Web Analytics which started out
with data and analysis related to your website traffic details has
evolved into a complex and highly intuitive research methodology.
As a business owner, you can access information not only
about your website visitors’ but also monitor your blog audiences,
track video viewers, measure social media campaigns, and much more.
Follow the trail of your customers
Market research and consumer studies have for long been the
beacons for marketers, offering enlightening information on buying
patterns, seasonal highs and lows, effectiveness of retail store
layout, factors affecting promotions or discount offers, and so on.
With the explosion of online users worldwide, several thousand
businesses face the challenge of not knowing what their customers
really want, how to anticipate their actions and therefore, how to
encourage desired actions, i.e. conversions. The related enigma is how
to deliver and meet online customer expectations before and much better than the competition can.
Analytics has the ability to put your online audiences under
the microscope and study their every move, behavioral patterns and
social networking. Early analytics tools and reporting started out with
measuring the fundamentals, which still hold weight:
Monitoring and measuring
the various sources that bring traffic to your site - landing pages,
search engines, paid advertising, banners, email blasts, internal and
external links, referral sites, directories, online classifieds, etc.
Site stickiness - studying site statistics
and data that reveals which pages keep visitors on a site, for how long
and where they leave the site. A high bounce rate and short time spent
on a site overall results in lower conversions, quite simply because
people are not on a site long enough to respond to the call to action.
Which brings us to the next point...
Effectiveness of call to action - this is
the crux of Internet marketing success - getting a high conversion rate
by ensuring that the objectives and goals of your site are met with
users taking the actions you want them to. Whether this is making a
purchase, downloading a document (whitepaper, article, guide, reference
material, tips, manual, checklist), subscribing to a newsletter or any
other conversion goal.
Volume of traffic -
knowing the numbers. Even though getting qualified traffic that will
ultimately convert is the goal of every Internet marketer, it is also
important to study overall traffic volumes and get those numbers up.
Lead generation and lead nurturing still rely heavily on greater volume
because a busy pipeline creates a better sales funnel and drives more
results.
Going beyond the basics of site data
Today it is possible to measure the effectiveness of your blog,
track your RSS feeds, view statistics about your online press release
hits, monitor your Facebook advertising and profile searches, follow
the "tweets" on Twitter, count the clappers on YouTube,
build your career forum on LinkedIn, the list is endless. With the
ever increasing buzz of social media marketing and sites like
Mashable.com, you can get deep into the mind of your customer and step
up engagement ratios like never before. There is whole new world of
chatterboxes out there and you can leverage word of mouth online to
build your brand. The trick is knowing who is talking, where, what they
are saying and who is listening! Our analytics Reporting services will
give you business intelligence to deliver what your customers want,
when they want it.
Today’s Hottest New Social Network
A Guide to Google+
The official slogan for Google+ is “real-life sharing—rethoughtfor the web”. Google+, is a social network operated by Google Inc, with integration across a number of Google products, including Google Buzz and Google Profiles. Started in June 2011 as a test version, its popularity has grown by leaps and bounds. Google+ notices are posted insideusers’ Gmail inbox, so it’s 100% real-time Gmail deliverability. When you write about a subject on Google+ and your circle friends Google that subject, your comments and links are displayed automatically on page one of Google. No back-linking, no on-site optimization, just free traffic. All these factors make it a social media platform that is likely to stay on the scene and gain increased favour.
What’s So Special About Google Plus?
One key element of Google+ is a focus on targeted sharing within subsets of a social group (or what Google calls ‘Circles’).
Also within Google+ is a section specifically for viewing, managing and editing multimedia. Google+ includes an image editor, privacy options and sharing features.
Hangouts’ is Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click ‘start a hangout’ and they’re instantly in a video chat-room alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is ‘hanging out’ and that they are invited to join.
Get ready to integrate Google+into your Internet marketing strategy.
Building your Google+Presence
Businesses are beginning to see the value of Google+ with the new Pages feature.The new Google+ brand Pages look similar to Google+ Profiles, except for the little square icon that indicates that it’s a Page rather than a Profile. Users can add brands to their circles, check out their information, and browse their photos. When users add a brand to their circles, it helps increase that brand’s follower count.
