Will a perfect storm of technologies, combined with the SaaS financial and delivery model disrupt traditional Windows desktops and transform how IT services are delivered, and how corporate data centers are managed?  It may be more imminent than you think.

First, let’s examine a little background and the context that’s brought us to this point.

Over the last decade, application virtualization solutions provided by companies like CITRIX® Systems and Microsoft® Terminal Services have changed the way “legacy” Windows business applications are managed and delivered.  At the same time, server consolidation projects have virtualized the majority of corporate servers, using server virtualization technology by companies like VMware® to reduce the physical server footprint in the data center.

More recently, interest in VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) solutions has grown markedly, as companies look for ways to deal with an aging desktop infrastructure and migrate to Windows 7.

At the same time, SaaS and Cloud Computing are changing the way new applications and data are developed, managed and delivered – outside the traditional data center, where data now commonly resides in third-party data centers, alongside their corresponding SaaS applications.

All this is happening at a time when extreme financial pressures continue to depress capital investments, and executives are hungry for ways to avoid capital spending and minimize operating costs.  Local and state governments now find themselves operating under even more dire financial circumstances, brought on by contracted tax bases and local economies.

Both businesses and government agencies are searching for ways to reduce unnecessary spending, avoid large capital investment outlays and reduce operating costs wherever possible.

Meanwhile, the move is well afoot to virtualize the enterprise desktops, using VDI technology.  However, the maturing VDI solution stacks are mostly premise-based – and highly capital-intensive.

Worse yet, these premise-based VDI solutions drive corporate data centers in the wrong direction – drastically growing the number of servers, power and air conditioning requirements and increasing data center management costs – wiping out gains from earlier server consolidation efforts.

Still, some companies are moving forward with VDI, despite its questionable ROI, CapEx intensity and the data center bloat factors involved.  For many, the pains associated with managing, upgrading and replacing fat-client desktops and the Windows 7 desktop refresh cycle are simply too much to bear.

Even Microsoft acknowledges that VDI can’t help you reduce costs – VDI does not reduce desktop costs because it can represent a significant up-front investment in infrastructure, including hardware, software, storage, and network. And, unless steps are taken to improve basic desktop management and deployment processes, just choosing VDI for desktop deployment will not reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) either.

Enter the “cloud-hosted” virtual desktop, by vendors like Desktone®, Virtual-Q® and others.  Cloud-hosted desktops virtualize Windows desktops and applications, similar to what CITRIX and Terminal Services have done on-premise.  But instead of the virtual desktops residing in the corporate data center, they are hosted in the cloud – within a private, third-party data center.

Importantly, cloud-hosted virtual desktops are leased in bulk to the customer using a SaaS licensing model. There is no capital investment required on the part of the customer to virtualize their business desktops.

Instead, desktop and application delivery costs become operating expenses (“OpEx”) under a SaaS subscription model. The vendor incurs the capital investment costs associated with the VDI hardware and software, data center operations, security and management.  Of course, IT continues to develop, install, update and manage the company’s applications and data – it just resides in a data center that’s physically located across the Internet.

For example, to implement a basic 100-user, premised-based VDI solution here’s what you would need:

For many companies and government entities, the cloud-hosted desktop is a very enticing proposition. However, desktops running applications require high-speed, secure access to server-side (e.g., client-server) application code and corresponding data, typically residing in SQL databases.

So how can cloud-hosted desktops access the data and application back-ends they require?

Answer.  Move the existing virtualized servers and databases out of the corporate data center and collocate them with the cloud-based virtual desktops.  By collocating both the virtual desktops and back-end servers and data within the same third-party data center, it’s possible to switch most, if not all, of the IT infrastructure from a capital-intensive, corporate-owned and managed data center into a fully cloud-hosted IT service.

I know, I know.  That’s just blasphemy!  Especially to many CIO’s and IT managers, who view their corporate data centers, servers and data as too business critical and sensitive to trust to any third party…

Well, there was a time when that attitude and perspective was completely understandable and even justified; however, times are changing.

In a 2010 article titled: Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond.   Gartner predicts that “by 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets. Several interrelated trends are driving the movement toward decreased IT hardware assets, such as virtualization, cloud-enabled services, and employees running personal desktops and notebook systems on corporate networks”.

This is a little extreme – the need for computing hardware, either in a data center or on an employee’s desk, will not go away. However, if the ownership of hardware shifts to third parties, then there will be major shifts throughout every facet of the IT hardware industry. For example, enterprise IT budgets will either be shrunk or reallocated to more-strategic projects; enterprise IT staff will either be reduced or reskilled to meet new requirements, and/or hardware distribution will have to change radically to meet the requirements of the new IT hardware buying points.

