Articles by Curtis Seare on ArticleSnatch.com

Microfranchising's Greatest Asset

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:07:34 -0500

There was an article recently published (McSocial Enterprise Franchises Could be the Future, by Chrisanthi Giotis on Social Enterprise Live) that spoke of how social enterprise can learn from the McDonalds business model. It was, of course, referring to microfranchising, although it never mentioned the term specifically. One of the important points of the article was the finding that the franchise model is excellent for expansion purposes because of the passion and invested interest the franchisees have in the business’ success. In fact, speaking of McDonalds as a model for franchise expansion, the article noted “the franchise model had brought the company 160 energetic, creative people with incredibly vested interests in the business – a great pool of people who can contribute to the future.” The key here is that the people are the franchisor’s greatest asset; they are what makes the franchise model successful. This idea is especially important when speaking of social enterprise, because the goal is not making a fortune for the high level executives. The goal is to improve people’s lives and allow them to escape adverse circumstances. Improvement and progress only comes through work. Marion G. **End Summary** Topics: Microfranchising]]> social enterprise]]> ]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Curtis Seare is the Chief Analytics Officer of Vault Analytics , a firm that uses marketing analytics to help companies develop and implement measurable marketing programs. He is also an advocate of microfranchising as a means of poverty alleviation and sustainable business development, and writes for Microfranchiser .

Leveraging the Power of Markets with Microfranchising

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:43:52 -0500

There has been growing interest lately in the use of market-based solutions to help alleviate poverty across the globe, especially as a result of the successes of the Acumen Fund. Although these kinds of solutions are no panacea, they have opened many opportunities for poverty relief and economic self reliance development that previous approaches (such as regulatory or simple charity) have not been able to accomplish. Market-based approaches have the ability to provide opportunities, change mind-sets, and build economies. Problems that Market-Based Solutions Can Fix Take, for an example, the scenario of small rural farmers trying to eke out a living by selling their crops. The problem for these farmers, in many instances, is not that they don’t work hard enough or that they don’t have something valuable to offer people – it’s simply that they do not have access or control to the necessary markets to get a deserved and fair return on their products. The reasons for not having access to the necessary markets in this case can be caused by many different factors, of which only three are listed below: 1. **End Summary** Topics: market-based solutions]]> microfranchising]]> poverty alleviatio]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Curtis Seare is the Chief Analytics Officer of Vault Analytics , a firm that uses marketing analytics to help companies develop and implement measurable marketing programs. He is also an advocate of microfranchising as a means of poverty alleviation and sustainable business development, and writes for Microfranchiser .

Web Analytics that Lie

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:40:52 -0500

With the recent proliferation of free web analytics tools, and most importantly Google Analytics, it has become a standard practice to install analytics on websites. This is an important move for any business, as the data collected can provide invaluable insights. It also, however, presents a danger – if you don’t understand the data and haven’t been trained to see it in context, not only will your web analytics reports not give you any useful insights, but they may even lie to you and lead you to make incorrect business decisions. When Analytics Lie Here we will examine a specific instance where the web analytics lied. At an initial glance, Google Analytics shows us a bounce rate of 18% for the site. Sounds good, right? 18% a pretty good number; it must be indicative that the people who visit the site find it relevant and useful. Except it’s not. It’s lying. After deeper analysis, we made some changes to the site to correct for the problems in the data capture, and the true bounce rate came through. The true bounce rate is up around 55%, hardly the 18% that we had thought. **End Summary** Topics: web analytics]]> true bounce rate]]> Google Analytics]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Curtis Seare is the Chief Analytics Officer of Vault Analytics , a firm that uses marketing analytics to help companies develop and implement measurable marketing programs.

Marketing Analytics of Online Ads

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:05:02 -0500

There are many different metrics that one could use to try and measure the effectiveness of online advertisement. Some of the most common include click-through rate and impressions. These are not necessarily, however, the most important or relevant. Before we jump in and start tracking the most obvious metrics, it’s important first to do some analysis. The Context of the Situation As always, understanding the context of a situation is extremely important if we are to understand the analytics. Let’s look at a study recently done about the current click-through rate of online ads. The study shows that in the past two years, the percentage of internet users that actually click on online ads has dropped from 32% to just 16%. What’s more, if you look at the total amount of clicks on ads across the entire population internet users, the study finds that just 4% of them account for 50% if all clicks. What the Context Tells Us So, if you decide to track click-throughs like everyone else does, you are probably only tracking about 4% of the internet population. **End Summary** Topics: online ad campaigns]]> marketing analytics]]> click-through rate]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Curtis is the Chief Analytics & Technology Officer at Vault Analytics , a firm specializing in marketing analytics. We work with companies to create effective marketing campaigns backed by data.

Microfanchising and Economic Self-Reliance

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:03:13 -0500

Where does microfranchising fit in with other methods of poverty alleviation? Stephen W. Gibson, creator of the Academy for Creating Enterprise, has developed the ‘Spectrum of Economic Self-Reliance Development,’ which categorizes and identifies different means of poverty alleviation. This spectrum helps us answer the above question about microfranchising, and it is from this spectrum that the ideas presented below originate. Credit, therefore, must be given to Mr. Gibson. The spectrum breaks down poverty alleviation activities into two major categories: those that build dependency, and those that build economic self reliance. Poverty Alleviation Methods that Build Dependency The three activities that build dependency are ‘taking services, goods, or people to the poor.’ This would include actions such as doctors and dentists going to bring medical services, organizations taking goods such as food or clothing, and summer excursions bringing people and students to work on things such as building orphanages or homes. All of these means are important under the appropriate circumstances, such as disaster relief. If a natural disaster occurs, leaving thousands without shelter or food, then all of these activities are necessary to save lives. **End Summary** Topics: microfranchising]]> microcredit]]> economic self reliance]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Microfranchiser.com seeks to bring together people, organizations, and businesses to build a growing community of those interested in learning about and applying microfranchising to accomplish business sustainability and poverty alleviation. Through this community, it is hoped that microfranchising ideas, best practices, opportunities, and successes can be shared in order to promote its implementation.

Potential Clients Hidden in the Data

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:59:13 -0500

As a B2B firm, leads are important. Knowing who is interested in your services, the level of their interest, how to reach them, and how to help them trust you are big challenges. What if there was a simple way to help answer all of these questions and increase not only leads, but also lead conversion? There is. The Network Location Metric Let’s take a look at one of the widest used and free web analytics tools (Google Analytics) and see what it can tell us. This data could, of course, be extracted from other web analytics services as well. Looking specifically at Google Analytics, however, under the ‘Visitors’ tab there is an interesting sub tab called ‘Network Properties,’ and under that sub tab there is another one called ‘Network Location’. That is the metric we are interested in. When looking at this metric, you are likely to see some network locations such as ‘comcast cable communications inc’ and ‘at&t internet services.’ These represent broad internet providers and are not particularly useful. However, you may notice some that can be helpful to us, perhaps something like ‘3m company’ or ‘dell computer corporation’ or ‘raytheon company executive office. **End Summary** Topics: Google Analytics]]> lead generation]]> data analytics]]>]]> About the Author: ]]> Curtis is the Chief Analytics & Technology Officer at Vault Analytics , a firm specializing in marketing analytics. We work with companies to create effective marketing campaigns backed by data.