That’s ok. The tricky thing about tech is that it is constantly changing. To make the most of it, you need to stay on top of trends and developments.

That’s what we are doing here. In this article, we take a look at how you can understand your data and use it as a tool that will propel your processes forward.

Enhancing Decision-Making with Data-Driven Insights

When it comes to project management, data has become a significant force of transformation and acceleration. Businesses use their numbers as a way of propelling forward processes. Eliminating uncertainty by recognizing patterns, and making sensible predictions about how those patterns will continue.

For example, say you are a construction company that has been hired to build out a new high-rise in a busy city. Obviously, this isn’t your first rodeo. You’ve built apartments and office buildings dozens of times before, always with successful project outcomes.

But, things are a little different this time. You are on a tight deadline and the budget margins are very narrow on this one. Too much movement in the wrong direction on the matter of budget could derail the project entirely.

Fortunately, there are several ways that data can help provide this tightrope walk with a safety net.

• Workflow management: Using your numbers from previous projects, you can optimize your internal workflow to make sure that there is no waste on the job site. This can speed up the project timeline while also saving money.
• Supply management: Data is also often used for expense management in the form of supply optimization. In this case, that would mean e form of supply optimization. In this case, that would mean using historic project information to get a better sense of how much equipment you need to buy.
• Location-specific considerations: Finally, is there site-specific information that can further inform your processes? Regulations, weather, or environmental-related delays? This information can also be factored in to help you create a reasonable project timeline.

By identifying patterns and trends, the manager can allocate resources effectively, mitigate potential risks, and optimize the project timeline. Data-driven insights empower the project manager to make proactive decisions, ensuring the project stays on track and within budget.

Real-Time Monitoring and Predictive Analysis

Data analytics enables real-time monitoring of project progress, enabling project managers to identify bottlenecks and address issues promptly. This level of visibility allows for agile adjustments, preventing delays and ensuring timely completion.

For example, let’s say you are trying to launch a new product. Data can assist the process by taking a look at several key metrics. This comprehensiveness can extend even into the realm of competitor activity. Are there similar products hitting the market? How have they performed? What strategies are your competitors using to market their products?

You can also use predictive analytics to understand supply chain-related considerations, or societal situations that may impact the future sales of your product.

It’s not fortune-telling. It’s logic, applied at a scope that humans cannot achieve without algorithm-powered analytics.

Resource Optimization and Cost Efficiency

Resource optimization is another key cost-saving application of data. By taking a look at your internal numbers, you can identify redundancies and gain general insights into the effectiveness of your current operations.

This could include everything from identifying and maximizing peak periods of productivity to reorganizing your entire operations to make the most of your employees’ time. For example, are there three people doing the work of two in your finance department?

Using data, you may determine that restructuring your departments could improve the way you use your employees’ time.

Risk Analysis

Finally, data implementation can also help you evaluate risk and make choices that make the most sense to your business. You might take a look at predictive analytics when you are considering a big move. That could include the product rollout we discussed earlier. It could even be a lower-stakes scenario.

The storefront next to yours just went up for sale. Should you buy it and do that expansion you’ve been thinking about for years? Through risk analysis, you can better strategize.

What will your finances look like six months after that choice? If there is an emergency of some kind, will you have the capital to navigate it?

These considerations are fundamental to making informed and effective business decisions. While data can’t take away all of the uncertainty, it can help narrow down possibilities and add valuable clarity.

Using Data

While people can base their entire careers on data analysis and implementation, that doesn’t mean you need an advanced degree to start using your numbers. Basic data implementation is possible using information that is probably already being generated and stored by your existing tech stack.

Even your social media accounts can provide you with useful information. How do people respond to your current messaging? Who is your ideal demographic? What time of day are they most active?

If you are interested in using data, a good first step may be to consider what information is already available to you. From there, you can build a strategy and address gaps.

