WSI Blog - Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies

These days website traffic can be increased through numerous methods. Whether you're initiating a PPC campaign, sending targeted emails or adding valuable content to your site you need to keep one constant in place. Your goals!

The ultimate (macro) goal may be to sell a product or gain a customer. Other macro goals may be:
    •    Downloading a whitepaper
    •    Signing up for an e-newsletter
    •    Requesting a quote
    •    Submitting information in return for something of value
    •    Viewing a product, service page or consuming some form of content (article, video, blog, etc.)

These macro goals can take time to achieve. Equally important to success are smaller (micro) goals that help build to your ultimate goals. Micro goals are the steps it takes to complete the macro goal. These may include:
    •    Opening an email
    •    Clicking on a PPC ad
    •    Browsing your website and viewing multiple pages
    •    Putting products into a cart and providing billing information
    
Initiating an analytics package can easily help you track the actions of consumers during a visit to your website. Where did they spend the most time, what actions did they take and what was the bounce rate upon the initial arrival? Understanding the steps taken prior to completing a macro goal can help you better understand your consumer and how to direct them where you want them to end up.

Think you have squeezed every last dollar out of your Pay Per Click campaigns? Or think you have your Custom Landing Page down to a science? Maybe....maybe Not.  As the old saying goes, "You can't improve what you can't measure." This holds true even more so during tough economic times like we are facing today. The answer is effectively managing your Analytics.

Maketing managers and business owners are looking for ways to trim marketing budgets and increase ROI  (we should always be looking to do this, recession or not). If you can spend less and make more money, why wouldn't you want to do this?

Ask yourself:
1)  Does my print ad in the local newspaper really work? And how well does it work?
2)  What is my Yellow Page Ad costing me per lead? 
3)  Is my website unattractive to my visitors?
4)  Is my search engine optimization (SEO) work giving us the leads we are looking for?
5)  Are my email marketing campaigns even reaching my prospects INBOX or going straight to Junk Mail?
6)  I am spending all this money on a radio ad, but how can I measure its effectiveness?

If you are asking yourself these questions then its pretty clear that you probably aren't up to speed with Web Analytics. You can track and measure all of these marketing campaigns effectiveness. Without proper analysis and not being able to make informed decisions, business owners and marketing managers might stop campaigns that might be working or just need some tweaking. 

Check out our Analytics Webinar and Whitepaper on Web Analytics and How to Optimize Your Marketing Dollars During a Recession.

Optimize Your Marketing Dollars During the Recession (410 KB)

Watch the Webinar
 

Many companies are either at the beginning stages of experimenting with internet marketing or just beginning to see the true potential of this marketing medium. We are seeing a lot of companies using social media, pay per click, search engine optimization, and email marketing to promote their products and services and promote their company name because its effective at driving conversions.  The best way to shed some light on the actual performance of your marketing campaigns is through Web Analytics.

Web Analytics (Click Tracks, Google Analytics, Urchin are popular analytics software), will shed some light on which sites increased your marketing Return on Investment and are worth spending time on as well as which ones to eliminate or modify. Saving time (our most valuable commodity), analytics will aid in helping businesses make better decision as to how to allocate the time spent on a particular site, web channel, or internet campaign.

Analytics is not limited to tracking just online marketing activities, Television, Print, Radio, and other offline campaigns can now be effectively tracked and analyzed using Web Analytics. Why guess at how effective your marketing dollars are being spent? You can find out exactly what is happening with each campaign using Analytics. You can also use Web Analytics to guage how effective your Press Releases, Blog Posts, News Articles, Brochures, Videos, Podcasts, etc are working ON and OFF your site.

Having used Web Analytics to track the various websites and businesses we have developed over the years, its amazing the level of information you can find out about how people interact with your site. Analytics is as important to internet marketing as the website itself. Without Analytics, it's like driving at night from Boston to Chicago with no headlights. You can't get where you want to go without seeing what's in front of you. Analytics can shed some serious light on your marketing campaigns.

You should think about learning everything you can about Web Analytics if you are going to market on the internet, or hire a Web Analytics consultant to help you out. I am a Certified Google Analytics consultant and would be happy to help you sort through the data on your site and make your marketing dollars succeed. 

Contact me today to schedule a consultation radams@wsipremierEsolutions.com