Trusted, professionally-managed data center providers like Softlayer®, Rackspace® and others now provide viable alternatives to corporate-owned and operated data centers – arguably, better managed and even more secure in many cases.

As a consequence, what begins as a cloud-based, desktop-as-a-service pilot project quickly evolves into a more comprehensive cloud-based computing-as-a-service solution, whereby the IT infrastructure is relocated into a private, secure data center managed by one of these trusted data center providers.  Backup data centers and multiple points of presence on the Internet provide the safety nets that make this a completely viable solution for most companies and government agencies.

This is even easier to contemplate today because most corporate servers are already virtualized, and IT has become more comfortable with virtualization and cloud technologies applied to business-critical computing.

It’s relatively straightforward to develop a plan to forklift application servers and databases, migrating them out of corporate data centers and into a cloud-hosted data center.

I know.  Double-blasphemy!

Needless to say, even the suggestion that the corporate data center, servers and data could no longer be directly under IT management’s control makes many of us gray-haired IT managers either want to scream or perhaps reconsider early retirement!

Seriously though, many CIO’s are beginning to recognize this emerging cloud-hosted desktop and data center model as the next logical step in the evolution of virtualization of IT, combined with cloud computing and SaaS delivery of applications and IT services.

Another less obvious economic driver involves the costs of software licensing by companies like Microsoft.  When a company switches from premise-based licensing to the cloud-hosted model, the Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) can be applied to further reduce software licensing costs (typically covered under an ELA today).  When you combine the capital investment savings of both the IT infrastructure and traditional software license costs, the TCO advantages become clear and very compelling.

The security and reliability provided by top-tier hosting, colocation facilities and cloud-hosted desktop solutions has reached an inflexion point – one that enables many companies and government agencies to leave their own data centers behind over the next 2 to 5 years.  The service provider software rental licensing model is the icing on the TCO cake.

Is this really happening?  Yes, it is.

Earlier I showed you the cost of implementing a basic 100 user VDI solution.  Now add to that the cost of Redundancy, Firewalls, Support, Bigger Bandwidth, Power and Cooling.  All this is included as part of a cloud-hosted solution.

The financial advantages of transforming IT from a largely CapEx constrained proposition into OpEx is extremely attractive by itself. And for many, it may be the only financially viable way forward.

As CFO’s and CEO’s become more aware of the cloud-hosted desktop and data center as a viable alternative to traditional IT-owned and managed computing infrastructure, the business pressure to consider these alternatives is sure to increase with time.  And as the cloud-hosted IT-as-a-service model is proven across an increasingly broad range of industries, it could cross the chasm and become a mainstream IT strategy.

What does all this mean to IT?   And what affect will it have on the vendors who rely on capital-intensive, premise-based data centers, traditional VDI and/or fat-client desktop architectures?  And what about the architecture and security model of the cloud-based data center and cloud-hosted desktops?  And how does all of this factor into a mobile computing strategy?

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Apple Inc. today became the world’s most valued public company, surpassing Exxon Mobile Corp., according to the Wall Street Journal and other sources.  Apple soared past its arch rival of decades past, Microsoft, last year, in terms of overall market valuation.

While on the surface it’s clear which products and innovations led to this amazing marketplace performance, what may be less obvious is how Apple was able to best so many more established players in seemingly entrenched markets like music, cell phones and computers.  Interestingly, it’s a combination of factors that combine to make this possible, but at the heart of it all lurks “disruptive innovation” (combined with mass distribution and the right industry partners).

In a recent post, I wrote about the visionary leadership that preceded the innovative breakthroughs.  Steve Jobs pinpointed one of the key “enablers” for disruptive innovation to take place – focus – and the ability to say No to most things, and Yes to the things that matter most.

Apple has always produced innovative, highly-usable products that are well-designed – one must certainly respect their refined usability and design practices and methods (not to mention personal oversight by Jobs himself).  But is that the key to Apple’s innovation successes?

Apple has always exhibited keen engineering skills and extreme attention to detail in its product development and engineering.  But is that the key to Apple’s innovation successes?

Apple has (more recently) been a leader in advanced technology creation and manufacturing.  I wonder if that’s the key to their success?

I would submit that there are many companies with great vision, design and usability practices, tremendous engineering discipline and skills and world-class manufacturing capabilities.

