Drive, Capture, Convert, Optimize

In my never ending battle to get marketers to think of all the components, tactics, and technologies that go into creating online success we came up with the concept of:

Drive>Capture>Convert>Optimize or DCCO. DCCO illustrates the entire conversion path from impression to sale in an easy-to-understand process and chronological order. It is a construct and applied methodology that enables marketers to think about all phases in the online experience and launch complete programs that dovetail all the tactics of a campaign into a continuous flow.

So, let’s dissect this approach and its components:

Drive: This is the module that drives traffic to your site and where marketers and advertisers typically put the most resources against. In this step, you have search (paid search, search engine optimization, shopping feeds, etc.), online media (banners, video, newsletter sponsorships, etc.), offline advertising, and social (profiles, channels, viral, blog outreach, etc.)

Capture: This represents the most underfunded, underappreciated component in many situations, but is the most important from an action success standpoint. Capture is where success often happens and success is measured. The components of capture are landing pages, site enhancements, offers, call center scripts, Webinars, and even your retail locations – all the places where you make contact with the traffic sent to these points of connection. Capture must be infused with offers, incentives, methodologies, and technologies to maximize the number of people who buy, call, or opt in to your e-mail and marketing programs.

Convert: OK, so you captured a lead, got a prospect into your opt-in e-mail list, and set a cookie so you can dynamically show them calls to action based on what they looked at. Convert is the process of escalating a lead into a sale. Convert components include your databases (e-mail list, customer relationship management (CRM) system, mailing list, cookie/behavioral database) and outbound marketing like e-mail, direct mail, and sales reps. No company would ever debate the value of their internal databases, right? So why are they so valuable? They are the product of drive and capture, plus they consist of people who are familiar with your brand and products!

Optimize: Last, but certainly not least, there is “optimize,” the measurement of drive, capture, and convert. All DCCO efforts should be wrapped in a tracking and reporting methodology so you can quickly tell what’s working or not. All the different data sources that yield this information (search, banner server data, Web analytics, e-mail data, CRM data) should be incorporated into lightweight and easy-to-read dashboards that focus on the key success factors in your marketing programs to yield actionable enhancements and tactics.

Remember, data is only as good as what you can do with it. So, avoid data overload and ensure you have a top-level view into the things that matter and can have the highest impact on your ROI. At the top of the list should be best performing properties, ads, keywords, offers, landing pages, e-mails, and conversion paths.

So, sum up all these components and you get DRIVE>CAPTURE>CONVERT>OPTIMIZE!

Below is an infographic I created to bring it all together.

Happy marketing and as always let me know what you think!

Harry is off today. This column was originally published on February 16, 2010 on ClickZ.