2015

All posts from 2015

Introducing MyLiberty.Life: online shopping for quality incontinence products

by Kelly Kubrick on November 20, 2015

Early in my career, I joined The Voyager Company, a digital publishing house that produced CD-ROMs. Our sister company produced the famous Criterion Collection, on laser-disk. Together, we published the media that was a precursor to DVDs, now rapidly being replaced by stream media. As there were no obvious sales channels for our products, we pounded the doors of book stores and record stores in hopes they would carry our product.

We also sold our catalogues over the Internet. I remember one particular day when our technical team called us into a meeting to show us a ‘database’ they had built to house the content for what had been 300+ static HTML product pages. They showed us how we could update the pricing for the entire catalogue with a single command. It was like hearing the Alleluia chorus break over my head. This would revolutionize selling online!

Well – it didn’t quite, but it helped build the foundation for my continued work in ecommerce. In 1997, I joined a small team at Time Warner’s interactive division, Time Inc New Media, to develop alternative revenue streams for digital advertising sales for Time Inc’s magazine assets. What an amazing era; we launched countless businesses – Fortune Database, an online community to support participants in Dr Andrew Weil’s “8 Weeks to a Healthy America” eating program, an affiliate program to drive subscriber acquisition for PEOPLE Magazine, an online customer service for our core magazines and more.

Back then, ecommerce technology was expensive and not particularly elegant. Today, things have changed, and for the better. What has remained true is that if you have a product that can be showcased online for buyers unable to find those desired products easily, you might want to consider ecommerce. Which is why, I’m very pleased to announced the launch of a new ecommerce venture for myself and two partners.

What began as a debate over likely trends in the marketplace over a summer lunch has become a Canada-wide company selling – wait for it – incontinence products. All online, all home delivery, all discreet packaging. The numbers are compelling: 10% of the population admits to being affected by incontinence and if asked about the occasional “leak” the number jumps to 50%.

Daily, we’re uncovering stories describing the need: those stick handling conversations with aging parents, runners looking for eco-friendly washables, grandparents indulging new family members with a monthly diaper delivery service, or simply those who would prefer not to deal with the teenager working at the drug store.

We’ve embraced the need for information, a bit of humour, good sense and a simple shopping experience for Canadians looking for discreet solutions for parents, for spouses, for special needs kids. Men, women, young adults and kids – My Liberty has options for all.

The product mix is changing rapidly through research and science; including an Australian line of products indistinguishable from regular underwear. We’re selling everything from liners to pads for women to guards for men, briefs (also known as adult diapers), cleansing and skin care and state-of-the-art washables in swimwear and bedding solutions to help reduce bed wetting burdens for young and old. I shake my head at the things I’ve learned in the last few months…!

We also provide a straight-forward, informative email newsletter to answer product questions and insights for consumers and caregivers, all with a comfortable, non-clinical approach. If you have a moment to take a look at https://MyLiberty.Life, I’d love to hear what you think; my partners are as eager for feedback as I am, so bring it on.

I realize it’s a rather unexpected category, and not likely on your radar, but if you know of anyone who might be interested in learning more, please consider sharing the website or newsletter with them? I’d really appreciate it. Alternatively, if you know of organizations/facilities we should be talking to, just let me know.

Thanks so much –

P.S. Feel free to check My Liberty out on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook out as well.

Digital Strategy Conference: Our Journey Comes to a Close

by Kelly Kubrick on August 31, 2015

Thank you for participating in Digital Strategy Conference

Although Digital Strategy Conferences are no longer being produced, we invite you to continue learning how to increase your organizations’ level of digital maturity using the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model.

In 2013, the journey began with a model and framework for understanding the six key dimensions of digital maturity.

The goal of Digital Strategy Conference was to provide inspiring examples of digital strategy; while the goal of our Mapping Digital Maturity workshop was to provide a process for establishing your organizations’ level of digital maturity by giving you benchmarks from industry.

We met those goals and so did you.

Since then, hundreds of organizations and over 1,000 attendees from across sector and industry have helped their organizations increase competitive advantage and/or succeed in delivering on its mission.

Who Attended:

Senior directors and managers from across the organization responsible for planning, managing or integrating digital initiatives, along with their digital team.

Successful digital initiatives are due to the effort of high functioning teams, therefore, we encourage a team approach to your conference education.

Today’s opportunities for business improvement using digital processes and technologies extend across the organization. In addition to sales, marketing and communications, Digital Strategy Conference informs and educates those responsible for internal communications, social business and workforce management.

What you learned:

Digital strategy definition and models
How to assess digital maturity
Data strategy fundamentals
Performance measurement and digital analytics essentials
Content Strategy – content, technology and experience
Paid, Owned and Earned Media – the pillars of digital marketing
Case studies and applied learning from peers and colleagues

Thank you all

Today, our journey comes to a close. We thank to the entire #dstrategy community for its contribution, enthusiasm and support since we first proposed Digital Strategy Conference.

