You may have noticed that some Grok contributors have been less present on our blog lately. Jeffrey and Bryan Eisenberg have left FutureNow to capitalize on opportunities in professional speaking, blogging, writing, and online marketing advisory.  Bryan’s new website can be found at www.bryaneisenberg.com. Please join us in wishing them continued success in their new ventures.

The only small change that will effect readers is that the senior analysts that have been sharing their insights and expertise in the past, will now be contributing more on The Grok.  You’ll be reading more from the analysts that are working with clients every day, helping them achieve higher conversion rates and improve their online marketing efforts.  Grok contributors will increase their focus on sharing more case studies on what is and isn’t working in actual client optimization efforts.

And, here’s what’s not changing:

• The focus of GrokDotCom:  Grokking human reactions to marketing, sales, PR & evolving media.
• Our efforts to bring you interesting industry developments, cool new tools to make your lives easier, and actionable insights for optimizing your conversion rates.

For those interested in more details, here are some thoughts from FutureNow’s CEO, excerpted from a letter that went out to clients and partners:

Bryan, Jeffrey and the rest of the team have made this Company the leading authority in the conversion optimization space.  Combine that with an unmatched proprietary database that has website recommendations that work and a software tool that manages and measure those results, we continue leading the industry.  We owe Jeffrey and Bryan, our experienced team, our customers, and our affiliate service partners a lot of gratitude for getting us to this point.

We plan to build on this success and even find ways to improve it.  Our methodology will not change, and clients will still get the same analysis they have come to expect.  Our highly skilled business analyst team, account management personnel, and software development and support group will continue to look for ways to exceed our clients’ expectations.

Having been involved in some capacity since the Company’s inception, I am excited as ever for where our Company is and for our future plans.

I welcome any questions you may have and can be reached at 718-560-3325 or by email at bills@futurenowinc.com.

Sincerely,

William Schloth

Chief Executive Officer

Here are other apps besides OnTarget that are using Google Analytics’ Data Export API.

Here is OnTarget for Google Analytics:

OnTarget provides full optimization, testing, and improvement cycle recommendations on how to improve goals online and increase conversions from marketing campaigns. Clients determine how many resources can be devoted towards optimization each month. FutureNow’s analysts deliver a to-do list of suggested improvements matched to client goals via the OnTarget interface. These changes are tracked using Google Analytics and the impact is fed directly into the next round of ensuing recommendation.

We’ll be announcing lots of cool new features and soon you’ll see specialized OnTarget for Retail and OnTarget for Lead Geneartion products. Just stay tuned…same bat time..same bat channel.

Well, we’re finally out of the bottle when it comes to our newest software offering, OnTarget™. We knew what the OnTarget software-as-a-service is; why it’s so different from everything else; how OnTarget works on your website; and even what kind of client results it produces. However, you may not be aware of those things and that is what makes your feedback much more valuable to us than our internal critique.

We’ve finished up an updated video describing OnTarget™ based on your feedback as well as a demo video of OnTarget™ in action. Thank you so much for your feedback.

Enjoy! And let us know what you think!!

- Elaine in the movie Airplane

Does looking at an instrumentation panel like this (picture on the left) create feelings of information overload? It does for most non-pilots I know.

Pilots on the other hand, quickly identify the primary flight gauges and navigation equipment.  They know what’s immediately important for flying the plane, and can scan across multiple gauges (rather than fixating on one or two of them) to develop a “big picture” of what the plane is actually doing.

Even more importantly, when they make a control input (like adding power), they know where to look to verify its intended effect (e.g., altimeter and airspeed).

Web Optimization is a lot like that.

Emotionally, many business owners experience that exact sense of information overload when looking at traditional Web Analytics.  No one has taught them how to assemble a composite picture of visitor behavior – what measurements to look for first, what to look at in combination, and how to verify that website changes worked as expected.

Flying blind becomes the inevitable result.

Yet rather than looking for a pilot or investing in flying lessons, many business owners buy into optimization efforts based on sophisticated data gathering capabilities and overly complex testing methodologies.

Why would they do that when they need more actionable insight and situational awareness, and not more gauges to look at?

Because flight instructors are in short supply.  And because this kind of sense making, as a so-called “soft skill,” has always been a more difficult sell than hard-core data collection and taguchi testing.

But those interesting in learning to fly their web optimization efforts have a viable option:  Follow Bryan Eisenberg’s free Webinars and get free flight lessons each month.

