What would you think of someone who is driving in full speed with both of his hands off the steering wheel and over their eyes? Crazy probably comes close to mind, but this situation is very similar to many businesses that are growing their business without tracking their marketing performance. If you have marketing campaigns in progress, well done. However, if you are not tracking these specific campaigns, step-by-step, then you are driving blind.
You need to start tracking your return on investment (ROI). Here are some facts about tracking:
1. Startups, you are what you measure. If you don't measure anything, you will become reactive and not learn.
2. Analytics moves marketing away from distractions and toward growth. In other words, your scarcest resources, which are time and money, will be better allocated with you have quantifiable data. Data reveals impact and data brings more science to your decisions.
3. Tracking is crucial because it the first step to the optimization process. When you track, you analyze, then you optimize accordingly and then start again. Without tracking, there is no optimization, which is the key to growth.
4. Tracking allows you to answer simple questions like, "Who is my audience?" "Where can I find them?" "What is the best way to engage with them and the best time for it?"
5. Without tracking, you are taking unnecessary risks, which may end up losing you time and money on methods that don't work.
6. Every business is different and it is important to test what works for YOUR business.
7. Markets are large, confusing and ever changing. You always have to keep track of marketing or else you will be too slow to adapt to a change that could kill you – or launch you into orbit.
8. It helps to understand who you are building your product for. Once you truly understand the customer, the direction of your campaign becomes very clear.
9. Start any marketing campaign by first being clear on what you want to learn or prove and how you are going to measure it. This gives you a sound basis from which to really understand if what you are doing is effective.
10. Analyzing each point in the sales funnel will help you find opportunities to optimize the evaluation and buying process of your customers.
11. Its important to run small experiments. Measure what works. Take money out of what doesn't work and put it into what's successful. Iterate through small experiments by putting money where the data says you put it.
12. As a marketer you want an answer to the question, "Would a customer convert anyway if you didn't utilize a particular marketing channel, or is the marketing channel taking credit for conversions that would've happened anyway?"
13. In an age where there's an opportunity to track, you need to assess the impact of every source out there and learn from that.
14. If you don't track your marketing efforts, you will incorrectly attribute increases in conversions or sales to marketing activities we have a bias toward. People do that all the time.
15. Tracking is everything. You can't make incremental improvements without tracking your efforts.
16. For every dollar you spend, translate it into dollars from a lifetime value perspective of your customers. Measure the cost of customer acquisition and lifetime value. If you're not measuring those, you don't really have a marketing program.
17. Business is game with the goal of making money. How can you win at any game without keeping track of the score?
Without marketing analytics, then you would still be stuck with the advertising adage of old media which states: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half." With analytics, it is now possible to know, down to a cent, exactly where your advertising dollars are getting wasted and where they are having the most impact.
Stop Not Analyzing and Start Analyzing.
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/are-you-analyzing-your-marketing-efforts?cid=roadrunner