You may even decide to bring in a professional. While data analysts don’t come cheap, they usually more than pay for themselves in terms of the value that they provide. Furthermore, most can be hired out as freelancers, eliminating the need to hire a full-time employee.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that data isn’t for you. In the modern age, businesses of every size can benefit from data implementation.

The post Harnessing Data Analytics for Streamlined Project Management appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

With this change, comes challenges. Below you will learn what is new in GA4 and tips on how to get you started before July 1^st comes.

What is new in GA4?

The latest update, Google Analytics 4, brings a lot of new features and improvements.

1. Integrated web and mobile reporting

The best thing about Google Analytics 4 is that it gives you combined mobile and web data in a single Analytics property. With Universal Analytics, you would have to look at both channels separately in different properties, but GA4 allows for more robust cross-device and cross-platform tracking. The result is a clearer picture of how users interact with your website or app, leading ultimately to better marketing and product design decisions.

2. Keep Track of Events Without Codes

GA4 offers automatic event tracking for some user activities, like page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, site searches, video interactions, and file downloads. You don’t need to add code or set up event tracking in Google Tag Manager. Just ensure that “Enhanced measurement” is activated in your GA4 interface.

3. Get AI Artificial Intelligence Insights and Predictions

Thanks to machine learning, Google Analytics 4 properties can extract meaning from data and identify trends that otherwise go undetected. Technology like this can help you predict consumer market trends, such as increased demand for a particular product or service. With this data, businesses can make more informed decisions about where to focus their marketing efforts. Thereby recognizing customer needs earlier and tailoring marketing efforts accordingly.

Tips to Help Get You Started

1. Analyze the way you use Universal Analytics

As you prepare to switch to GA4, take stock of what data you are currently collecting and how your organization uses that data.

2. Make a note of the enhancements you’ve made

Take inventory of any customizations or enhancements carried out on your UA installation.

3. Transfer your UA goal metrics over to GA4

Once you’ve identified which metrics to track, figure out the best way in GA4. Sometimes, it might just be changing the language or labels.

4. Compare GA4 goals to your current UA marketing goals

Please wait a month for your new GA4 system to collect and measure data and compare it to your UA results. Given the significant differences between the two systems regarding data collection, metrics measurement, and ROI calculation, it might not be possible to compare them one-to-one.

5. Continue customizing your GA4 Property

There is no denying that GA4 offers more business reporting, automated reports, and dashboard creation options than its predecessor. However, you will still need to work to analyze and customize every dashboard and report to make sure it accurately reflects your data. Dashboard customization is a critical step that should not be rushed.

6. Analyze more than just your website’s analytics

With GA4’s new features, you can uncover hidden patterns and trends, gain a deeper understanding of your customers and even go beyond your website data.

7. Plan ahead

GA4 offers more advanced features, which means there will be a learning curve and potential bumps during the switchover. So, before you switch, check that you have allocated enough resources and time for migrating your data and getting used to the new system. A successful shift will require technical skills, alignment, and collaboration between your team members.

In 2023, the internet has come an essential to a business, therefore, website analytics are becoming an important tool to understanding your audience.

Additional Website Tools

Maximizing Your Website’s Online Traffic: Exploring Various Types and Strategies

Amazing Tips That Will Bring More Attention To Your Website

The Why & How of Website Accessibility

The post What is New in Google Analytics 4? appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Data is increasingly important in today’s market and has become a key piece to guide decision-making and strategic planning for companies across all segments. However, to transform this information into knowledge and competitive advantages, organizations need to prioritize data driven decisions.

This term refers to data-driven organizational processes in which companies base their decision-making and strategic planning on the collection and analysis of information – rather than intuition or anecdotal experience.

These decisions are not just a tool, but a whole methodology that gives organizations a more accurate idea of ​​their business, allowing them to take advantage of opportunities and anticipate trends and problems.

For this to happen, the tools used in data driven companies collect data from different sources, both internal and external. They combine information in order to offer a clearer picture of the market – customers, products, competitors, suppliers and conjuncture – and of the organization itself, so that managers can act accordingly.

