Insights

Woopra 1.3.1 Beta Launches

Last month I wrote about how to make your blog work for you, and part of that was by measuring your blog’s success through analytics.

Woopra was one of the tools I mentioned (and it’s one I use on this blog), for the way it offers a host of great and incredibly useful information. Yesterday the company released the beta version of Woopra 1.3.1 and man does it rock (I even used the phrase “Holy monkeys!” at the time).

There are two versions of Woopra – a desktop client version and a WordPress plugin that allows you to see your reports through your WordPress dashboard. Both share similar features, although obviously the desktop version has a few more (a little like the differences between Seesmic Desktop and Seesmic Web for Twitter).

So, what are the funky new features?

Woopra 1.3.1 Desktop Client

The immediate difference when you open the updated version is the graphical overhaul. This may not sound like much, but now the information is dissected into easy-to-use blocks that offers a clear visual stream. When you start looking at this information, that’s where the fun begins.

One of the biggest improvements is in the Woopra Segmentation feature. This breaks your analytics down into the most minute details. You can track traffic on a certain page, keyword, what site it came from, how a social media campaign using the likes of Twitter and Facebook is doing, and much more.

Knowing where your traffic is coming from lets you tailor your blog or website for the most important people – the visitors. One of the first things I noticed, for example, is that a lot of people go from a post to my About page – so it may be that I need to boost that with some more info.

For businesses, this function obviously allows you to see if a sales landing page is doing its job. Did you guide them to “the sweet spot”? Did they click past your pop-up message or get annoyed by it and close their browsing? Using this information helps you improve the functionality of your site.

Some of the other new or improved features include:

Log-in control that lets you open just the information you need.
Woopra Live Map that supports multiple monitor use.
Unique Mac OS X feature to track visitors via Dock Badge.
Custom visitor data to set up custom tags, events, visitors and more.
Live chat to have a conversation with anyone currently on your blog or site (instant feedback possibilities).

These features and others (webmaster tools for Alexa info and Google page rank, and open API for third-party add-ons for example) make the desktop client version of Woopra 1.3.1 an incredibly robust and intensive package. So how does the WordPress plugin compare?

Woopra 1.3.1 WordPress Plugin

While it doesn’t share some of the more in-depth features of its desktop brother, the Woopra WordPress plugin is still an impressive piece of kit. After you upload the plugin and activate it, a new option appears in your dashboard section. Once you’ve configured the settings, you have access to the likes of:

Live visitor tracking and web stats.
Real-time analytics as they happen.
Multi-blog or website cross functionality.
Real-time notifications of tagged visitor or event.
Chat function.

While it’s not as deep as the desktop client, for any blogger that just wants to know a bit more about where their audience is coming from the WordPress plugin offers a better overview than the standard WordPress analytics.

Woopra also has a web-based analytics option, so if you’re not at your desktop you can log-in to Woopra and access your information from your members area.

If there’s any downside to Woopra, it’s that it doesn’t offer historical data – so you can only monitor information from after you install the Woopra code or plugin on your site. It’d be nice to hook up with Google Analytics or similar to gauge your complete info – maybe next update?

While Woopra is in beta, using the service is free to any blogs or sites with less than 10,000 daily page views. There will be a premium version available when Woopra officially launches, though they’ll continue to offer a free version as well.

photo credit: adria.richards

Marketing the Bruce Campbell Way

MY NAME IS BRUCE I was asked this question on Twitter this morning: “If your brand was a person, who would it be?”, to which my response was Bruce Campbell.

(For anyone who doesn’t know who Bruce Campbell is, he’s a legendary B-movie actor).

Originally my answer was from a fun point of view, because I love the guy – his expressions in his movies crack me up; I’ve just finished reading Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way and it’s a hoot; and the guy is simply part of the teenage years that helped make me who I am today. So, he’s a big influence, if you like.

Yet then I started thinking more about why Bruce stuck out for me, out of all the cheesy actors that I grew up with – and there were many! And that got me to thinking that maybe he had a subconscious part to play in me choosing? marketing as my vocation…

Define the Brand

For any Bruce Campbell fans, you know what you’re going to get. Wisecracks, slapstick humour, cheesy lines, a huge dose of belly laughs and the feeling that the guy he plays will just never get the breaks he deserves. He has a certain style and that’s in every movie he does (even the more serious ones).

If you confuse your customers, you can put them off your product and send them to your competitors. Video game company Sega used to be one of the most successful around – the Genesis is still one of the most successful platforms ever. Then they tried to offer too much.

Add-on platforms like the Sega Mega-CD and 32X, combined with non-clear plans about the future direction of the company, eventually saw them pull out of hardware development and simply become a publisher. Their name was tarnished and they’ve struggled to regain the success they once enjoyed.

Takeaway: Choice is good, but confusion is dangerous. Be innovative but be smart.

Offer Value

If there’s one thing that Bruce Campbell excels at, it’s the after-the-event approach he takes. When a movie’s made, studios usually have the final word on what makes the cut. They also butcher scenes that leaves the viewer asking what the heck was going on there.

When that movie makes its way to DVD, Bruce has shown himself to be more than happy to provide a huge amount of commentary and extras. Check out the DVD versions of the Evil Dead movies, or My Name is Bruce, or The Man with the Screaming Brain, or Bubba Ho-Tep as just some great examples.

