Give me information, not Data!

Yesterday, I had the distinct privilege of sitting across a table from the CEO of a fairly large corporation and explaining to him what he needed to understand about web analytics and search engine optimization and why it is such an important area for his company to be concerned about. Here are some highlights:

Coolest moment: When the VP of Marketing asked me with a certain amount of incredulity, “Do you mean to tell me that I should be able to tie my website performance to my revenue?” I answered, “You better. Even though there is not a 1 to 1 correlation the process should be designed to give you that kind of ability.”

Scariest Moment: When the CEO turned to me and said, “OK, this sounds good, but how long will it take to implement and how much will it cost?” At this point we were talking about SEO opportunities for his company. I had no idea, but I will in two weeks, and that’s what I told him.

Key thing Learned: Executives at every level are hungry for good solutions that will make their technology accountable. I think for too long they feel like they are being duped by their IT people because they can’t measure success or failure in a traditional business sense. That tide is turning, and I helped turn some of it yesterday. Boo yaaa.

My toughest Comment: “Unless you are prepared as an organization to follow through on a commitment to use the information web analytics provides you, you shouldn’t even attempt to implement this.” Yes, I actually said that.

Upshot: This company is getting it. They have an aggressive leadership team that is willing to risk, and I intend for them to win and win big in their market.

That’s enough. Sorry for not posting often, something about being a potential web analytics guru makes me very busy.