We've been learning a little about the elements of inbound marketing and how to find a happy balance of productivity therein. I've shared some of our mistakes and how we've learned to adjust our efforts so as not to tip the scale too far in either direction.
In this final installment of this 7 part series we're going to look at how it all ties together in the form of analytics. Marketing analytics tell a story, it's important to read the story regularly and interpret the hidden keys to success.
Element 7: MARKETING ANALYTICS
When another Denver inbound marketing firm tries to sell you on a campaign without explaining the incorporation of analytics you should probably continue shopping. Without proper, real-time metrics to evaluate you won't be able to track and improve your efforts over time.
Assuming you have analytics in place and you'd like to learn more about how to use them to improve, let's dig in to the different elements. Finding balance for your campaign starts here, by properly interpreting the data at hand.
4 Areas of Reporting to Evaluate
1. Sources: understanding how people arrived at your site says a lot
2. Page Performance: how well your pages are setup and performing provides direction
3. Conversion Assists: monitoring pages to see where and how leads were harvested
4. Competitive Ranking: evaluating how well you stack up helps you plan your next move
I want to spend a little bit of time on each reporting element to see how your ability to analyze and react can help balance your marketing efforts and improve conversions. If you can properly evaluate the data it can help you spend your budget wisely and constantly track your successes so they may be replicated. When you find something that works, do it again and see how it feels.
SOURCES
Everyone talks about website traffic and how to monitor it properly, many of you probably use Google Analytics and get a monthly report from your SEO services team. These reports provide insight into how people landed on your website, there are five sources people end up on your site.
Organic search is top of the line, hits from this source prove you've been optimizing your site and building relevance on seach engines like Google. Referrals come from other sites that link to you, if you're a member of a chamber try to get your site listed with a link so people can reach you in other ways.
Social media is a great way to get links back to your site but you better be putting up good content that drives them where you want. Email marketing traffic is created by sending your leads compelling offers that convert them to your site while direct traffic originates by someone who already knows who you are typing in your business name or URL.
Monitoring your traffic sources actively helps you know what's working and what's not. If you're not getting any traffic to your site organically, work on your keyword sets and write a ton of great blog posts. If your social media marketing campaign is building fans but no web traffic reevaluate your strategy and funnel those blog posts through Twitter and LinkedIn. Find a happy balance of traffic sources and build on the weaker trends. You'll like the results.
PAGE PERFORMANCE
Digging into individual page performance can have a positive effect on your conversions. Working on improving page performance can also help your search engine optimization, growing your keyword rankings and organic search traffic.
A good marketing grader like ours will show you how your pages are performing and set up. There may be errors on your page that are costing you and until you know about it you can't fix it. Go through all of your pages and heed the advice of the grader. Your results will improve dramatically.
CONVERSION ASSISTS
Conversion assists come from pages on your website and detail the number of contacts who viewed the pages prior to becoming a contact. Pages that rank highly here do this:
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Have great content that attracts more qualified leads to those pages.
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Display great calls-to-action that help your visitors convert into leads.
To improve your conversion assists, try doing stuff like:
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Write more blog posts to increase the footprint of great content.
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Promote your top pages with calls-to-action on lower-converting pages, to draw traffic to your best content.
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Align your follow-up emails with your top content. By focusing on the topics covered in your top pages, you'll give your leads what they're looking for.
COMPETITIVE RANKING
If you don't know exactly what your competitor's strengths and weaknesses are how do you compete against them properly? Understanding the different elements to compete for and how your inbound marketing efforts will improve your standing is critical.
By understanding your ranking amoung the following points of measurement you'll be able to better balance your efforts. If you need help, we suggest a certain Denver inbound marketing firm you may have heard of.
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marketing grade - if you don't know your score, get it here
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traffic rank - as compared to millions of other websites on the net, a lower rank is better
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indexed pages - the more indexed pages the better, try blogging
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linking domains - the number of domains currently linking to your site
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mozRank - your 10 point scale ranking of link popularity and authority
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Facebook fans - the more fans you have the more your message is shared
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Twitter fans - Twitter is a great way to distribute your content, if you have followers
If you see an opportunity to improve your results jump on it. If you're not sure how to improve your mozRank or Facebook fans enlist some help from the experts. If nothing else you'll have a great understanding of what you need, marketing companies love a client that knows what they want and a clear sense of what improvements will show value.
Now that you've completed the final installment in this 7 part series I hope you've learned a lot and also have a ton of questions. I encourage you to reach out either in the comments or through our website. If you liked this article please share it, we're all in this marketing game together!