We wish you all the best and much success on your future initiatives.

Andrea Hadley and Kelly Kubrick, Co-founders, Digital Strategy Conference and Workshops

Planning your ‘less talk, more action’ digital transformation

by Kelly Kubrick on May 13, 2015

First published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog, authored by Barret Murdock.

In 2014, Canada Science and Technology Museums made the news when a large outbreak of mould had been discovered in their Ottawa location. Brian Dawson, their Chief Digital Officer, explained how while it may have not been the best way to get on TV, it was this challenge that highlighted the need to to stay up-to-date in a culture that is in constant flux and that requires organizations to continuously battle the threat of digital irrelevancy.

“Digital Irrelevancy is Canada’s Biggest Threat”

Culture has become globalized – anywhere in the world one can receive information instantaneously from common sources such as Google and Wikipedia. This can present a problem because region-specific information and history can be overlooked by these global websites. Brian Dawson suggests that this is particularly true with Canadian history – if Canadians are not active digitally and on the web, then who will tell our stories?

Canadian Science and Technology Museums want to tell the story of science and technology in Canada and they have begun to offer a variety of digital opportunities to open up this public dialogue.

Examples of this are:

The creation of educational video games like Ace Academy, where the player goes to flight school and experiences a series of first world war missions
Digitization of their collection and giving the public open access to the data.

This free reign on information definitely carries a risk, but Dawson indicates that maintaining their collections relevancy in a digital landscape required a structure where enthusiasts can easily use the collections data in their personal projects. This collaboration with the public also includes crowdsourcing – asking the public to share their individual stories through text and videos, as well as encouraging social media contribution through hashtags.

Driving these initiatives, Canada Science and Technology Museums have formed Innovation Teams comprised of a wide range of experts specializing in areas relevant to a given project. Teams work in four week cycles, during which they assess and integrate both user and stakeholder feedback. This process ensures that their projects are up-to-date and that the museums remain relevant in this digital age.

The Canada Science and Technology Museums took some negative media attention and used it as an opportunity to self-evaluate and initiate positive, digital development throughout the entire organization.

Welcome to Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2015!

by Kelly Kubrick on April 3, 2015

First published on the Digital Strategy Conference blog on April 2, 2015.

Ready for round 5?

Wow – five? It’s our fifth Digital Strategy Conference already. So glad you could join us! Get ready to learn from over 40 top marketers and digital experts from across North America in Vancouver’s UBC Robson Square, here to share their organizations’ experiences in tackling the ever-evolving challenges of digital. From May 11-14, we’ll explore topics including digital fluency, the intersection of social and community, content strategy versus content marketing, and digital’s potential for filling the sales or lead generation pipeline.

No hype. Real world case studies

Be prepared to take lots of notes as we hear real-world case studies on specific ways that organizations are taking advantage of data to improve business results. Not hype. Real-world.

Our agenda aligns with the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity, the foundation of the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model, a framework and business planning tool designed to help you assess your organization’s current level of digital maturity.

New this year: Mapping Digital Maturity Workshop

Interested in learning how to assess your organization’s digital processes and their state (ranging from ad hoc to optimized)? For the first time in Vancouver, we’ll be offering our “Mapping Your Digital Maturity” workshop. Join us for a very practical, hands on workshop to dive into the dStrategy Digital Maturity Model on May 11, 2015 – the day before Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2015 kicks off.

We continue to believe that digital impacts horizontally across function, and that its lessons can be leveraged across sector and industry. Please take advantage of the experience and insights shared by the conference speakers. This is your chance to hear lessons learned, recommended approaches and landmines to avoid.

Shared perspectives increase insight

Share those insights when you get back to the office – the more perspective our collective community can bring to digital, the better.

You’re among friends, so ask questions, lots of questions. Tweet your thoughts, introduce yourself and network like no one is watching. I look forward to meeting you!

Kelly Kubrick
Co-Founder and Chair, Digital Strategy Conference

How to remove referral spam from your Google Analytics reports

by Kelly Kubrick on March 5, 2015

Referral or “ghost” spam is ‘bad’ traffic that can inflate your digital analytics reports and make it appear like your website is receiving more visitors than usual. It’s often characterized by very high bounce rates with one second or less session duration, and 100% new visits. To learn more, see the “Vanquish Referral Spam” section in this blog post.

I realize this probably looks overwhelming, but it looks worse than it is…and once you get into a groove, it’ll go faster. The first major clean up is always the worst, but once you start doing this monthly, you’ll be getting excluding a handful of spammers at a time.

