Posts by David Schatsky from May 01, 2008

David Schatsky | May 01, 2008, 08:12 AM
Sophisticated Client Hones Tactics and Strategy Using Broad Information Sources

I love our clients. They are so smart.

As part of a tour of our clients in the Mid-Atlantic region, I met with one yesterday, a media, community and e-commerce company, to discuss how they make strategic and tactical decisions. After all, my aspiration for Jupiter is to provide key support to our clients who face high-stakes decisions. "What are the primary sources of information you use when making those decisions?" I asked. Here's what this client told me:

- comScore traffic data, for competitive intel and to support ad sales
- Omniture analytics, to help them deeply understand visitor usage patterns
- An outside advisory board composed of people inside and outside their vertical industry, to generate, test and validate ideas
- For each of their major content areas on their site, a panel of experts, some of whom contribute content, others who critique content, who advise on trends in the sector and best practices online
- A panel of super users--consumers from outside the industry who have deep interest in the subject matter are are influential with other consumers
- And JupiterResearch of course, for insight into broad online trends, strategies, best practices and business models in their space

Worth nothing about the expert and consumer panels: those are obviously two-way communication channels. Our client avidly seeks feedback from those sources, while hoping to positively influence them and spread the message about what they are doing.

The client has made a substantial investment in all this, but it is serving them well as they rapidly gain on established competitors and begin to redefine consumer and business expectations in their space.