Marketing Analytics for Small Businesses

Shape Your Business For Your Customer.

The world is now a market. Everyone has something to offer. Coming up with an unmatched product and making profits is effortless. Yet, making a name makes all the difference.

Continuing to let your company stand apart is the name of the game. Keeping the business is a grind. One might earn a lot easily. And lose as such. But the show must go on. Competition is fierce. Killing. Now are the days when a business owner cannot just relish his status. She or he has to watch out. Keep secrets close. The only way is through continued effort.

Thankfully, solutions are easily accessible. One has to look nearer rather than anywhere else. A business communicates with its customers all the time. Every aspect is a touchpoint that sends feedback. Each point of interaction evokes a response. It lets you collect invaluable information about prospective buyers. The more you know your customer, the better. Not only does it allow you to improvise your product. It helps you change your business precisely.

Managers and economists have come to understand businesses at a very intimate level. It's best to consider it a living, breathing organism. It grows with the care and affection it receives. A well-managed enterprise attracts inadvertent shoppers. They fall in love with brands. Sometimes even deeply. Every patron leaves an emotional fingerprint. Every purchaser can become a repeat customer. Or a persecutor.

The Connected Customer

Thankfully, we are in the digital jet age. Most ventures rely, if not start, on the internet. Every organisation needs to have a website. Most services are available in the form of an app. It's almost like a company doesn't exist if it is not online. A website is an obligation. Digital payment has also opened an array of opportunities. Physical interaction is regressing. However, it's working in favour of the business owner.

A business owner can now keep a finger on the pulse of her or his business literally. Every login gets counted. Every click gets registered. The fruition of interaction isn't necessary. Every action is traceable. Calculable.

Amazingly, a typical customer spends not less than 6 hours on digital platforms. People spend far more time on a user-friendly website. It's incredible how much you can know about your patrons through an intuitive interface. An unprecedented amount of contact information is generated endlessly. Incidentally, during such an interaction, the user is relaxed. This makes the data much more prized as the actions are entirely impulsive.

Breathe In The Market

The world revolves in a single direction. Similarly, commerce is mostly about tomorrow. If you are not moving forward, it's useless. A business-lead life not only has to be fast. It has to be fast on. It has to be about where the world is going to be. What does it want? In such a quest, technology is the futurist's friend. It's the technology that makes progress possible. Sometimes, technology even gives birth to a newer tomorrow like the internet. It changed the way we interact, the way we work, our way of travelling, the way products are designed and developed. And the way they are bought. Or sold.

Now technology can gauge what a human wants. It reads minds. It mimics the thought process of your customer. Provides invaluable information about each sale. Through technology, the business owner can predict what the customer expects. How educated she is. Where does she live, and how does she make a living?

Prepare for the winds of change.

Understand the uniqueness of your brand. Is your product one of its kind? Are you among a bunch of other companies? Do not choose to follow up a campaign for a similar outcome. Nor hire the same agency. Chalk out a plan on your terms. It is most likely that your competitors have gone through the same thought processes. Try to be closer to gauge what is extraordinary about your product. It will set you apart.

Be careful. Don't just mark the demographic that is most likely to buy your product. People are complicated. Get inside their heads and hearts. Make them real. Know their likes and dislikes. Your digital marketing strategy shall incorporate all this. This brings out the essential touchpoints. And the media that it should be targeting.

Keep an eye on your goals. Yet refrain from setting unachievable targets. Everybody hates under-shooting, while over-shooting is more lethal. It drains up your resources. More sales or more customers could not be goals. Neither can 'becoming number one' or 'being the most popular brand'. Do not try to outdo or outsmart your competition. Keep learning. Gain more practice and confidence. Keep your focus on getting better day by day.

Learn and remember what worked. Hone in on practices that proved profitable. Never forget what cost you and what worked. Every day should teach you something. Assemble a fantastic team. Keep them efficient. Take note and change things quickly. The digital machinery doesn't need a lot of time. Your website and other platforms should correspond to each other. They must work in tandem like a piece of art.

Up till now, it has been about thought processes and planning. But now you need to step into the physicality of your strategy: Whom to delegate, how much to spend and where. Gather an impeccable team. Choose a sharp and experienced leader. Partition the available funds. Mark them according to the needs of your brand. Start developing platforms. Put more resources into the medium that is to get the most exposure. The rest of the platforms shall take its lead.

No matter how much thinking and theory have gone into your strategy, results tend to be surprising. With everything in place, you need to align, prioritise and start operations. However, be ready to learn and improve. Put dependable tracking analytics on each platform. Remember, now shall the actual learning start. You are in the market; it is bound to start teaching.

Digital marketing is more comprehensive. It can be extremely precise and accurate. It provides information and computes results very quickly. It works 24 hours. With the proper permissions and licenses, you can start accessing international markets within hours. A successful brand gets billions of hits daily. It will help if you put an enviable team to monitor results. They will need to keep an eye on every platform.

Some Tools That Work For You.

Pageviews

Every time your page loads anywhere around the world, it is counted as a 'pageview'. It also keeps a tab on how long the page or the site remained open. It gives you a measure of how fast you are achieving your target. How popular your product is. It also determines the effectiveness of your advertising budget.

Pageviews evaluate the efficacy of your SEO, the links you have placed, your posted content and your social media presence.

Average Session Duration

You must keep a sharp eye on the workings of your business. So is it to keep sharpening the tools you use. Your product gets to prove itself only after a sale. The sale itself depends on the experience of the customer.

Average Session Duration computes how much time your consumer spends on your website. It tells you if your site interests people. Is it easy to navigate? And if it is user-friendly. Any likeable point of your business might result in multiple sales. Time spent on the website strengthens brand recall.

Traffic Source

What led a customer to your site is as important as the transaction that ensued. That is what shall enable you to lard other traffic. It also tells you a lot about why and when they thought of your product. It lets you focus on the effectiveness of your advertising process. It means where to put your money. And where to stop putting it.

You can map the usefulness of one such tool called SimilarWeb. It segregates the traffic into four broad groups:

Organic search - These are people who were searching for your product. They are also counted as an organic entry if they landed on your site when searching for something similar.

Social - They are customers who caught sight of you while going through your posted content. Or through your social media site.

Referrals - All the content posted by you is sprinkled with clickable links. If a user reaches your portal through such a link, she or he is categorised as a 'Referral' customer.

Direct visitors - Customers who were not led to your site by the internet. These are walk-ins who logged on to your portal directly. Their interaction is registered every time, even if they bookmark the address and return.

Conversion Rate

Every aspect of an interaction with a consumer is vital. However, those which result in a sale are worth studying intensely. The Conversion Rate tells how many users acted according to the goals set by the website owner. It clarifies which factors eased a sale. This eventually helps you work on your strengths and weaknesses.

A high Conversion Rate merits the content. It says that the website is user-friendly. It ensures that the navigation is smooth.

Bounce Rate

Great marketing is not only about entertaining your loyal consumer. One should keep trying to convert the disinterested ones. Even seconds of a bad experience can turn away potential customers. Knowledge about such incidents can save a lot of trouble.

A marketer understands that anyone even slightly moved is invaluable. If someone took the pains of getting in touch, yet left with a bad taste, it tells a lot.

Bounce Rate is the number of users who left your website too quickly. It is a measure of the effectiveness of your content, navigation, interface and overall congeniality. It is the barometer of your marketing strategy and even your advertising campaigns.