so it didn’t take much for me to sit down one weekend and start prototyping something in Flash. Why Flash you ask? Well, there are a number of reasons really, and a few of them get back to the last feature in the list above. We really wanted this to be something that was viewable in and out of the office, with or without an internet connection and something that offered a bit of interaction. Animations, design and overall performance are great pluses as well with Flash.

In the long run after the final design is locked down we’ll be transitioning this over to an AIR application that we can distribute internally so everyone can see it at all times as well as a widget and an online portal. We’ll also be using a centrally stored XML feed on a server to download updates to the tool and keep everyone up to date as the PM staff adjusts things.

Starting off we realized that the most important part of this software was it’s ability to clearly show all of the current deliverables being worked on in the office and prioritize them for us. In order to do that the interface would need to be comprised of some sort of list that could expand downward from most to least urgent deliverable. Here is a look at our first pass for the list view of the project deliverables. You can see below each deliverable has the client / project information, resource allocation by initials, due date and calendar view.  The list element also displays a priority ranking that adjusts the deliverables ordering based on the number of resources allocated, hours left on the deliverable and due date for the project.

The system also has a resource overview element that visually totals up all of the hours per resource so our project managers can help load level the expected workloads. The element breaks out the projected hours per resource into the same week period displayed by the calendar view and adds up any additional hours for projects that go beyond the time frame.

Stay tuned for some more updates as we make progress and adjust the software to fit in better with our SCRUM meetings and Squash sheets.

Google Fiber: And the Winner Is…

Posted on by admin

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Google has made its decision regarding its broadband fiber initiative. Here’s a hint: it’s somewhere in Kansas, and its initials are KC…

Read all the details here:

Ultra high-speed broadband is coming to Kansas City, Kansas

From all of us at Agent X (formerly Steketee Greiner and Company) to all of you out there who put in all the time and effort and devotion at the local level around this initiative, we just want to say, in case no has or ever does, we were sincerely impressed, and you’re ALL winners in our book.

Beginner AdWords and Analytics – AimWest Presentation

Posted on by Brian Steketee

Thank you to everyone who atttended our presenation at the lunch with Google event by AimWest!

You can find a copy of the presentation that Brian Steketee presented below.

The presentation covers the basics of Google Analytics and AdWords as well as some more advanced features and considerations.

Download Here

Thank you once again for your interest and happy measuring!!

David

AdAge Viral video chart – New Media, New Measures

Posted on by Brian Steketee

The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

In the End, Google Fiber is About More Than Just Google

Posted on by admin

When Google announced they would be taking applications from cities interested in receiving free fiber optic broadband, there was a surge of interest from cities across America – it grew into over 1,000 responses to Google’s request for information (RFI) – and, with some unspoken encouragement from Google’s RFI around community spirit, many of the cities involved in the initiative began to leverage digital media to raise awareness for their efforts, to drum up active support from community members and to show Google exactly how excited they are to be considered for the “grand prize.” In most cases, the people responded. Many who had an interest in bringing Google’s promise to their city acted as brand champions, spreading the story everywhere through both traditional and non-traditional channels. For many of these champions it became a highly competitive race to get Google’s attention, showing the vested interest participating cities have with Google’s fiber broadband technology.

As we began to monitor conversations around the initiative and the participating cities in the digital landscape, several cities stood out as clear leaders. These leaders had over ten thousand Facebook fans alone, with some breaking twenty and even thirty thousand. Pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos and more all supported the digital media presence of active cities, showing how very hands on participants became – fiber became a catalyst for community growth in cyberspace and beyond. And I say beyond, and this is a key learning for everyone, because the cities that controlled the largest share of digital voice were those that not only pulled together strategies for deploying digital media but carried it through to PR and experiential activities as well.

As Google’s March 26th deadline loomed closer we monitored even more excitement online as many cities saw last minute increases to their fan bases. This was likely tied to the flood of nationally recognized events various cities used for promotion, as well as the effect of word of mouth and the variety of media coverage that backed the buzz around Google’s fiber initiative. Continue reading →

The Next Google Fiber Report

Posted on by admin

First off, congratulations and good luck to all the cities that have applied. It’s been amazing watching what everyone has pulled together so far. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a very unique perspective.

On that note, and based on Google’s post on its official blog that it will be making its selection “…by the end of the year,” we have decided to take a step back from our weekly reports, evaluate the number of cities participating in online efforts around the initiative to make sure that we have the most inclusive list possible and then resume our efforts on a regular basis until Google makes its final decision. Again, we’re not saying in any way that Google is using online share of voice as a factor in its decision making process, but we still want to make sure that everyone knows who the top contenders are around this metric and what they are doing to try to get Google’s attention online. And given Google’s tip of the cap to Topeka today, the question has to be asked: does it hurt to go out of your way a bit to stay top of mind in the digital world?

