I spent my first 10 years in the field of direct marketing which, at that time, was very measurable compared to other forms of advertising. Today, online marketing allows marketers to gather even better and more immediate results on how they’re doing. Surprisingly, though, (at least to me) there are still a number of organizations–large and small–that are not using analytics to evaluate how they are doing in terms of connecting with, engaging and influencing their target audiences. And, in some cases, they are not acting on the information they attain.
A quick story–I worked with a company a few years ago that promoted webinars through associations online. Their objective was to generate online registrations. An analysis of their online sales process, though, using available analytics revealed that many people were opting out along the way. They would enter the site, click on the “register” button and leave, never reaching the point where they would actually register. There were literally hundreds of people showing interest in these programs and only a few reaching the end of the sales funnel. Yet the company refused to make any changes in their online registration process which was quite cumbersome and very “unfriendly.”
Why? Who knows. But an important point here is that changes can be easily implemented, evaluated precisely based on an increase in desired results and changed again as necessary. Changes are not “carved in stone” but do provide the opportunity to learn through analytics and make course corrections as necessary.
Analytics also allow small businesses to track interactions with their web sites, with their blogs and with their social media activities. They can track who their new followers are, evaluate whether they represent those that they are hoping to attract as followers, track whether social media followers are also navigating to the web site, etc.
We all have a great deal of rich and real-time data available to us to determine how well our online communications are working. Don’t ignore these metrics and don’t discount their value. Listen to–and learn from–the ways in which various audiences are interacting with you. Ignore these insights at your peril.
Recommended Reading:
The Everything Guide to Customer Engagement
