• Lack of credit, a slowing economy, and disappearing profits are hitting marketing budgets hard.
• Tighter budgets result in greater accountability and demonstrated return on  investments.

CEOs and tight budgets are requiring greater accountability. Fortunately the tools are better than ever to prove that budgets are allocated correctly. The Web is setting new standards for establishing metrics, gathering data, and calculating return on investment.

1. Web site analytics: More and more firms will realize the value of attaching analytics to their site. Open source software can pull infinite amounts of data into functional reports that not only reveal how many visitors reach your site, but how many were new, where they came from, where they navigated, and how much time they spent on the site. In fact, we can monitor who opened this e-mail, who clicked through to our Web site, where they navigated, and their time on our site. We are able to track individual users as well as general user trends.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How is Google finding you? All new sites should be built to accommodate SEO. Firms will recognize how they want to be found through organic searches and take the steps to accommodate the search engines. The alternative is to pay for placement—a significantly more expensive option that gives your site immediate rankings.  There is a downside, users recognize payed placements—at least two out of every three users will click organic results before inorganic. These “pay-per-clicks” can get expensive quickly—implementing an organic SEO program will provide significantly greater returns over time.

3. On-line communities: Businesses are realizing that in the right environment, an on-line community cannot only provide important information, it can also energize a product and accelerate sales at incredible rates. They’re not for everyone, but in the right place, they can be incredibly powerful.

4. Videos: Business has discovered video. Visitors want to watch videos.  A recent web survey reports that the average web user watches nine videos a day. If you multiple that times the millions on-line, you are well into the billions. Put testimonials, media, and messages on video feeds. Keep them short to avoid latency, and load them on your site, and be sure the video’s quality accurately reflects your brand.

5. Continued Web innovation: It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention. Marketers will continue to find and develop ways to communicate through the Web. It’s the least cost method and if used correctly, can be more effective than other mediums. More businesses will put collateral on-line and allow visitors to download the material they wish. We’ll see more Web-based forms, modeling software, data gathering as well as product and service ordering. Businesses will continue to search for ways to leverage the Web to reduce costs while improving communications.

This is a great time to shift your approach to communications. Work with the right people to find ways to improve your communications, reduce your costs, and establish ways to demonstrate the value of your efforts.