So, look for our next report sometime in April, and thanks to everyone who continues to send in insights and requests on behalf of your city – we are taking as much relevant information into account as we can. In the meantime, make sure you continue to include your city in your tagging strategy, as we’ll continue to base our search for data on the participating cities, and please don’t hesitate to emailus with questions, concerns and anything else I should know is going on in your world.

Finally, and this is way past due, thanks to Martin at Zettaphile for his efforts in compiling the original list of Google fiber cities on his blog. It was our starting point.

Thanks and again, best of luck to everyone!

Google Fiber Initiative Update (Not a New Report Yet, but Some Thoughts Nonetheless)…

Posted on by admin

We’re receiving a number of inquiries from supporters of cities that weren’t included in our report, and the bottom line is that in order for these cities to get on the digital radar, they need to organize their approach by relevant search terms that supporters can find easily and, once connected, more effectively contribute to the campaign. That’s the value of these reports. This is an exercise in demonstrating to viewers the value of developing organized, measurable digital (and social media, etc.) campaigns in order to get the greatest value for the time and spend. The cities that tend to have a more fragmented social media approach (for example, Ann Arbor titling two separate Facebook pages “A2 Fiber” and “Ann Arbor for Google Fiber”) are making it more difficult to be heard as a single voice on a national level and are running the risk of going unnoticed. The way to get noticed beyond your local efforts is to get organized and create a unified, holistic digital/social media strategy of relevant, searchable content. Continue reading →

The Race is On(line) for Google Fiber – How the Candidates are Faring in the Digital Space

Posted on by admin

With community events for Google’s fiber initiative beginning on March 19th and the growing level of online community involvement that’s building here in Grand Rapids, we put together the first in a series of reports measuring the digital conversations and online efforts surrounding the participating cities looking to have Google’s hyper-speed fiber communications lines installed, creating a rank of the top 10 candidate cities by share of the total conversation happening around the initiative online.

This first report ranks the aspiring cities by share of total number of mentions in conversations happening between February 15 to March 17 on digital media channels, and we’ll continue to publish reports weekly showing the collected digital efforts and rankings of the top 10 cities until Google makes its final choice.

Google has multiple factors in their decision making process, including how interested a community is in working with Google, community support, local activities, needs and resources, approved construction methods, local regulatory issues and area broadband speeds. Most participating cities assert that online interaction in their campaigns will increase the chances of favorability in their selection by Google, and we’ll be presenting the data and insights that will ultimately show how important a factor online share of voice is in the process.

The first report is available for download here. Just click on the image below. And stay tuned for additional reports in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: As we continue our research and measurement for our next report, we’ve noticed that some cities’ online efforts are being conducted around nicknames relevant to their campaigns or local communities, rather than the direct name of the city (Ann Arbor and Sarasota, we’re looking at you!). Based on this, we’re filtering at more detailed levels to make sure we’re capturing that information and reporting accurately. We invite any city involved in the initiative NOT directly using their name for their online efforts to reach out to us (either through a comment below or through our Twitter feed – @steketeegreiner) with any specific search terms to make sure that we have your city represented properly.

Event measurement is a science

Posted on by Jill Wolgemuth

Frequently there is little thought to why a company should (or should not) attend an industry event or tradeshow. Justifications of “we have always gone”, “it would be noticed if we were absent”, and  “all of our competition will be there” aren’t really valid business reasons, and more importantly impossible to gauge as a success (or failure).

Evaluating event participation, and the metrics that determine success, aren’t as fuzzy as most people think. There are solid ways of measuring event success that are usable for every sized business in every sized event.

The best article I’ve found that explains key measurement metrics is The Five Key Metrics of Event Marketing. I’ve summarized the main points below.

KEY METRIC 1: TOTAL COST OF THE EVENT

Expense vs. investment. Expense is any out of pocket costs related to the event. Investment includes out of pockets plus your day-to-day overhead, including salaries of all those involved.

“Either calculation is valid. Simply be clear when you are reporting your numbers which approach you have taken, and be consistent over time.”

KEY METRIC 2: REACH AND FREQUENCY

The number of unique prospects that attend each event and if, and how often, they attend in the future. Are you communicating to your target audience and building a lasting relationship with them? Do they find your events valuable? Or do you get a bunch of tire kickers looking for a free pen or tee shirt? Maybe a tee shirt isn’t the best way to reach out to your audience…

“Tracking reach and frequency over time can help you gauge the effectiveness of your promotional efforts, as well as to assess the perceived value attendees find in your events.”