It's the little things that matter

Customers (and I’m one too) love value. We don’t mind paying extra if we can see that it’s offering extra value and benefits to us. Or cross market us – that works too. Restaurants offer a movie-and-a-meal deal, for instance, where you pay a set amount, you get a starter and an entree and a free movie ticket. You finish your meal, you go see a movie. Perfect mix for a night out, no?

Takeaway: Cheap can get you fire-sales, but value-added can get you loyalty and repeat business.

Be Your Fans

Maybe it’s because of his B-movie sensibilities, or maybe it’s just because he’s a genuinely nice guy, but Bruce Campbell seems to take extra effort in looking after his fans.

From DVD extras, to the fun he has with them on the road during convention season, to the shout-outs he gives to them in his writing – Bruce is the man when it comes to remembering who put him where he is. The reason? He’s a fan himself – he genuinely loves the B-movie craft and ingenuity and the fans that mix in that genre, and treats fans the way he wants to be treated as a fan too.

If you’re not a fan of either your business or your customers, you may as well pack it in and go work a normal 9-5 job for a non-descript boss somewhere. This is your dream; your baby; the justification of long nights, of hard times and Hamburger Helper meals. But it’s not just you.

Your employees make your success every day. Your customers continue that success. Make them fans too. Make them love your company and product as if it’s one of their own. Involve them; let them help you nurture your baby; offer ideas and feedback. Fans can be fickle, but they can also be incredibly loyal – make sure you’re not the collector of the former.

Takeaway: You can buy success, but earned success will pay back in a hundred-fold.

Marketing can be a funny game. Often you come up with a great idea only to realize it’s not actually all that great after all. The key is adaptability coupled with innovation, yet also tried and trusted methods.

B-movies are very much like this, and the key players involved some of the most creative around because of it. Bruce Campbell epitomizes how lasting appeal can come from the least likely of sources. One of his most popular catchphrases is “Groovy”.

Are you keeping things groovy?

photo credit: blakespot
photo credit: Thorsten Becker

A Couple of New Additions

Just wanted to give you a quick heads-up on two new additions to the blog, both of which you’ll see in the right-hand sidebar.

The first is the option to subscribe to this blog via a podcast format. However, this isn’t me doing the podcasting – it’s handled by Odiogo, an app that automatically converts blog posts into audio files. The audio quality is actually pretty good, considering it’s (at heart) a robot.

The subscribe options are iTunes, Juice and Zune, or you can copy the feed into your own audio reader. I just wanted to make sure that the blog is as accessible as possible to everyone, and Odiogo will hopefully offer a useful alternative to any visually impaired readers.

The second addition is my BlogTalkRadio channel. I set this up a while ago but haven’t had time to sit down and do anything with it. Until now, that is.

The first episode launches at the end of this month, on Monday August 31 at 2.00pm EST with Chris Brogan. Chris will be chatting about his upcoming book Trust Agents (co-authored with Julien Smith), as well as what it takes to be a trust agent and an informal chat about new media, business, marketing and much more.

If you click on the banner it takes you to my Blog Talk channel, where you can subscribe or set a reminder for the chat. Future shows will include Gary Vaynerchuk and David Henderson among others.

And that’s that. Feel free to check either (or both) out and hope you enjoy the changes. Cheers!

photo credit: mab @ flickr

Making the Switch to Headway

Regular readers here may have noticed my blog has a fresh new lick of paint in the shape of the Headway premium WordPress theme. This replaces the Thesis theme that I was using previously.

While I’m a big fan of Chris Pearson’s Thesis, I found it wasn’t quite so user-friendly for making major design changes (unless you were a decent level of coder). Because of this, many of the blogs using Thesis have a very similar look. Enter Headway.

Developed by Clay Griffiths, Headway takes some of the best ideas from Thesis, adds a whole bunch more, and mixes it all together in a powerhouse WordPress theme. Ideal for everyday WordPress users as well as intermediate and advanced coders, it’s one of the most flexible themes I’ve ever used.

I’ve only just started customizing my blog and already I love the way each page has a different feel. When I really get to work expect some real changes! (Note: the redesign took me around 6 hours from basic framework to fully customized, with no CSS or HTML coding – this is all from out of the box).

Some of the features include:

Drag and drop design.
No two pages the same.
SEO customization on no-index, no-follow, do-follow, meta, tags, posts and pages (everything, then!).
Unique “Leafs” system that lets you add text, media and widget boxes on the fly.
Easy visual color and font editor for making your own completely personalized skins.
In-house Twitter synchronization and social network options.

I could keep writing about how cool Headway is, but you’d get really bored of my praise, I’m sure. Instead, check out the Headway site, watch the videos, and check the theme out for yourself. Or, mosey round my blog and see the different designs for different pages.

Just a note. Since I’m a Headway affiliate, any sales of the theme result in a percentage for me. So, here’s a deal – for any theme ever purchased through one of my links or banners, I will donate 50% of the affiliate payment to the current 12for12k charity in your name. Sound fair?

Update Tuesday November 3 – the game just changed radically with Headway 1.5 and its visual editor. Check out all the details here.

Note: This blog no longer runs on the Headway framework. Instead, it’s a custom WordPress design by Lisa Kalandjian of SceneStealer Graphics.