But the key to bringing all of these things together and EXECUTING against that vision is the result of LEADERSHIP – the kind of leadership we have seen from Steve Jobs and his management team, who have repeatedly nailed the innovations, product development and mass distribution deals required to achieve this level of success.

It takes a lot of vision, commitment and a willingness to “bet the company” (and be right) on what, on the surface, would appear to be a risky strategy – disrupting the music industry, followed by the smart phone industry, in order to create a formidable base to come full circle back around to attacking the computer industry once again – with an enormous war chest of cash and assets at its disposal.

There’s a lot to be learned by studying Apple’s successes since the difficult days Apple faced when the video in this post was recorded.

My hat’s off to everyone at Apple, as it was one heck of a team effort – I’m sure of that!

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I was contacted by Dhane Crowley, an influential Internet entrepreneur, who was moved by my recent post “3 Pillars of Online Success”. Dhane asked to interview me and include the interview content as a part of an upcoming product he will be launching. Naturally, I agreed to the interview, as I welcome opportunities to help fellow entrepreneurs and business owners anytime that I can.

I hope you get some value from the interview.

Rick

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The one thing all e-commerce providers have in common is, we all want to increase our sales results, lead flow and financial performance.

But what’s the best way to go?  More Traffic?  Increased conversions on existing traffic?

I read a blog post by a highly-successful online entrepreneur recently.  His name is Dr. Neil Shearing – a trusted source of quality information and “scam-free” products (he’s sort of famous for going against the grain of traditional Internet marketing, downplaying the usual hyperbole, outrageous claims and B.S. that’s so typical from those of that ilk).

Anyway, Neil correctly points out in his post:

“…it’s a lot easier to improve your conversion rate by a percentage point or two than it is to double or treble your traffic. Let me illustrate with an example. If you get 1,000 visits per month at a 1% conversion rate, you make 10 sales. If you improve the conversion rate to 2%, you’ll double your sales to 20 per month. If you went in search of more traffic INSTEAD of improving your conversion rate, you’d have to double that… which means getting 2,000 visits per month instead of 1,000. Ouch!”

That’s a very astute observation, Dr. Shearing!

And in my experience, it’s certainly possible to boost one’s conversion by at least several percent, by a) applying best practices that are proven to boost conversions, and b) to fully understand causing people to buy (and not to buy) first, then apply that knowledge to amplify conversion results.

It’s common to simply run out of available “inventory” of qualified traffic, which causes one’s business growth to plateau and stagnate.  Increasing conversions clearly provides better ROI than experimenting with new and unproven sources of traffic, as well.

I highly recommend this independent review article written by Dr. Shearing.

Incidentally, I invited Dr. Shearing to review Sales CSI months ago and he just now (finally) got around to actually doing it.  This is a completely unbiased review by an expert in the conversion optimization area (Dr. Shearing used to sell a great conversion tool, before Google began offering Website Optimizer for free).  And you will find his blog is full of other astute observations, strategies and tips of interest to online business owners and marketers.

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Have you ever wondered what separates good companies from great ones?  Well, there’s a great book written on that subject… and without repeating what’s in the book Good to Great (which I highly-recommend, by the way), it’s even more interesting to look at a real-world example we’re all familiar with today.

How would you like to have revenue growth like this?

This is the revenue growth posted by a market leader, whose leadership actually took their company from good to great over a 10+ year period.  Of course, we’re talking about Apple Computer and Steve Jobs.  There are numerous other examples of great companies, yet Apple is one who has gone from relative obscurity just 12 years ago to one of the most exciting, disruptive, high-growth computing powerhouses of our time today.  

Apple is now number 1 in numerous market categories, and exhibiting sustained growth (even throughout a global recession), while countless others have suffered through multiple rounds of layoffs and struggled along.  Even its old nemesis Microsoft has seen its flagship Windows product revenues flatten out, while Apple’s computer-related sales continue to soar and gain share.

How is this possible?

The short answer :  Vision + Leadership + Focused execution.

In the late 1990′s, Steve Jobs recognized that Apple was struggling to find its way, investing in a too many projects and directions, trying “grep” (search) it’s way through myriad potential opportunities from a technology standpoint to find the answers it needed.  And the answer was not to be found in technology…

Many insights into the mindset, objective humility and attitude required as a leader during difficult times is portrayed in this video by Steve Jobs, at a time when Apple hadn’t yet made the specific breakthroughs that would lead to the record financial performance we see in the chart above and all around us today.  