Unfortunately, many managers still don’t make their decisions based on data, putting their businesses at risk. One of the challenges when making this kind of decision is dealing with the large amount of data generated every day.

Therefore it is necessary to identify efficient processes for the collection and analysis of information, so that all available knowledge can be strategically used. Several tools can help with this process – and nowadays, you can even find artificial intelligence solutions to automate most activities.

How was this process born?

The concept of Data Driven decisions emerged as an extension of data science, a field of knowledge that uses scientific methods and algorithms to transform data – both structured and unstructured – into knowledge.

In the current corporate environment, this is done using tools such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, to obtain insights from the collection, cross-referencing and interpretation of market data.

The goal is to increase the organization’s competitiveness, leading to improved results.

What are the goals of this type of strategy?

Data driven culture is geared towards making businesses more focused on market demands, with a positioning that considers a greater number of factors. After all, analysis will always be based on indicators including the state of the market and business objectives in the medium and long term.

As a result, intuition is no longer part of a company’s routine, leading to more robust and reliable choices. The ensuing adherence of professionals will result in increased engagement by teams in pursuit of the company’s goals.

For a company to be considered data driven, it first needs to collect data from various sources – like ERP system, CRM, sales and marketing systems, social media, market data and consultancies, etc.

Having implemented a systematic collection process, it is necessary to integrate this data. That is why one of the pillars of data driven management is ensuring collective access to data. In this way, managers always have complete reports at hand, and can consult the company’s database to solve any problem.

5 steps and tools to help you

The first step towards a data driven culture is investing in the right data analysis and management solutions. These solutions are software, tools and methods that enable the collection, storage, processing and interpretation of raw data, and then transforming them into valuable information.

Software such as CRM, BI and Big Data systems can reduce costs and improve the quality of analyses. In addition, they make room for data to be adequately stored and managed by all teams. Here are some steps you can follow in order to make data driven decisions:

1 – Sales analysis: decisions based on data are much more powerful than those based on assumptions. So a good CRM and planning tools are essential – as are OKR templates to guide you and improve the organization of relevant processes.

Team leaders can use these tactics to analyze the information provided, compare reports and, as a result, make informed decisions to drive business growth. Your data will also be more organized, with all teams acting in an integrated manner and avoiding mismatched information.

2 – Social media analysis: data-driven tools play a big part in the world of social networks, helping professionals to find new content, learn about the competition, understand what users are saying about the brand and analyze results.

This data can be used to gauge how to develop creative strategies for each of your company’s channels.

3 – Web analytics: this is the process of measuring, collecting, analyzing and reporting data about users’ browsing and online interactions. In other words, structuring and collecting data to understand how the public behaves in the digital universe.

As consumers around the world generate huge amounts of data at any given time, we need to know how to analyze this information to improve our actions going forward.

4 – Lead capture: in Digital Marketing, lead capture is when companies are contacted by people who are interested in their products or services. This information can be captured as data to assist in future decision-making. 

In addition to analyzing all leads from a given period, check whether complementary actions such as paid media, content production, email marketing and others are delivering results.

Doing so will let you identify any errors in your sales funnel, and the relative healthiness of your conversion rates.

5 – Email marketing: this type of content goes beyond simple email, and contains valuable information about potential customers and consumer behavior. Like any good data-driver, marketing automation tools provide data and insights to improve the performance of your strategy.

Find out who is opening your emails, how many people have clicked on email links, and how many of them became customers, among other important metrics.

Data driven decisions are the future of business management. As technology advances, collecting, analyzing and interpreting data to transform it into strategic knowledge means staying one step ahead of competitors who remain resistant to this transformation.

But the path to a data-oriented culture isn’t always a straightforward one: it can mean training all company employees, and hiring qualified professionals to optimize the use of this information and of appropriate tools to make better data driven decisions, increase predictive capacity and provide more autonomy in internal processes.

