Erin Colbert

Mar 17

Metrics Driven Design

I just got back from SXSW and am still trying to digest the vast amounts of information I took in at the event. This was by far the best tech conference I have been to yet. My favorite presentation was Metrics Driven Design by Joshua Porter, the VP of Customer Experience at Performable.

He asked us to think about our existing design as a mountain. Currently, our design is on the corner of the mountain. With optimization, we can get to the top of the mountain, but there is another mountain in the distance. This mountain is much taller than the mountain we are on and is where we strive to be. We can only switch mountains by rethinking our existing design.

Optimization asks: what works best in the current model? Design innovation asks: what is the best possible model?

There are five types of metrics Porter points out that designers (and marketers for that matter) should be measuring and they relate to the usage lifecycle. These are mission critical for most SaaS companies and start with an interested user, moves to a trial/beta user, then a customer and finally a passionate customer. These metrics just measure how well you move people along the usage lifecycle.

1. Acquisition metrics - CPA (cost per acquisition), revenue by channel, revenue by keyword
2. Conversion metrics - trials / conversion rate, conversion funnel analysis
3. Engagement metrics - pageviews, unique visitors, returning visitors, registered users, time on site, daily active users, cohort analysis
4. Satisfaction metrics - net promoter score
5. Emergent metrics - a critical metric that, when achieved, drives a desired action (i.e. when a user adds 5 friends in FriendFeed they become an ‘active user’ or Blogger identifying their critical metric as the number of posts per user)

I’ve identified a few metrics that I’ll be working to implement at Codesion, primarily the net promoter score and trial to purchase cohort analysis by month. I’ll follow up with a detailed post on how I set these up in the coming months. Once I get a baseline, the goal is re-think design (both web and product) so we can move to the next mountain (hit escape velocity), instead of just inching our way up on the current mountain (through optimization). 

Already implemented these metrics? Share your tips in the comments.

Mar 08

Insights On SaaS From The $32 million HubSpot Mega-VC Round -

HubSpot, my former employer, just announced a 4th round of funding from Sequoia, Google, and Salesforce. It’s great to see that the company I believed in from the start is getting this kind of market validation. Congratulations!

Mar 07

[video]

Mar 03

Not bad for wireless…

One great thing about living in the city - fiber direct to our apartment. I love you WebPass (the only ISP to actually get a good rating on Yelp).

Mar 01

SXSW Tips for a Newbie?

I’m getting ready to head to SXSW this year. I’ve heard great things about the event, but I feel like I’m not prepared to get the most out of the event. Any tips for a newbie? What are the best sessions and events to attend?

Jan 24

“It’s a lot easier for an organization to adopt new words than it is to actually change anything. Real change is uncomfortable. If it’s not feeling that way, you’ve probably just adopted new words.” — The pleasant reassurance of new words, Seth Godin

Jan 23

Skiing in Tahoe? Get a Free Lift Ticket -

Buy a tank of gas at a participating Shell station and get a buy 1, get 1 free lift ticket to Northstar or Sierra at Tahoe.

Jan 22

Block Yourself from Analytics -

Small businesses and marketers who work from home rejoice! This easy Chrome plugin lets you filter yourself from Google Analytics without having a static IP address.

Jan 21

Create Buttons for Your Website without Images

I’ve been trying to learn CSS because I truly believe that every modern marketer should be proficient in HTML and CSS to do their job well. It’s a *pita* to have to ask a developer (in this case my husband) every time I want to make a change to my website. While I’ve gotten along pretty well with my HTML skills, I’ve yet to fully master CSS (I can hack it a little, but I don’t know the core as well as I should). 

I needed to make a button for my website and I didn’t want to call our graphics guy. My husband showed me how to do it in CSS and…voila - just 15 lines of code and it works without any images needed.

Here’s the code:

And here’s what it looks like:

It only works with a plain color as the background, so if you want a gradient you’ll have to use an image. It’s easy to customize, but I’ve also left some elements out so it will pick up the style of my website. For advanced customization you might want to define the font-family, hover effects, etc.

• a.erinbutton - name the css class anything you like
• background-color - set the hexadecimal code, in this case pink
• border - remove the line altogether or set a solid border
• border-radius - this is for creating the rounded corner effect
• padding - give the button a little room to breather around the text
• color - color of the font, in this case white
• font-size - how big do you want the text
• text-decoration - turns off the automatic underlining of the text since it’s a hyperlink
• div style - used to change the alignment of the button (i.e. if you wanted it centered on the page use text-align:center
• class - reference the css class outlined above, in this case I’m creating the CSS within the page instead of a separate style sheet in case you don’t have access to the CSS
• href - where should the button send you when clicked
• Google Erin Colbert - text for the button to display, “sign up” or “click this” work too

Jan 01

Goodbye Delicious, Hello Springpad -

It’s out with the old and in with the new today. I just imported all of my Delicious bookmarks to Springpad. It’s great for getting organized and keeping all of my notes, recipes, and lists in one place.