Infuse Zeal

Web analytics can be a very powerful intelligence tool. How can it help?

1. Get actionable insights for selling your product or service.
2. Cut down support cost.
3. Maximize the return from marketing investment.
4. Optimize allocation of the marketing budget between different channels and campaigns.
5. Uncover business potential.

In this series, I will introduce the different pieces that make up an effective web analytics system.

Before, you go and implement the system, make sure to keep the bottom-line business objectives very clear. What are your desired business outcomes?

1. Launching a new product?
2. Capturing market share in a specific segment?
3. Setting a revenue target for a certain business unit?
4. Cutting down customer support costs by 25%?
5. Getting more from the advertising campaigns?

Identify these key metrics. This is the foundation to using web analytics as an intelligence tool.

Four pieces of the puzzle – WISE

Website
Implementation of the system
Segmentation for refined understanding of customers
End customer behavior metrics

WISE Part One – Role of the Website

Your website is a focal point of your digital identity. It ties in ALL of your marketing initiatives. It can help you maximize the business resources.

A website can help:

1. Sell products
2. Generate Leads
3. Cultivate brand value
4. Build reputation and credibility
5. Support customers
6. Communicate a lot more easily inside the company

Define the desired outcomes for the website.

WISE Part Two – Implement System to measure and test

The web analytics tools like Google Analytics capture a lot of data. Key is to filter it and distill it to presentation that brings out actionable insights. Interpreting the data and tying it to the business bottom-line is crucial for web intelligence.

Also make sure that the data is clean.

Use the website and analytics to unify all marketing channels – online and offline.

WISE Part Three – Segment the data

How do the acquisition channels compare for pulling in targeted prospects?

How do different market persona/segments behave?

What does it take to sell a specific product or service?

Answers to questions like these give specific feedback that can be used for improving sales. And segmentation helps in zooming into these specific answers.

WISE Part Four- End Customer Behavior

Raw data metrics such as number of visitors, aggregate bounce rate don’t mean much. When you focus on meaningful customer behavior, you get to see how the customers behave and think. You also get clear understanding of how well the marketing campaigns are working to deliver the desired outcomes.

Wise Web Intelligence Series – Measure and Achieve Business Outcomes

1. WISE Part One – Role of Website
2. WISE Part Two – Implement System to Measure and Test
3. WISE Part Three – Segment the Data
4. WISE Part Four – End Customer Behavior

What are your challenges in understanding customer behavior? What has worked for you? I would love to hear more on it.