The post 5 Tools To Help You Make Data Driven Decisions appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Applying analytics to marketing efforts in particular can be highly beneficial and offer strong ROI. However, the process of doing this effectively can take some know-how and experimentation.

One way data analysis can help your marketing performance is by informing your ideal target audience. Many more of our campaigns than we sometimes care to admit are built on assumptions, conventional wisdom, or old ways of doing things.

Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t.

What if there was a tool you could employ to improve, in some cases drastically, the results of your marketing efforts and your understanding of your target audience? That’s what strategic marketing analytics could accomplish for your organization.

How Analytics Can Aid the Marketing Process

Products and sales models are designed with certain customers in mind. The better a business understands its ideal customer, the more successful and tailored its marketing efforts will be. The process of correctly identifying and communicating with that target audience is arguably the most fundamental purpose of marketing. Without accomplishing this effectively, a business that has a fantastic process or product will still flounder and may ultimately fail.

This makes correctly identifying your target audience an imperative skill for every business. Marketing efforts that are calibrated to reach the demographic (or set of demographics) most likely to engage with the product will always outperform campaigns that might have bigger budgets or more manpower but lack a clear understanding of their target market.

It is a marketing myth that a target market is determined once and then remains static or unexamined for long periods of time. In reality, a strong marketing program should constantly reevaluate its target market(s) for optimum fit and messaging effectiveness.

One important tool for assessing target audience and messaging clarity is data analytics. By incorporating data collection and assessment into your marketing efforts, your business can keep its marketing campaigns razor-focused and effective.

The Mechanics of Incorporating Data Capture and Analysis Into Your Marketing Strategy

Data analysis is often viewed as a highly technical undertaking, only to be attempted by people with PhDs or expert excel skills. However, while professionals in the business analysis field are highly qualified individuals with technical and analytic aptitudes that can be quite specialized, incorporating analysis into your business can actually be straightforward and highly approachable.

A huge part of using analytics effectively is applying it to the things that will actually move the needle for your company or business. Begin by identifying the questions you need answered.

Are you struggling with conversions? Finding untapped market channels? Lowering product returns or subscription cancellation rates? Before launching an analytics campaign, identify the areas of insight or understanding that will most benefit your business.

After you’ve identified places in your marketing process where you could benefit from better intelligence, it is much easier to work backward and identify the pieces of information you’ll need to collect and analyze in order to make that happen.

The last piece of the puzzle for instituting effective analytics in your marketing process is to create a process for implementing insights. If you don’t apply what you’ve learned or allow those lessons to shape your work or processes, conducting analytics is a waste of time and resources. Make sure you see the process through from start to finish and reap the benefit of conducting analytics campaigns.

Making It Happen: Analytics Implementation in Your Organization

There are a number of ways to incorporate analytics into your marketing efforts. Depending on the size of your operation, you can take one of several routes to harness the power of analytics and optimize your marketing efforts:

Utilize a Freeware Analytics Product to Get Your Analytics Up and Running

For many cases, a free software option like Google analytics or the analytics tools available to business accounts on social media platforms can be more than enough to start providing actionable insights. Many companies can create large amounts of value from free software analytics products. Some never need to take on paid tools.

Look Into Software Services and Packages

If your needs exceed what you can accomplish with a freeware offering or adding an analysis component to an existing job description within your team, contracting analytics services can be a good middle-tier option.

This route can take advantage of external expertise and save time implementing a solution. This can be an economic choice when your analytics needs aren’t robust or involved enough to hire a full-time employee to manage the program.

Hire a Business Analyst to Join Your Team

If you have the budget and volume, sometimes hiring an analyst to join your team can be the most efficient way to quickly implement a data analytics program and maintain it. Contracting out full analytics programs to firms or agencies can be less cost-effective and afford your business the benefit of continuity by having someone on staff that is responsible for the process over the long term.

Whatever your marketing plan involves, applying analytics can enhance its effectiveness and performance. Identifying your target market and continually honing your understanding of your consumer audience can be made much easier by implementing data collection and analysis.

