I originally posted this on webanalytictemplates.com
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One of the keys to a successful implementation of any business project is alignment.
At each stage or level the goals and tactics must align otherwise you end up with a confused mess. Let me give you an example. Your company is going to redesign the website, let’s say it’s a skateboarding website. They tell you the over-arching goal is “to connect with users in a satisfying and interactive way and to build community”. There are definitely things you can think of to measure success. Time on site, page views, click-throughs, membership, average posts per user, etc. Those coupled with an attitudinal survey should give you a pretty good idea of how you are doing.
But when you ask about how they want to measure success they start talking about revenue. That is wrong. I’m not saying revenue is not important, damn straight it is, but they didn’t mention money in the over-arching goals. Either change the success determinants or change the mission statement. A better mission statement might be, “to connect with users in a satisfying and interactive way while increasing revenue and to build community connecting youth oriented vendors and skateboarding teens”.
This way everyone is clear on what the project is trying to achieve. Then the success metrics are aligned to this mission statement and the tactics are then tracked against those success metrics. For example if the website included an mp3 audio player which played the latest indie bands and included links to iTunes where users could buy the songs and links where they could share the songs, you could easily measure how that tactic helped the project achieve it’s goal.
You could measure the
- number of songs played
- the click throughs to iTunes
- number of interactions with the player
- number of songs shared
- number of comments in a forum section for music
All of these things are easily done “if and only if” your strategy, success metrics and tactics are aligned.