Leveling Moon-Audio.com Up
Stumbling on an old Google doc recently we laughed. The document described a website upgrade for Moon-Audio.com. We laughed because of the difference between our vision before we were serious and where we landed. Working on a video and other content to share how web design and online business planning is so different from the "Invade Russia in the Winter" plans I used to help develop at M&M/Mars and Procter and Gamble.
Stumbling on an old Google doc recently we laughed. The document described a website upgrade for Moon-Audio.com. We laughed because of the difference between our vision before we were serious and where we landed. Working on a video and other content to share how web design and online business planning is so different from the "Invade Russia in the Winter" plans I used to help develop at M&M/Mars and Procter and Gamble.
Starting With Why
Every journey starts with a first step. The best websites step away from the web's furious pace and feedback overload to channel Simon Sinek's great book Start with Why. Sinek notes our inclination to work a problem's HOW. We jump in, organize and start work on the wrong things in the wrong ways. HOW is easy compared to WHY.
Why requires sharing authentic, trust gaining stories about WHO you are and WHY you got that way. The web is the world's largest lie detecting amplifier. Lie one time and the lie is sure to be blasted around the world in the blink of an eye. Share, listen, and deflect credit (stay humble while carrying a big troll stick and thickened skin).
Why requires sharing authentic, trust gaining stories about WHO you are and WHY you got that way. The web is the world's largest lie detecting amplifier. Lie one time and the lie is sure to be blasted around the world in the blink of an eye. Share, listen, and deflect credit (stay humble while carrying a big troll stick and thickened skin).
One of the hardest digital marketing lessons everyone learns the hard way is LESS is MORE, but "less" has important components. A website's About Page may be the most important foundation. Your About Page should share "pillar" stores such as:
* Company Creation Story
* Hero Risks Taken
* Prototype Creation
* Company Creation Story
* Hero Risks Taken
* Prototype Creation
* Core Values
* Hint of the Future
* Hint of the Future
Step 1: Finding Moon Audio's 80-20 Rules
One of the most enduring fractals we observed during a seven-year $30,000,000+ tenure as Director of E-commerce was the power, importance and constant presence of the 80-20 Rule. 20% of almost anything on a website from clicks to conversions controls 80% of the total. 20% of links get most the clicks. 20% of products most of all the sales. You are VERY lucky if 20% of your customers do all the work since the number of advocates, those crucial collaborators willing to share your site with friends via social networks and Word of Mouth (WOM) is usually around 1% or 2% of a site's traffic.
Google analytics is a big help in the hunt for a site's 20% controlling 80% of the total. Web metrics are rarely isolated. If traffic goes up conversions should too. Metrics have three "states" including:
* Dependent - A metric going up or down tied to some related metric doing the same or doing the opposite (depending on the relationship) bounce rate goes down and conversions should go up so dependent but opposite. Traffic goes up conversions should go up too so dependent but related.
* Related - Two metrics who must operate in tandem so they both go down or up together. Traffic and conversions are related metrics. If traffic tumbles and conversions remain stable something is off (probably a traffic tag).
* Dependent - A metric going up or down tied to some related metric doing the same or doing the opposite (depending on the relationship) bounce rate goes down and conversions should go up so dependent but opposite. Traffic goes up conversions should go up too so dependent but related.
* Related - Two metrics who must operate in tandem so they both go down or up together. Traffic and conversions are related metrics. If traffic tumbles and conversions remain stable something is off (probably a traffic tag).
* Lone Wolf - The rare metric that moves without a partner. Social media may be a "lone wolf" metric with patterns so randomized seeing actionable patterns in the fog is difficult.
Questions? Read Finding Your Site's 80-20 Rule on Curagmai for more on the kind of analysis we created to find Moon Audio's 80-20 Rules. Oh, and yes you should expect to find more than one "rule".
This pie chart modeling Moon Audio's top 100 searches proved the importance of audio brands on Moon's business. As we drilled down we discovered the Dragons, Brands and Audiophiles relationship explained below.
Questions? Read Finding Your Site's 80-20 Rule on Curagmai for more on the kind of analysis we created to find Moon Audio's 80-20 Rules. Oh, and yes you should expect to find more than one "rule".
This pie chart modeling Moon Audio's top 100 searches proved the importance of audio brands on Moon's business. As we drilled down we discovered the Dragons, Brands and Audiophiles relationship explained below.
Moon Audio's 80-20 Rule
Researching Moon-Audio.com's 80-20 Rules we found another favorite and common metaphor - the three-legged stool. Three-legged-stools are metrics so related they must be balanced TOGETHER. Without balance, a three-legged-stool would wobble. Our Moon Audio Google Analytics deep dive showed three related circles (legs on their stool):
* Dragons
* Brands
* Audiophiles (customers)
Researching Moon-Audio.com's 80-20 Rules we found another favorite and common metaphor - the three-legged stool. Three-legged-stools are metrics so related they must be balanced TOGETHER. Without balance, a three-legged-stool would wobble. Our Moon Audio Google Analytics deep dive showed three related circles (legs on their stool):
* Dragons
* Brands
* Audiophiles (customers)
Circles Dancing Around A Tiny Sweet Spot
The Dancing Circles Graphic illustrate how HARD it is to create effective brand communication. Communicating one idea is hard. Effectively communicating two ideas feels impossible. Communicating three ideas in our "no time" skeptical culture is impossible.
Time and timing is a problem.
Even great 80-20 information is historical. Historical trends may be helpful or dangerously misleading on the web. The web only has one time - NOW. Knowing your 80-20 Rules provides insight into what customers loved YESTERDAY.
Time and timing is a problem.
Even great 80-20 information is historical. Historical trends may be helpful or dangerously misleading on the web. The web only has one time - NOW. Knowing your 80-20 Rules provides insight into what customers loved YESTERDAY.