The post Using Analytics to Identify Your Target Audience appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

It’s undeniable that in today’s digital age, millions of online reviews written by different types of users have replaced word-of-mouth comments, and their impact on the brand’s or product’s reputation grows continuously. That’s why encouraging good user feedback is crucial for your brand’s growth.

​​

Best Ways to Ask for Feedback

There are two types of customer feedback. Requested feedback—or the responses we receive after contacting or surveying our customers, and spontaneous feedback—the reviews and comments customers leave on their own accord and any public mentions (positive or negative) we may receive from them.

Email Surveys

One effective method of measuring user satisfaction is to conduct an online survey and send it out via email. And the best way to grow your email list is to use an email pop up form on your website. Once you’ve gathered the emails, you can send them a survey after they’ve made a purchase, and ask them about every step of their buyer’s journey and shopping experience, online or in-store. However, to inspire your website visitors and customers to tell you their opinion send them the survey immediately after their interaction with your brand.  

To get a good response rate from your customers, design your surveys so that they take little time and effort on their part to complete. If you need to conduct a lengthier survey, you should consider offering incentives or motivation if they see them through to the end, such as freebies, special offers, free downloads, discounts, etc. 

Social Media Surveys

Social networks are great for measuring customer interest in different topics, answering questions about products and services, and identifying issues. Regular use will yield useful insights that will help you steer projects in the right direction and ensure that you’re always speaking to your ideal customers. You can use social media accounts to improve your products, your content, your customer service, your marketing efforts, and so on.

Online Reviews

You already know that reviews are helpful for people who are considering whether to buy your products or services. When making a purchase, consumers today want to find out more about other buyers’ experiences. This is why you must pay close attention to online reviews and comments.

The Benefits of Asking for Feedback

Requesting, organizing, and analyzing customer feedback is a time- and labor-intensive process that demands your full attention. Now that you know the most efficient methods to get customer feedback let’s talk about its value. 

In short, the most important benefit from feedback is that you will gain insight into your strengths and areas where you can improve. Moreover, a good user experience is the best advertisement. You can use customer praise in the form of testimonials to spread the word about your business. 

Nobody knows if your goals have been achieved better than your current and former customers. By getting first-hand information, you can find out if consumers actually need what you’re selling, and how well their opinion aligns with your expectations. 

Your customer’s opinions will help you figure out what features of your products or services are most appreciated. This way you will be able to learn more about your customers and grow your customer base. Additionally, they will help you stand out from your competitors. A customer’s complaint or praise can shed light on what they value most and what you need to work on. All of this data is gold, as it can be used to directly engage potential customers via your website and other online channels. 

Customer feedback analysis can help you identify trends, as well as identify the changes you can make to improve your results. You will be able to better understand their concerns and their doubts about your company. Knowing what customers think about you is also a great way to learn whether you are satisfying all key expectations of your clientele. You can use this information to pinpoint problem areas and prioritize solutions.  

It’s a sure bet that your happy customers will spread the word about you. Everyone wants to feel like their thoughts and feelings matter. To increase brand loyalty and word-of-mouth advertising, demonstrate to consumers that you value their feedback and input by acting on it. 

Conclusion

Every manager or business owner wishes to learn whether their offerings truly satisfy customers’ needs. Whether you are wondering if they’re satisfied with your website, your products, or your customer service, asking for feedback is one of the most effective ways to not only evaluate your brand reputation but also identify where you excel and what are your weak spots, and, ultimately improve.

The post Benefits of Collecting User Feedback appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

So, your business is up and running. You have built up a brand, and you have a few loyal customers who keep coming back to your site. You might even have a lot of customers, but want to start expanding operations even further. What do you do? 

In this digital day and age, the answer to that question usually lies in looking inward and ascertaining what you can do internally to broaden your audience. In fact, the advice we give to most people is to look at their website and see what it is doing and how their digital marketing is working for them. 

With this in mind, we thought we would bring our advice here. In this short article, we unpack some of our key pieces of advice, tips, and tricks that we have found helpful in expanding a company’s digital footprint. Let’s get started. 