Step 1: In Google Analytics run and export an extended time frame of the Referrals report:

Change the calendar to an extended period e.g. 2 years
Go to Reporting > Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals and expand the number of rows to 500
At the top of the report, click Export > XLSX

Step 2: When that report launches in Excel, click the 2nd tab, called Dataset1

Click Data > Filters, which will enable you to filter the data to sort through it faster
In Column G, Avg. Session Duration, click the little down arrow to open up your filter options. Click “Sort Smallest to Largest”, which will bring all the 0.00 second session duration to the top of your list
Review the resulting sites listed in column A, and delete any that are legitimate referrals as we only want to identify the spammers
You should end up with a list of spam sites. If you’re unsure of a particular referral, check the “pages per visit” metric. If it is 0 or 1, and has a session duration of 0.00, it’s spam – see the featured image above for examples

Step 3: When you have a final list, cut and paste column A into Notepad (or a similar no-formatting tool)

Format the groups into a single line of text separated by vertical pipes|no spaces between each, so you get something like”
“traffic2cash.xyz|best-seo-offer.com|www.event-tracking.com|semalt.semalt.com|www1.social-buttons.com|buttons-for-website.com|share-buttons.xyz|net-profits.xyz|free-social-buttons.xyz” FYI – that text string above is 182 characters; you can check using something like http://www.lettercount.com/
Add one more character – a backslash before every period, so the above now looks like “traffic2cash\.xyz|best-seo-offer\.com|www\.event-tracking\.com|semalt\.semalt\.com|www1\.social-buttons\.com|buttons-for-website\.com|share-buttons\.xyz|net-profits\.xyz|free-social-buttons\.xyz”
Create groups of about 10-15 referral sites. Don’t go much bigger than that as each final filter text string cannot exceed 256 characters, including the vertical pipes and periods. The amended string above is 194 characters – again, checked using http://www.lettercount.com/
Save that file somewhere close by…

Step 4: Go back into Google Analytics > Admin > Account > All Filters and click + Add Filter

For Filter Name, because you’ll be creating multiple filters, use a standard naming convention like “Exclude spam referral 1 of 10 – created 5Nov20XX”
Click Custom > Exclude > Filter Field = Campaign Source
In Filter Pattern, cut the 1st of your referral spam groups from Step 3, item 4 above
Apply the filter to the TEST views only (so that you can see if they are working)
Click Save
Repeat for all remaining groups
Annotate (need instructions how to do that? see this post: what you’ve done in TEST

Step 5: A week or so later, go back in and check your data in your TEST view

Run the calendar for the last week
Compare Reporting > Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals between Test and Master views
Assuming all is well i.e. that you see a decline in referral spam in Test, apply the filters to Master
Go back into Google Analytics > Admin > Account > All Filters
Click the name of the filter to edit it, and add it to Master view using the Add > to “Selected Views” tool
Click Save
Annotate what you’ve done in Master
Pat yourself on the back!

Once you get the worst of the spam cleaned up, you can make a reminder to yourself to keep an eye on your Referrals traffic, and potentially add/edit new filters monthly. That’s why it’s important to add the ‘created date’ to the filter name, as you’ll be able to run the data as of that date next time thus saving yourself guesswork on what you’ve already excluded.

Have fun…!

What are the foundations of a company’s digital strategy?

by Kelly Kubrick on January 31, 2015

First published in Marketing Today, the Canadian Home Builder’s Association (CHBA) member e-newsletter, January 2015.

Building the Foundations of Your Company’s Digital Strategy

The digital realm can identify both opportunities (new revenue streams, distribution channels, and operational efficiencies) and threats (shifting customer behaviors, higher service expectations, decreased asset utilization). So much so that, actually determining your company’s digital strategy can feel overwhelming. Don’t let it.

Instead, think of it this way: “Digital strategy is the process of identifying, articulating and executing on digital opportunities that will increase your organization’s competitive advantage.”

Digital strategy leads to competitive advantage

Think of digital as your company’s chance to create value that no other business is capable of. To succeed at digital, there are six process areas – the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity – your company will need to address as you tackle digital:

Your human resources: Who are the people who will help plan and execute your digital initiatives?
Your technology resources: Which technologies will your business need to use to implement your digital initiatives?
Your data strategy: Data is an output of digital and the differentiator from its offline equivalent, allowing you to drive continuous improvement in your processes. What is your plan for leveraging its available insights?
Your content strategy: Digital demands that companies produce content efficiently and accurately across multiple platforms and channels. Are you ready?
Your channel strategy: Which channels – for marketing, transactions, distribution – can you realistically support, in a sustained, profitable way?
Your social business strategy: Prospects and customers assume your ability to interact and collaborate – are you prepared for the transparency that will result?

Next, assess your company’s capabilities in each dimension. What are your strengths? Where are the gaps? What steps can you take this quarter? Where should your capabilities be this time next year? What will be your competitive (digital) advantage?

To help you get traction, we developed a self-assessment tool; a way to score your company’s digital efforts. The lower your score, the more opportunity there is to improve. The higher your score, the more you have optimized a given digital process. Interested in learning more? Take our dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey to add your insights.

The result? You have a more concrete idea about where to prioritize digital efforts and investment. Once you have your scores, you can “map” your results to visualize a digital maturity road map. Stop feeling overwhelmed and begin building your company’s digital foundations today.