This video is well worth reviewing, and should serve as an inspiration to us all – no matter how dire or difficult our circumstances, the right combination of vision and leadership, plus a maniacal focus on execution in delivery of an outstanding user experience, quality and workmanship creates great companies.

There are many different insights and takeaways from this particular video. One that resonates with me (as I’ve personally made this particular mistake numerous times throughout my career) is on products – “start with the customer experience and work backwards from there to the technology”. As technologists, it’s always tempting to look at the technology and try to envision how that technology can translate into customer value. In reality, customer problems typically don’t map well to the technology, which can at best provide some stepping stones to bringing a new customer experience with real value-creation to market.

There are at least a dozen profound insights that Jobs talks about at this critical point in time, in the era preceeding Apple’s many breakthrough’s as a company. I hope you pick up some useful tips and perspectives that will help you grow your business.

Recommended Reading:

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins http://t.co/0YliS3r via @amazon

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I read a great post on the Rocket Watcher blog today on launch marketing for startups by product marketing expert and blogger April Dunford.

In her post on startup launch marketing, she put forth this great sketch that really puts the product release process in perspective:

In particular, this perspective on the launch marketing and product release process shows how the pre-release (aka. pre-launch) phase continues and flows into the release/launch phase; i.e., the activities begun in earlier phase of the release cycle should continue and expand into each subsequent phase (they aren’t discrete steps that just stop after each phase).  Of course, in practice, startups may not have sufficient resources to continue this all in parallel, so we must carefully choose the activities that do receive continuity across each launch phase.

I think you’ll like April’s blog, which contains a wealth of pragmatic product marketing insights and advice.

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If you have a new product or website to launch, then the first thing you need is a “launch plan”.

But how can you create a launch plan if:

1. You don’t have the time to allocate to launch planning

2. You don’t have a lot of launch experience

3. You lack certain skills or expertise to handle aspects of the launch process?

I created a video explaining how you can save time and plan a launch quickly and painlessly. In this video, you will discover how to plan your launch, whether you have experience or not – and all you need is about an hour (or less) to create a professional-quality launch plan.

Launch planning video

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WordPress has become extremely popular, not only as a blogging platform, but also as an inexpensive, high-performance website platform with built-in CMS.

But in the wake of so many sites using WordPress, as usual, these sites become natural targets for hackers, spammers and other evildoers…

If you’re using WordPress, you should consider the following WordPress security measures:

1. Install Recommended WordPress security and anti-spam plugins

• Akismet – blocks comment spam
• Contact Form 7 – blocks contact form spam
• Really Simple CAPTCHA – works w/ Contact Form 7
• Secure WordPress – secures your WordPress installation
• WordPress Firewall 2 – blocks common WordPress hacking attempts
• WP-reCAPTCHA – more anti-spam protection
• WordPress Database Backup – can be configured to email you a backup or backup on-demand

2. Lock down your WordPress admin folder

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/three-tips-to-protect-your-wordpress-installation/

Do not skip this step. By locking down your WP admin folder, it will stop most WP hackers in their tracks, because they simply will not be able to gain admin access to your site.

3. Back up your entire WordPress site and database (files, folders, MySQL tables)

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/cpanel/backup.htm

Having a backup is always a good idea, whether it’s used to restore your site after it’s been hacked or after a server crash.

If you follow the three steps recommended above, you will block 99% of the WordPress hacking attempts by making your site highly-resistant to common attack vectors, as well as have a current back up in case you need to restore your site for any reason.

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Making sales is what makes a business a business – without sales, there is no business, no matter whether you’re doing business offline, online or both.

Yet getting our “sales machine” working, so that it’s hitting on all cylinders and producing enough sales to reach profitability can be quite challenging, especially when you’re introducing a new product or entering a new market.

When you do get the sales engine properly tuned, it creates a “flywheel” effect, known as “sales momentum”.  Sales momentum leads to even more sales, happy customers, testimonials, word of mouth and growth.

Great – we all know that!  But what are the keys to creating a profitable, growing sales process then?

The keys to online sales success, whether you’re selling online or generating online leads that get passed to inside sales, resellers or a traditional account team are always the same.  You have to get the “3 Pillars of Sales Success” right, and then grow them in balance over time.

The 3 pillars are shown in the diagram below.  Let’s have a closer look at each one.

The keys to a successful online sales and lead-generation process are:

1. Traffic - attracting enough of the right visitors to your website
2. Product - having the right “product” with the “Right 5 P’s”
3. Conversions - converting traffic into leads, then sales.