Have a Firm Grasp of Your Customer

The first thing we ask any company is “who is your customer? What are their interests and preferences?” The more you know about your customer’s profile, the more you will be able to effectively create a marketing strategy and messages that will actually appeal to them. 

Digital marketing outlines that you need to know more about your customers than just their demographics. You need to know about their behaviors. You need to know what they want and need even before they do. You also need to speak to them in their language and provide them with information that is relevant to them. 

Luckily, there are various tools and platforms that allow you to do so. Say, for example, you have a website that caters to a global audience. You will want your products and services to be listed in their particular currencies in order to convert them. With an efficient Forex API free currency converter tool, you can rest assured that your customers will see information on their screens that is relevant to them. 

Google Analytics, is another example. It allows you to track the traffic coming into your site, where it came from, how it behaves and what drew it there. With that information, you will be able to create similar circumstances based on the campaigns that really worked the last time. 

Put Money Behind Digital Advertising 

Often, we come across companies who simply do not understand why you need to set a monthly budget aside for digital ads. Digital advertising is one of the most effective ways of reaching targeted audiences that are not in your immediate community. 

Whether you are putting money behind Facebook ads, or paid ads on Google, targeting specific keywords, you are using this method to reach hundreds of thousands of users who are searching these specific terms, and who are actually interested in what you are offering. 

Let’s take a look at Facebook ads for a second. You should be posting regular content on Facebook which is informative and educational for your audience. But, these posts are only reaching your followers. 

If a particular post does really well and starts generating a lot of engagement and traffic, you can put some money behind it for it to reach an audience beyond just your followers who will be interested in it. So, you can define your audience according to their interests and behaviors and it will pop up on their timelines. It is a highly-effective and cost-efficient way of expanding your brand. 

Optimize the Landing Pages 

Now you know who your target audience is and you are bringing them to your website. What next? Your product and landing pages are a huge factor in your conversion rates. In fact, a lot of cart abandonment takes place because of simple mistakes on your product pages. 

Either there is not enough information, not enough accurate information, or things are just not clear enough. Long sales funnels are also detrimental to conversion rates. So, if your customers have to fill out an excessive amount of forms and go through long processes to get to payment, you can expect low conversions. 

Look at your product pages in detail. Are the CTAs above the fold of the page and do they stand out? It could be worthwhile to A/B testing your CTAs to see what works. 

Next, look at the information that you are providing your customers about your product or service. Is it descriptive enough? Does it contain the right keywords for heightened SEO? Are there other customer reviews and do you include information about shipping and added costs? Make sure all of this can be seen on the page. 

Lastly, look at your images. Make sure they are high quality and web-optimized to increase your page speed. Also, ensure that they have the right keywords in the descriptions for SEO. 

Last Thoughts

Getting your conversion rate up is simply a case of rolling something out, measuring its effectiveness, and testing to see what works. Whether you are using the metrics tools on your platforms, or GA, it is important to continually monitor things to make sure they are working. 

Using this information, you are then able to plan future content and strategies that should have similar results. A/B test everything, whether it is CTAs or content. See what converts more before making it a permanent feature.

The post Proven Methods for Increasing Your Website Conversion Rate appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

If your conversion rate falls below the ideal rate (depending on the industry you are in) of the total number of prospects you engage, you may have to consider tweaking your campaign a bit.

That’s not hard to do. Here are a few things you can do to optimize your conversion rate.

1. Check your other metrics

A low conversion rate does not provide you with the whole picture of how your business is performing. It’s important to note that a flat conversion rate can be attributed to other issues.

People who spend less time on your site are often always interested in the products or services you offer—at least not without some soft selling. Also, a high bounce rate may indicate that your website isn’t doing well enough to keep visitors engaged.

At any rate, these issues can impact your conversion rate in considerable ways. Taking other metrics into account should help you determine the specific solutions that should generate more conversions for your business.

