{"id":20228,"date":"2016-06-22T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/?p=20228"},"modified":"2016-06-22T09:03:22","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T08:03:22","slug":"ecommerce-success-mapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartinsights.com\/ecommerce\/ecommerce-strategy\/ecommerce-success-mapping\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Ecommerce success mapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Using Cause-and-effect or Ishikawa fishbone diagrams for marketing analysis and management<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re involved with managing Ecommerce, there are many inter-related marketing activities that are important for success. With the increasingly complex range of channels companies use for communications today and alternative customer journeys on site, mastering best practices is helpful to make best use of each channel or digital marketing technique and how it integrates with other channels.<\/p>\n

I first started to use Ishikawa diagrams<\/a>\u00a0 when I was responsbible for managing software development teams where we used them to identify the potential cause of problems and minimise bugs. As I got involved in digital marketing I was reminded them when I heard Sam Decker<\/a>, then responsible for Dell\u2019s consumer web site, explaining how Dell used this as part of their Six Sigma thinking to improve operations, content, design, analytics, and P&L management. This technique seemed to me to be a perfect fit for many aspects of modern marketing, but particularly creating digital experiences and customer service since processes for systems development, integration and workflow are now so important in digital marketing. So I've created a top-level Ishikawa template for Smart Insights Expert members<\/a> to summarise the success factors for transactional Ecommerce sites. It's structured around our RACE planning framework so can be applied to other sectors too.<\/p>\n

Using the right levers to impact sales<\/h3>\n

But how do you check you have considered all the relevant factors that will keep your Ecommerce optimisation on track? At Smart Insights we hope to help by developing frameworks that help managers or consultants think-through or analyse complex challenges of managing digital marketing. Our RACE marketing strategy framework<\/a> is one way we have looked to simplify all the different activities that need to be managed. In this post I\u2019ll describe another approach which helps you define the main success factors for online marketing.<\/p>\n

The way I see it, successful digital marketing involves management of different levers that affect performance, some more important than others. Think of the old-school railway signal boxes - there is a straightforward cause and effect with different levers having a different impact, but each important.<\/p>\n

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Managing digital marketing today is more akin to this nuclear power station control console.<\/p>\n

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Or at least a social media command centre<\/a> like this...<\/p>\n

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Identifying the right levers for Ecommerce<\/h3>\n

So, for success in managing Ecommerce you need to consider the most effective levers to pull. How should we define these? There is a natural tendency for us to focus on the \u201clow hanging fruit\u201d or efficiency factors whereas (see my post defining Efficiency vs Effectiveness<\/a>) whereas it\u2019s often the more challenging Effectiveness factors that will have the biggest impact. For example, I\u2019ve head Karl Blanks of Conversion Rate Experts, talks about how conversion rate optimisation for Ecommerce sites can suffer from \u201cmeek tweaking<\/em>\u201d where optimisation is limited to template features or copy as part of CRO, rather than pulling the more significant levers of value proposition or customer journeys on the site.<\/p>\n

Similarly, I\u2019ve also heard Angus Cormie, EMEA Online Marketing Director at Dell describe how Dell divide their key performance drivers into Tactical on-page levers of messaging and usability and Strategic online levers such as merchandising<\/em> (e.g. reviews and ratings, product videos); major site path changes<\/em>; decision-support tools<\/em> (e.g. help-me-choose and comparison tables) and different merchandising toolkits<\/em> such as product customisation and offer personalisation, real estate optimisation and message balancing.<\/p>\n

Applying cause-and-effect diagrams for marketing analysis<\/h3>\n

A technique that I have used for a while to help in my analysis of digital marketing for businesses are cause-and-effect diagrams. You may have heard of them as Ishikawa or Fishbone diagrams too.<\/p>\n

If you look at the example that\u2019s used in the Wikipedia entry for Ishikawa diagrams<\/a> you can see why they\u2019re called Fishbone diagrams. Kaoru Ishikawa was a Japanese University professor and proponent of quality management practices in industry culminating in the publishing of the Ishikawa diagram in his books of the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\"Ishikawa<\/p>\n

I first heard about the technique around ten years ago when there was a movement to adopt Six Sigma principles in marketing. Dell was one of the earliest adopters of the technique in marketing and I was influenced by Sam Decker, then an Ecommerce manager at Dell in the US as he described their benefits and how Dell had used them. Since then I have used them on various consulting projects and for reviewing the structure of search marketing best practice guides for example. I also talk about them on training courses and there seems to be interest in the technique, so I thought I\u2019d write up how I use the technique.<\/p>\n

Note though, that the way I use them isn\u2019t the classical method since Ishikawa diagrams originate in the process manufacturing industry where they are most commonly used to identify defects in operations and techniques to reduce the problem. So I call the technique \u201csuccess mapping<\/em>\u201d since it\u2019s more about defining the different marketing activities used to improve performance rather than solving a particular problem. Of course, you can consider the reverse, which are the problems that are limiting sales\u2026<\/p>\n

Identifying the right strategic levers<\/h4>\n

For me, success maps offer a way of driving growth and improved performance of a channel since they give a structured way to understand, prioritise and manage best practices for marketing activities. They offer these benefits:<\/p>\n