If you’re having difficulties getting any online business to generate sales, leads or profits, all three of the above areas must be “in balance”.  I’ll talk more about what I mean by “balanced” in a moment.

Now these 3 pillars may seem simple or even obvious enough (now that you seem them clearly).  But it’s amazing how such simple concepts can be so challenging to get right, especially when: a) you’re launching something new, b) you’re entering a new market, or c) you’re moving from an offline world into the online world.

Let’s talk about each one of these critical online sales success pillars briefly.

TRAFFIC

Traffic is the lifeblood of every online business.  Without it, you can have the greatest website and product in the world, and nobody’s going to ever know about it or see it.  With it, you can: a) refine your product (messaging, pricing, positioning, etc.) and b) put a lead-capture and online sales process in place that converts visitors into leads, then leads into sales.

PRODUCT

You can have all the traffic in the world from great advertising, but it you get any of the “5 P’s” of product marketing wrong (product, positioning, pricing, packaging, promotion), you’re going to struggle to make sales.  When you get the 5 P’s right, you’ll be “in the zone” for making sales, and can tune and optimize the 5 p’s over time.

CONVERSIONS

You can have the greatest product in the world, with loads of traffic coming to your website, but if you don’t convert those visitors into leads and then sales, it’s all for naught – a waste of time, effort and money.  You might even “do okay”, making some sales without a well-oiled conversion engine, but chances are your competitors will outperform you, outspend you on traffic, and you’re business will suffer from lower profit margins, reduced market share and lost opportunity.

When you get all three of these areas right, your business will grow and outperform the competition.  To do this, you need an online sales process that’s “balanced”, like this:

A balanced sales process generates superior cash flow, providing your business with the ability to expand (in terms of advertising to generate more traffic).  It converts more visitors into leads, growing your list and market influence.  It also attracts more resellers and affiliates, who want to get in on the action, to get their piece of the pie.

A balanced online sales process also provides you with the ability to invest more into R&D, developing (or acquiring) more products, increasing your average value per customer.  And it solidifies your position in the market as a leader – and market leaders garner the most market share, customer loyalty and virtually unstoppable market momentum.

So, if we just have to get those three areas into balance,

why is it that many online sales processes look more like this?

Many businesses have online sales processes that are “out of balance”, where they have one or more of the 3 pillars of online success either underdeveloped or outright “broken”.  As shown in the above diagram, for example, it’s common to see: a) businesses who haven’t invested properly in testing, tracking and optimization – so they don’t convert visitors into leads and then sales like they should, and b) because they’re not converting enough leads into sales, they can’t afford to advertise like they should, so they don’t have the traffic required to run and grow properly.

It’s also common to see business where one or more of the 5 P’s haven’t been properly vetted (or even tested), so the product part of the success equation just doesn’t work for the majority of potential buyers.

As a result, the unbalanced online business produces much smaller profits, can’t compete effectively and loses ground (or goes out of business completely):

Worse yet, businesses with unbalanced sales processes typically can’t afford to get the help they actually need to:

1. Identify what’s broken

2. Come up with a plan to fix or replace the broken parts

3. Bring the right people into the mix to get things fixed and operating smoothly.

Now, having said all that, many business are doing okay, rocking along or doing well making some sales.  That’s because they have a balanced (or partially-balanced) online sales process in place.   The key for these businesses is to optimize sales conversions, then take as much traffic away from competitors as possible to grow market share and profits over time.

I hope this 3 pillars model helps you identify the areas of your business where you need to focus to succeed and grow…and find your rightful place in Sales Paradise!

About the Author

Rick Braddy is CEO of WinningWare, helping clients  launch, grow and optimize their online sales processes.  WinningWare provides do-it-yourself product launch software and sales optimization solutions and professional services that address the 3 pillars of sales success, for launching new products and sites and growing existing businesses.

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I’ve been having some interesting conversations lately about what I have termed “Internet Marketing Forensics” (IMF).  Perhaps my definition of IMF was a bit too narrow originally, as it focuses on doing the deep analysis that leads one to making superior conversion optimization decisions.  Nevertheless, I have found these forensics to be the “secret sauce” to quickly increasing online sales, lead-generation and list building results.

As a bit of background, Internet Marketing Forensics are techniques originally developed for use in my own online businesses – to help me uncover conversion successes and failures.  I needed to “demystify” what was taking place on my website.