2. Create engaging content

One important factor for increasing the conversion rate is content. Blogs, videos, infographics, and other materials provide people the information they need to make a purchase. You only need to create informational and relevant content that addresses specific issues, highlights the value of your products and services, and builds your credibility.

Well-informed prospects are more likely to buy, knowing that your brand is capable of providing the right solutions.

3. Develop your sales funnel

A buyer has to go through several steps before ending up in a purchase. You only need to deliver the right type of content for each step, so the buyer gradually develops interest. For this, you will need to know how to create a sales funnel using the right funnel creation tools.

That way, you will have a well-structured process for filtering and retaining interested leads. You have to build an ideal client profile so you can determine who gets to enter the funnel. This should help you zero in on the right people and increase your conversion rate over time.

4. Use hyper-targeted marketing approaches

Today’s marketers are focusing more on quality than on quantity. After all, what is the use of generating a high volume of leads if it doesn’t translate to real opportunities? Certainly, you will only be wasting time and resources on prospects who have no interest in your brand.

You want to nurture prospects who match your ideal client profile and deliver the right type of content. With hyper-targeting, you can optimize your resources on those high-value opportunities and achieve better success in closing deals.

You can say that the conversion rate shows you how profitable your business really is, so it’s high time to apply the strategies above. No doubt, you can unlock opportunities for greater growth if you make improvements to how you convert your prospects.

The post 4 Tips to Optimizing Your Conversion Rate appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

For example, a company may use social media to build a community around thought leadership, or to increase brand awareness and trust among its clients or to help nurture prospects during the lead gen process.  Or you may be nodding your head up and down to all three of these goals. 

On the flip side, your clients are utilizing social media every day too – posting thousands of reviews and comments on a variety of platforms. As digital marketers you appreciate and understand the value of this feedback, and yet the sheer volume may make interacting seem like a daunting task. Who has that kind of time to create compelling social media content, then track, analyze and respond to customers? Let alone check out what the competition is up to as well.

Make Data Analysis Easier

You need to though.  You have to up your game in the realm of social media because if you don’t you will leave a dearth of data unturned and underutilized for your organization. You simply can’t have a powerful social media strategy unless you have powerful backend social media listening and analytics in place to capture and make the analysis of all this data easier.

Currently every social media platform already offers you some type of metrics – there is Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Page Administrator stats for engagement rates, YouTube performance indicators with filters for tracking certain types of data, and the list goes on. Each provides you with a basic overview of what’s happening on that channel. They tell you how many followers you have, the number of impressions or views your video, tweet or post received, how many times your profile page was viewed, the number of times your video, tweet or post was liked, shared or commented on. 

Integrate Data from Multiple Channels

All good stuff. However, if you’re on all these platforms or Instagram and Pinterest too, this requires pulling metrics from a number of different channel sources in order to effectively measure overall success. Talk about time consuming. That’s why many digital marketers are looking to software solutions that offer them the capability to integrate many of these networks together and provide a single dashboard for evaluating data.

Because the value of social media is that it provides a real-time means for measuring audience insights and pushing targeted content that aligns with your brand, you need real-time monitoring along with that really good authentic content. 

There are hundreds of platforms offering advanced listening technology and intuitive analytics that can help inform digital marketers’ social media strategies.  To help you find a good fit for your organization, here are several of the main features offered by analytics solutions for you to consider:  

9 Platform Components

Competitor Brand Analysis

Tracking competitors allows your company to have additional benchmark data. It also provides you a way to tap into additional audiences and potentially increase followers and interactions. 

Content Engagement Analysis

Analytics platforms let you see how followers are interacting with your posts, find out which headlines are attracting the most followers, and generally help you build better content. This type of analysis provides you the information necessary for personalization and increasing follower engagement.

Follower Demographics & Analysis

Start to know a little more about your followers’ demographics and locations. Now you have the opportunity to route optimization based on target locations. 