KEY METRIC 3: BUSINESS VALUES OF ATTENDEES

Knowing how much potential each prospect has can be helpful when determining the true value of an event. Getting thousands of attendees may feel like a success, but if they’re not the right audience that will bring in the money, you could be wasting your time.

“It’s one thing to know that 75 people attended your event. It’s another to know that those 75 people represent $750,000 in potential business. This number is called customer or prospect lifetime value, and can be a powerful guide in helping you determine which events — and which attendees — merit your time and budget.”

KEY METRIC 4: SHARE OF VISITS

Used to measure the number of people that attend your event compared to competing events in the industry. What makes other events successful in attracting valuable attendees from your key market? If you are attending a tradeshow as an exhibitor, defining this metric is important in knowing which events have the most value and bring in the right attendees.

“Tracking this number over time can tell you if you are gaining or losing ground to your competition for attendees’ limited time and dollars.”

KEY METRIC 5: RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Are you spending your event budget wisely? What are you truly gaining from each dollar you spend? You cannot answer either question until you define goals and establish what success means to your company for each event. Is it to maintain your space in the industry? Announce a new product or service? Gain the attention of the media? Obtain as many leads as possible whether they’re on or off strategy? Are you only interested in qualified leads? If so, what makes a lead qualified? Maybe it’s all of the above…

Regardless of what determines the success of your event, it is very important to define it at the beginning, and communicate it to all who will be involved in the event (from planning to execution).

Of course, if you need a hand, feel free to give us a call.

How to measure a blogger event using a variation of CPM and quality index

Posted on by Brian Steketee

CPM has been used as an industry standard for quite some time to enable brands to understand their cost per thousand impressions on a given site. The range of expense for CPM varies greatly depending obviously on the quantity as well as on how you measure quality of your impression. Recently we finished an engagement with a client of ours looking to understand the return on investment for hosting a blogger event tied to one of their sponsorship platforms. It was a great exercise and it taught the group at large a lot about the various attributes that can go into a measurement approach. So here’s a quick snapshot of the approach as well as what phase II is shaping up to be:

Background: Weekend event, 20 bloggers, free reign to speak their minds

Tools Used to measure: Radian6, Techrigy, Alexa rankings, Compete scores, Google Alerts (RSS feeds), Tweet Search, and a couple of our own “secret sauce” tools

Approach: Develop a dashboard and knowledge management platform for each stakeholder which would compile key metrics and data points into a usable format to provide relevant intelligence on the success/failure of the project

Key Metrics:

Bloggers: sentiment, social channel followers (Twitter, FB, Blog), monthly impressions, actual posts, tone of posts

Brand: Share of discussion (# of mentions +/- and neutral) for week of and following, competitive discussions, social channel performance (FB, Twitter, YouTube) by fan base and commentary

Executive summary: Total impressions by channel, total mentions, tone of mention, total share of conversation bench-marked against previous weeks performance as well as competition, and most importantly, the ability for the bloggers to actually fuel and continue on discussions with their base.

Phase II – Phase II really started with the last point I mention in the executive summary. The ability to understand and measure the influence blogger’s ability to open and maintain dialogues with their fan base. This is an area that moves past the traditional CPM and really gets at the heart of a quality and return of a discussion (challenge of measuring the value of a two way discussion).

Here’s my latest approach in translating quality into impressions. I’ve structured it this way to try to reverse engineer an approach that allows my client to still communicate using the CPM terminology and provides more clarity in defining a baseline for future events. This is an on-going process… I’m open for dialogue here.

(Sum of Quality Score Multiples/Number of Comments) = Average Multiplier; Average Multiplier X Total Number of Web Impressions = Total Quality Impressions (still can be used in the traditional CPM model then)

Comment Quality score is measured as an index. Range of 0-5.

0 score gets a .75 multiple = negative comment (1 negative comment would equal an impression of .75)

1 score gets a 1 multiple = comment is minimal but positive response

2 score gets a 1.05 multiple = comment is information neutral to positive with industry mention however no brand mention

3 score gets a 1.1 multiple = comment includes a question related to industry

4 score gets a 1.2 multiple = comment includes reader expressing a positive attitude towards industry without brand specific mention

5 score gets a 1.25 multiple = comment includes a positive response directly related to the brand of their products or the reader expresses information in trying their product or the reader “reblogs” the post

In summary, positive conversations surrounding a brand would increase the total number of “impressions” considered for the CPM calculation and ultimately provide a better understanding of value.

In the case of the event we were managing, we found that we were able to attribute additional impressions and bring down the CPM slightly (still high – ranging from $300-$700). Considering the niche reach of the outlets, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Brian Steketee