In particular, I was interested in what “buyers” were doing and what patterns of usage led to sales.  By examining detailed visitor behaviors using clickstream analysis, then applying these observations in determining where to focus conversion optimization activities, I found I was able to determine how to “amplify” and reinforce the natural site usage patterns that my various buyers used as they progressed from a pre-sales state and “grew’” into buyers over time (often over weeks or months, depending on the sales cycle involved).

I also found that high level tools like Google Analytics do a decent job of providing one with the big picture of what’s taking place on a website, but usually fall short of providing enough “actionable” conversion intelligence.

Instead, one must dig deeper to discover the truth about conversions on a website, and most importantly, to figure out what to DO about it.

For example, it is useful to carefully examine important “actions” (or transactions, like a sale) that take place on our site to:

1. Pinpoint the actual sources of traffic that lead buyers to our site in the first place (ads, SEO keywords/organic search results, referral links from other sites, social media activities, etc.).  This shows us without a doubt what is bringing qualified buyers to our site.
2. Fully appreciate what I call the “critical content paths” of our site; i.e., those content pages a prospect visits to gain enough information and trust us enough to make a buying decision.  I can almost guarantee you that while you may think you know what content your buyers want to see, what buyers actually do is very different than what you know now.  By looking closely at the clickstream paths and content (web pages, videos, etc.) buyers consume before they make a buying decision, you learn what buyers want to know most, which you can then make more convenient for them (to speed up sales cycles and increase conversions)
3. Identify optimization opportunities from a fact-base (instead of wasting time experimenting needlessly).  There are a seemingly endless number of possible areas one could potentially optimize a website and its content.  By gathering a fact base about how buyers are actually using your site and content, you can quickly pinpoint areas for testing and optimization, short-circuiting most of the time and effort wasted on unproductive optimization attempts.
4. Identify lost “opportunity leaks” and fix them. Once you start doing deeper analysis, you often notice areas where your site is “leaking” conversions like a bucket full of holes.  For example, I recently found several web pages on one of our sites where organic SEO-based traffic had increased; however, these pages weren’t leading visitors to either opt-in (become a lead) or to buy.  It only took about 30 minutes to redesign these pages and their content.  Now these pages contribute to both lead-generation and sales results on a weekly basis. It sure feels good to find and fix these leaks!

To do this, I typically begin with a specific transaction / sale and identify the buyer’s IP address (which is typically recorded for security purposes and only available to the website owner).

Using the buyer’s IP address, it is possible to filter clickstream data and extract a buyer’s unique history of site usage, how they originally arrived at the website and what took place on their various visits to the site.  As it turns out, this information typically provides the insights we need to better understand:

- Buyer types and profiles

- Sales cycles of various buyer profiles

- Who we need to optimize for (on the home page, for example)

- What content matters most to each type of buyer

When we understand our buyers and what they are trying to get done on our website to make their buying decisions, it provides us with clues, evidence and facts that we can use to make superior optimization decisions; hence, the “C.S.I.” theme we chose for “Sales C.S.I.”

By becoming a better sales conversion investigator, we can quickly learn what buyers want and then we can streamline our site’s content, navigation, offers, auto-responders and processes to reduce friction throughout the pre-sales and buying processes.

These optimizations make sales easier and using the website more convenient for our most important visitors – our BUYERS (and everyone else can take a back seat to the buyers who come to visit our site).

Earlier this year, I decided to package this knowledge about conversion forensics and conversion optimization best practices up and make it available for the first time to the general public.

I call it the “Sales C.S.I.” program, because it shows anyone exactly how to become a “sales detective” for their website in order to increase sales and lead conversion results.

It shows exactly how to use multiple forensic techniques, using inexpensive, readily-available tools, that enable one to apply clickstream analysis (detailed visitor logging) to do deep analysis of buyer, prospect and visitor behaviors over time.

This analysis typically yields insights into “critical path content” and gaps in conversion processes. These insights provide fact-based conversion insights, which then inform where to concentrate conversion optimization efforts to provide the greatest returns on time and effort.

By combining the conversion forensics methodology with more traditional optimization best practices, it’s possible to reduce the amount of effort and time typically required to perform website optimization and achieve success.

Of course, some of what is taught are well-know best practices, which are often being ignored or overlooked by many website owners.

More details are available here

So perhaps my definition of Internet Marketing Forensics is over-reaching.  Hey – these days you have to stand out to get noticed, so if this definition catches people’s attention enough for me to help them boost their online sales results, I guess it’s been worthwhile.  I”m certainly open to a better term, if anyone can suggest it!

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