On January 15th, Bryan and Jim Sterne (considered the godfather of web analytics) will cover specific techniques to get a composite picture of visitor flow and the importance of looking at analytics through the lens of visitor intent.  Consider it a first, free flight lesson that can be followed up with Bryan’s recorded Webinars.

And for those that want more, I’d invite you to check out FutureNow’s OnTarget product as an affordable way to hire an “on demand” flight instructor for your web optimization efforts.

Have you ever received great advice from a consultant but couldn’t implement it?

A recommendation is just advice, no matter how excellent, until you implement.

It’s only when you implement a recommendation that you reap the rewards.

Even when you know the advice is great you can get consulting indigestion.

You, the client, in consuming the advice can be the log jam or the hero of every consulting engagement. It’s rarely the consultant that makes the difference. If you choke or get indigestion then consulting leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Just-In-Time Optimization

We have always tried hard to screen for toxic clients with unrealistic expectations. Our NPS scores are excellent and our client successes speak for themselves.  Nevertheless, the most common lament among our clients isn’t about us it’s about them. They simply don’t have extra resources or time to implement everything we recommend.

We could ask our customers to change or we could change.

We chose to change!

Instead of providing you with a gut busting all-you-can-eat buffet we’ll provide you only the healthiest tastiest morsels of advice that you can actually consume and we’ll do it for much less money.

Think of it as just-in-time optimization. You tell us how much time and resources you can devote and we’ll prioritize our recommendations based on how much impact it will have towards reaching your goal.

You get analysis and recommendations without the considerable expense of having to hire an analyst.

We’re Not Crazy

Well at least we’re not dangerous, except to your competitors.

OnTarget, our new software-as-service model allows us to automate a great deal of otherwise costly consulting tasks that don’t provide as much value to you.

With OnTarget you get:

1. Our expert analysis of your online lead generation and sales efforts;
2. The best recommendations you can actually implement with an estimate of time & resources required;
3. Pricing based on your ability to implement (starts as low as $1,000 a month) so that you achieve the highest return on investment of your time, money & resources.

We are launching the OnTarget program this week. We will be busy revising our website all week but you can preview the OnTarget service description.

If you want to know more or want to inquire about our reseller program please contact us.

FutureNow is part of the public company Future Now Group, Inc [OTC BB: FUTR.OB] and from time to time we are going to publicly disclose information on this blog. GrokDotCom has wider readership than any press release we could issue. Press releases do get wide “distribution” but distribution is not the same as readership. When we include our email channel, to our rss and blog visitors GrokDotCom has more than 100,000 unique readers per month.

Practicing what we preach means we can track the difference. When we wrote our press release about “Dr. Phil” project there wasn’t nearly as much response as when we blogged about it here. In fact, the reponse was so good that we added almost all the paid alpha-testing clients we needed. We could still use three more testers in lead generation and one more retailer with a considered purchase, contact us if you want to be an alpha-tester or even if you just need to improve your results. The trials are going very well and we’re on target to launch in beta next quarter. Oops Not really a slip of the tongue. The software- as-a-service line will carry the name OnTarget (TM) – powered by Persuasion Architecture (R).

The “Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer” launch and marketing are going full steam ahead. Bryan did get writer’s cramp while hundreds stood on line at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose to have one of the 500 books Google gave away autographed. The post-release reviews match the advanced praise and are so positive that I’m glad I didn’t co-author it or I’d have to blush.

Most importantly FutureNow’s thinking shined in the book. We’re proud of the interactive marketing optimization processes and systems developed by FutureNow. We get clients great results. In fact, I just confirmed today that we have another new client, working with our newest employee, who early on in their engagement already has a 142% increase in top line sales. Natalie is sharp and because she uses our processes she is able to deliver exceptional advice.

Without that advanced thinking we could never automate to the degree that our new SaaS lines allow us to. We are able to scale the development of quality recommendations. While that may put margin pressure on other consultants; that’s not our main goal. OnTarget is a highly disruptive business model. OnTarget will make it possible for many more small-to-medium size businesses to afford quality marketing optimization systems while being simple enough that they can effectively use it. That is why we are certain that OnTarget will increase the addressable market size dramatically.

Best of all, all that publicity is really being appreciated by our sales team who are rocking and rolling with the best pipeline FutureNow ever had and they are on target to exceed our quarterly goal for new contracts signed. That’s the kind of news no company ever gets enough of. Keep up the great work team!

That’s all for now. Now you can ask me how are we doing. Or you can wait to read the interview with The Wall Street Transcript that I’m doing this Friday.