An Argument For Small Business Web Analytics (Dallas, TX)
What gets measured gets improved!
You’re busy enough trying to keep your head above water in the current market climate. The last thing you need is one more learning curve; one more area of your business that requires some of your time, patience, and probably some money, right? Well, it’s true that your online effort is at the heart of your overall marketing plan, and, yes, it’s true that almost every other aspect of your marketing plan integrates quickly with your internet presence. Don’t agree with that last thought? Then why is your website address on everything from your give-away pens to t-shirts to everything else that you cast into the marketplace? Point proved, I think.
Where your next customer is coming from is at least as important as the one you have. If that’s true, and I believe it is, then your marketing program is worth tracking in order to improve its overall performance. If your online performance is the hub of your marketing plan, then it’s of premier importance to track that. So, yes, it’s 2009 and there are new things competing for your limited resources ; things your father didn’t have to deal with when his business was in it’s prime. You can lament or you can learn. Let’s learn to track. Get good at that and you’ll then need to learn to count larger piles of money!
The Tools Of The Tracking Trade
To track your online activities you’ll need a solid web analytics program. Would be nice if it was hosted so it could be accessed from anywhere. It’s got to be powerful enough to track the metrics that are important to your business and flexible enough to change with it. Would be very nice if it was free, too. Free is good for the small-business budget.
Almost every web hosting company worth the $2.95/mo. they’re charging for their services includes a free web statistics package in their bundle of hosting goodies. Most, if not all, of these programs are open-source and readily available through even the weakest of Google searches so the value of the freebie is directly proportional to the inexperience of the user. These programs are all well and fine for what they do; gather statistics. They gather piles of statistics, raw numbers, and heap them in large mounds on your living room floor where you sit, stare, and ponder them for hours. “I see the numbers, they’re right in front of me. What do I do with the numbers? Won’t somebody tell me what to do with the “6″ that’s staring at me from behind that sassy “3″?”
Statistics Or Analysis?
See that’s the rub isn’t it? A free statistics program is not the same animal as a web analytics package. The latter has functionality that is light years beyond even the best stat-package. But wait! Even the analytics software only gathers numbers, albeit larger, more complicated, sexier numbers. It’s true, you have much more potential locked up in those darling digits but they’re only as good as the master that calls them to gather from the virtual mountain-tops, for sure.
What’s The Question?
Okay, so what do we have? One tired business owner with a definite need to market his business and track every aspect of it including his online program. He needs something more advanced than a mere statistics package and he needs sufficient knowledge, or someone with sufficient knowledge, to call then interpret the data into actionable information. Where might we get such resources?
The first part of the equation can be solved quite nicely by utilizing Google’s free website analytics package, Google Analytics (GA). Go to Google.com, sign up for a free Google account and, voila!, you have immediate access to GA. Just follow the simple instructions about getting your free account and keep repeating to yourself, “I only have to do this once, I only have…” You now have one of the most powerful, flexible, and totally free website analytics packages at your fingertips 24/7. Neat, huh?
What about the other half of the success formula? You’ll need an education on the world of web analytics; everything from basic terminology to strategies (strategies?? strategies??? I was told there’d be no math!), to skillfully combining different, multiple metrics to obtain a meaningful, actionable bit of data that you can do something with. Or, you can hire someone to develop and implement a web-tracking program for you if you prefer to focus your time and energy on building your business through direct involvement in new customer acquisition activities. We happen to know a company that has a good grip on that should you need a…referral.
But, assuming you want to do the measurement work yourself, there’s a couple of ways to acquire the needed know-how.
Paths to Web Analytics Competency
First, school of hard knocks. Jump right in, read everything you can find, get in GA everyday and ask questions. Here’s a very good collection of tutorials assembled by Grok.com that can be gone through in a very short period of time. Ramp you up in a hurry!
Second, you can always take a class. There are online classes one can take that are quite good. The University of British Columbia offers a series of courses in web analytics authored and instructed by some of the biggest and brightest the industry has to offer.
Third, some combination of the two.
Drumroll, Please!
If that’s starting to sound an awful lot like another job, well, yeah it is. While the learning curve is steep it’s not impossible to navigate but you’ll have to work at it. Nothing worth having is easy or cheap. There are no miracles, magic bullets, or crystal balls and no one, I mean no one has all the answers. So stop looking for unicorns, stop chasing that windmill. Either roll your sleeves up and take on the task of measuring this newest of small business frontiers or call us and hire it done. Either way, it has to be done.
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Phillip Crum is the Chief Idea Officer of MarketingMeasure located at 2414 Arbuckle Court Dallas, TX 75229, and is committed to the idea of helping small business owners do a better job of finding their next customer or client. He and his two sons,Tyler and Preston, also own a Sir Speedy Printing franchise and employ those additional capabilities in the overall marketing services menu of offerings. Phillip can be reached at 214-213-7445, or pcrum@MarketingMeasure.com.
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