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Analytics-What Are They And How Can You Use Them To Make Money
In May, I had the honor of being a breakout speaker at the All-Industry Convention in the Bahamas.
My presentation was on “How Technology Tools Can Be Used By Retailers and Manufacturers to Support Sales.” I had a good cross-section of manufacturers and retailers in my audience. When I asked how many of them had Google Analytics on their website, only three raised their hands( out of approx. 25 people in the audience). It was then I knew that we had, as an industry, to quickly understand the power of analytics to drive revenue- now.
What does the term “analytics” mean? Analytics refers to an emerging field of specialty which enables your company to track hundreds(or thousands, depending on what service you use) of real time metrics off of your own website so you can tightly align your online and offline advertising, marketing, PR, buying, visual display and sales budgets with your online consumer’s search behavior.
What are the top ten most valuable metrics that you can find out-as they apply to our industry?
1. What keywords consumers are using to find your website.
2. What page they are “landing on” first.
3. How long they are “sticking” on your website.
4. What part of the country, including city, they are coming from.
5. How many unique visitors your site has every day-and every hour if you want to drill down.
6. How long they view each page of your website.
7. How your website compares to other websites with similar content for all the major metrics.
8. Which sites are referring people to your site and which ones are coming through paid search and which ones are coming through organic search.
9. How many visitors are returning and how many are new.
10. Which online ad campaigns are returning the most new visitors.
These are just a FEW of the metrics available. Google Analytics is FREE,to install on each page of your website. If you are not familiar with it, go to www.googleanalytics.com . There are also many analytics tools that provide even more finely drilled data with Omniture being one of the industry leaders.
As many of my readers know, I have moved my business from sales consulting to helping our industry understand how to LEVERAGE the internet and their own websites to drive revenues. Analytics is a field of intense interest for me as I know that, in the past, it has been hard to measure with any real accuracy the ROI on almost any facet of your advertising, PR, or marketing budgets and to get that ROI information in real time.
Now, with analytics in place, it is not only possible, but easy, and my hope is that you will call me or email me so I can strategize with you on the many different ways you can use this powerful tool in your business planning. Please visit my website at www.tkpartnerhsip.com for a more comprehensive overview of what services I am now providing to help our industry.
When everyone in our industry has a GREAT, information rich website and uses analytics to drive current revenue and, also, uncover new revenue opportunities, the sooner our industry will recover as budget decisions can now be based on real time information provided by your consumer’s online behavior.
leslie commented:
Mike: Thank you for letting readers know how easy it is to install Google Analytics. Also, make sure to see the feature called "map overlay." With one mouse click executives can see the number of site visitors by city within the US and around the world. Given your desire to measure the effectiveness of your offline ads, this data should be very valuable to you. You can check it every day or every hour. It is probably one of the most valuable pieces of data Google Analytics provides to any furniture retailer-especially those with multiple stores. It enables executives to see the effectiveness of their advertising reach immediately-in real time. Not only does it allow you to see the effectiveness of your advertising reach, but it also alerts you to cities where, for some reason, a high concentration of people are visiting your site. Someone needs to ask themselves-"why?" Could it be that this city needs a store because no one in the local market is fulfilling their desire for what you sell? I am constantly amazed on my own website how many visitors I have from areas outside the US, too. I never would have guessed it! Thanks for writing and allowing me to make this point. Good luck and let us all know how it is working for you. Leslie
Mike Landfair commented:
Leslie, I just installed Google on three websites: Our store website, our blog and my own personal blog. It was easy, some may need their webmaster to do it for them, and now I wait the required 24 hours to analyse data. Why did I do it? I want to see what zip codes are coming to our sites, so I can tailor content and ad campaigns to this area. I want to see if off line ads are working.
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