Third-Party & CRM Integration

If your company has outlaid the resources for a CRM, integration into an analytics solution may be highly important as it will give you the ability to convert social engagements into leads. Every solution offers different capabilities so verify what software integrations your company needs.

Influencer Identification

Identify which followers have the largest networks. You may want to engage them to be a brand advocate to promote company content or may simply want to tap into their follower audience to increase your audience.

Real-time Monitoring

Get early warning of negative feedback from events, advertising, and news affecting your clients and markets. Also, important for helping you deliver timely communication to benefit followers and demonstrate your company’s value.

Reporting

Reporting helps turn all the data into strategy, which can deliver the necessary ROI for your social media efforts. You want this tool to provide an easy way for demonstrating key data points from all social channels and to produce great visualizations that make information quickly understandable. 

Mobile App

This may be valuable to SMBs that don’t have extensive teams dedicated to social media. Monitoring may need to be handled on-the-go at times.

Price

Platform pricing runs the gamut from free to monthly service fees for several thousand dollars. Set your budget and find a solution that offers the features your company specifically wants. Many also offer a free month trial. 

Social media analytics offer companies the much-needed ability to tailor messages, manage multiple channels and social profiles, and gather valuable data on followers, engagement, content, and more. Some solutions also provide ML algorithms to advance audience targeting and to categorize content. For digital marketers this is a way to get a handle on your social media efforts and utilize findings for additional marketing activities and in other areas of the business.

The post 9 Components for Comparing Social Media Analytics Platforms appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.

Using real-time customer data and analytics allows for decisions to be made based on customer needs and provides a foundation for continuous optimization. With tools like Google Analytics, heat maps, and feedback surveys, design and digital strategies can truly be made based on real data.

Taking this approach means moving away from redesigning based only on intuition or company leadership input. For many organizations this requires a cultural shift to be committed to analytics to drive the process. To go down this route, you really have to gather and understand the data to back up your decisions.

The data can help you identify current actions and goal completions. Basically you need to answer – What are visitors doing on your website? These findings may show that customers are looking at information, but never completing a lead generation form. The data can also show what parts of a page are most used and what is not generating any interest. Side note: If you need to get management buy-in, this is where tools like heat maps that highlight frequently looked at information and behaviorally triggered digital surveys that ask for feedback about visitors’ experiences can come in handy.

This information can help you tweak or change how current action paths work or provide different elements during the customer journey to improve goal completions. Now you’re getting at the – What do you want visitors to do when they are on your website? This means identifying which acquisition paths, content consumption patterns, and goal completions are most meaningful and will define the success of your website.

High-level traffic data like number of visits, unique visitors, page views, etc. give you a general sense of your website’s performance. The next step requires defining metrics based on targets that address your new goals instead of raw numbers or trends. Digital analysts believe these are the results that need to be tracked and communicated throughout an organization.

Customer/Visitor Engagement – The goal here is to develop a metric that measures more than just how many visitors come to the site. Create a session that looks at a collection of behavioral activity that shows a high level of interest. For example, a visit that includes viewing at least three content pages or a visit where viewing and sharing content is completed.

Lead Generation – Generate metrics that explain how visitors are navigating through the site. Experts suggest taking the total number of lead generation task completions, such as filling out a form or requesting a quote and divide that by the total visitors sessions to get the resulting percentage that can be used as a benchmark score for site lead generation effectiveness.

Shopping Cart Value – For ecommerce sites, it’s time to move beyond just shopping cart completion rates. Try measuring value per customer order or repeat order value.

The emphasis on analytics establishes website customer interaction and task completion goals. It can also be used to establish the most important and least important content on any page. Then the designing part of the redesign must use this information to ensure the success of the metrics. This means streamlining the site to guide customers to the desired actions.

Ready to gauge how your website stacks up against the competition? Try Hubspot’s free tool Marketing Grader. If it’s time to consider some professional help to get you on track, we have a deep expertise about all aspects of website design. We’re here to help.

The post Analytics New Role in Website Design appeared first on Modern Marketing Partners.