Finding Hack Your Headphones in Moon's Sweet Spot
Thinking HARD about Moon Audio's dancing circles (Dragons, Brands, and Audiophiles) led to investing in Hack Your Headphones. Moon Audio doesn't JUST sell headphones, earphones, and In-Ear-Monitors. Moon Audio sells the best sounding headphones in the world.
I work with Moon Audio, but my love of their Founder Drew Baird's Silver Dragon audio cables happened before I became a Moon Audio Ambassador. I listened to my Shure SE846 earphones for a year before leveling up to Drew's Silver Dragon cables. What a MISTAKE - mine not Drew's.
The sound of my beloved In-Ear-Monitors was so clear, intimate yet the soundstage seemed larger and richer so I'd wasted a year in airports and at hospitals without the best escape "drug" ever - Drew's Dragons. I stop shilling here after one more story.
After hearing Keith Jarrett play the piano again as if for the first time, Eberhard Veber's fingers sliding down his bass and Ralph Towner's fingers dancing on his twelve string guitar I realized something shocking. I'd stopped listening to the quiet side of my music collection.
Before Drew's Dragons, my Shure SE846 earphones were best LOUD and PROUD. Once balance was restored I wanted to listen to every jazz and classical recording (Glenn Gould playing Bach was a revelation) again, immediately and with a turntable not Spotify (but that is another story).
I work with Moon Audio, but my love of their Founder Drew Baird's Silver Dragon audio cables happened before I became a Moon Audio Ambassador. I listened to my Shure SE846 earphones for a year before leveling up to Drew's Silver Dragon cables. What a MISTAKE - mine not Drew's.
The sound of my beloved In-Ear-Monitors was so clear, intimate yet the soundstage seemed larger and richer so I'd wasted a year in airports and at hospitals without the best escape "drug" ever - Drew's Dragons. I stop shilling here after one more story.
After hearing Keith Jarrett play the piano again as if for the first time, Eberhard Veber's fingers sliding down his bass and Ralph Towner's fingers dancing on his twelve string guitar I realized something shocking. I'd stopped listening to the quiet side of my music collection.
Before Drew's Dragons, my Shure SE846 earphones were best LOUD and PROUD. Once balance was restored I wanted to listen to every jazz and classical recording (Glenn Gould playing Bach was a revelation) again, immediately and with a turntable not Spotify (but that is another story).
One other note. Every web marketing tactic I know, learned and ever will learn is EASIER and I mean MUCH EASIER when applied to an insanely great product people, love, want to support, tell their friends about and advocate for little other than the joy and social embrace such advocacy brings.
Hacking Moon's Growth Strategy
Dragons are insanely great, great but complicated. By focusing on our tiny sweet spot, the tiny intersection between Dragons, Brands and Audiophiles we found Hack Your Headphones. This journey too started on Google Analytics. We noticed Moon's customers LOVE technology.
Audiophiles love and are obsessed with technology. If you market anything online we hope you have a group as dedicated and wiling to share as audiophiles. Success online doesn't depend on what you think. Online success doesn't depend on YOU.
As hard as reading a statement moving importance from YOU to THEM is for Type A marketing types to read let's go further. The sooner YOU and THEM becomes US the better your marketing becomes. The way to achieve the goal of moving Moon Audio and their amazing audiophile customers to a collaboration so rich the difference betweenTHEM and US is tiny was to create an event that spoke to all three of the dancing circles.
Oh and we remembered to ASK FOR HELP.
Audiophiles love and are obsessed with technology. If you market anything online we hope you have a group as dedicated and wiling to share as audiophiles. Success online doesn't depend on what you think. Online success doesn't depend on YOU.
As hard as reading a statement moving importance from YOU to THEM is for Type A marketing types to read let's go further. The sooner YOU and THEM becomes US the better your marketing becomes. The way to achieve the goal of moving Moon Audio and their amazing audiophile customers to a collaboration so rich the difference betweenTHEM and US is tiny was to create an event that spoke to all three of the dancing circles.
Oh and we remembered to ASK FOR HELP.
Ambassadors and Asking For Help
Want to know something you can do tomorrow that will begin your website's hero's journey? Create an Ambassador Program and ASK for Help. Being vulnerable enough to ASK FOR HELP says something important. Asking for help says you want to listen, you understand we live in two-way conversational times and those two facts move you and your marketing firmly away from 80% over everyone else.
Be humble, of service, answer questions, create community and these are the best of times. Do anything else and...well good luck with that :).
The Next Million Bucks
E-commerce web development is always about the next million bucks. Yep, I said that and my statement is accurate, but NO ONE I know who loves creating websites and online marketing cares much about money. Is money the best report card? Yes, money is the best report card.
Like most of my web marketing friends (the only ones still reading this post lol) the next million bucks is a statement about the need for ever increasing scale. Faster and faster, better and better is the way this new stuff works. Scale is acceptance by proxy.
If you are lucky and work hard enough to earn hearts, minds and loyalty community will form. Don't get too excited. There are a million ways community goes to zero. If you don't learn fast, remain humble, share and share some more community won't form, your marketing will keep talking to yourself about yourself and woe be upon you, brothers and sisters.
Like most of my web marketing friends (the only ones still reading this post lol) the next million bucks is a statement about the need for ever increasing scale. Faster and faster, better and better is the way this new stuff works. Scale is acceptance by proxy.
If you are lucky and work hard enough to earn hearts, minds and loyalty community will form. Don't get too excited. There are a million ways community goes to zero. If you don't learn fast, remain humble, share and share some more community won't form, your marketing will keep talking to yourself about yourself and woe be upon you, brothers and sisters.
New Moon Rising (black = old, white = new and NEW is CRUSHING old in...well everything).
