Analytics—some people love ‘em, some people hate ‘em. But, regardless of which side of the divide you fall on, you cannot deny their importance. Analytics are the key to measuring the success or failure of your marketing campaigns, so if you have hesitated in the past, it is time to get on board.
Analytics are Amazing
We get it, maybe you are a creative person who likes the brainstorming and the campaign development but not the statistics. The good news is that it’s not as bad as it seems. The even better news is that once you get the hang of analytics, they can actually help improve your campaign creativity.
If you spend weeks or months developing something, and it flops, it can be crushing. But, if you look at it as a growth opportunity, it can be empowering. Use metrics as the to fuel that fires your next campaign so that you are not wasting time and money creating offers that don’t work.
How Analytics Can Help
How many people visit your website in a day? What about in the last month? If you have no idea, then it is time to find out. Similarly, with analytics, you can discover how many people opened your last e-newsletter, downloaded your newest white paper, or read your most popular blog post.
When we stop thinking about analytics as just numbers and recognize what those numbers represent, not only is it easier to understand them, you can more clearly see how they fit into the big picture of you marketing initiatives.
Long-Term Cost Savings
So, how do analytics save you money? First and foremost, they do so by measuring whether or not you are succeeding or failing. If you are not tracking such things as open rate and click-through rate, you aren’t able to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses and make necessary changes.
For example, let’s say you send an offer email and don’t get the results you hoped for. Without analytics in place, you will never know how many people opened, opened and did not take action, or did not open the email at all.
Analytics permit you see that a lot of people opened the message but did not respond to the CTA, which feedback enables you to make changes to the campaign so that it works better and increases response rate. Simply changing the language or updating the offer can make a huge difference in the click-through rate. Testing and measuring are critical to sales success.
How it Relates to ROI
When measuring metrics be sure to focus on those that affect and align with your overall business goals. The experts at Kissmetrics advise avoiding “vanity” metrics, such as a how many Twitter followers you have, and instead focus on “engagement” metrics like number of active users.
They go further saying, “(you) can get a holistic view of the true ROI when everyone focuses on how marketing impacts sales. Ask how are your marketing investments affecting sales productivity”? If your marketing campaigns are working, your sales should be increasing. The more quality leads you get, the more money you make.
So, have we convinced of the critical importance of analytics and how they can boost your bottom line and increase your return on investment? We hope so. But, if you are still unsure, keep reading for the low-down on helpful platforms that can help you get started with analytics.