So what are you waiting for? Create a Page for your business and take advantage of Google +:
Before you can create a Google+ Page for your business, you need a Google+ Profile. The ‘You+’ link on your Gmail dashboard will direct you to the Profile creation page.
Choose a category to begin. Local businesses is good for smaller, less well-known businesses. Product or brand would work for companies and larger known businesses. Company, institution, or organization is mainly for businesses that don’t directly sell something, mostly not-for-profits.
Personalize your page with a photo/logo and tagline. You can continue with an introduction, information, and contact information, and finish with a photo strip of five different photos.
It’s time to start engaging with the Google+ community. For your business Page, you can create circles (networks), start posting information and news through your feed. You can also add your Google+Page details to your existing website and share it via other networks.
Leveraging the+ Power of Social Media
If you have your own website or online business, an efficient social profile Page using Google+ will let you explore a whole new world of social media marketing, that is not only fun, but easy and profitable.
Google+ posts sent to “public” rank fairly well in Google search results. Merging Google properties into Google+ and integrating it with the search engines has a tremendous impact on where your company appears in search engine results pages (SERPs).
You can manage circles—distribute clients into specific categories and share different posts, news or deals with different circles accordingly. This is a great way to connect with fans and share information with clients.
“Hangouts” is another great way to engage your customers and colleagues. It’s a high quality video chat that allows you to interact with your fans face to face. This interaction will allow you to get to know them, answer questions as well as get live product/service feedback. Businesses can also use “Hangouts” for video conferencing, to push live events and seminars to customers.
Use the Google+ badge to promote your site and your Google+ page. Google+ badge links your website with your Google+ page and lets others knowyou’re here. When a visitor likes your site and clicks the icon they will be taken directly to your Google+ page and will be able to share and follow your posts.
Google+ Direct allowspeople to simply enter a ‘+’ before your company name when searching on Google and get directly to your Google+ page.
The +1 button on Google+ is an ideal way to have customers spread the word about your business and its presence on Google+. You can also connect your +1’s from your website to your +1’s on your Google+ page. People tend to trust recommendations from people they already know.
“Ripples” is a Google+ tool that allows you to watch your posts and information as they travel across social networks. You can easily determine who is sharing your content and who is paying attention to it.
With “analytics”, you can get information about your page’s followers, visitors, and the general traffic and social activity around your business.
Google+ for business is unique in that it has blurred the lines between personal social networks such as Facebook, and business networks like LinkedIn. Contact Usto help you invigorate you web presence with the social media game changer—Google+.
Social Media, Local Search & Mobile Search Collide in the So-Lo-Mo Revolution
The convergence of latest internet and wireless technologies has created a powerful new opportunity for mobile marketing – social networking and local search through mobile devices (smart-phones and tablets). These location-based mobile social networking services are revolutionizing mobile marketing by allowing users to:
share real-life experiences via geo-tagged user-generated multimedia content
exchange recommendations about places
identify nearby friends
and set up face to face meetings
Influencing the buyer is no longer enough; now you must influence the buyer’s social network to increase the potential for sales exponentially. People want to tell their friends where they are “hanging out”. They do this with their mobile devices. They use an app to ‘check in’, and it sends a message to their friends. It’s a win-win situation – customersget rewards, discounts and offers, while businesses get more word-of mouth advertising.
Is your business geared to incorporate social local networks into your mobile marketing strategy?
‘Checking in’ with mobile devices
You can use a smart-phone to ‘check in’ wherever you go – whetherit’s at the airport, a holiday shopping trip, parks, bars, museums, libraries or a local restaurant; and share your whereabouts with all your friends. With services from Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook Places, Gowalla, Google Places and others, userscan get special discounts and offers for their willingness to share information about their whereabouts.Mobile apps let them post messages to Facebook and Twitter whenever they visit a place and want to let their friends know about it.
It's a great form of word-of-mouth marketing for local businesses. People have shown they are willing to allow their devices to be tracked in order to take advantage of special offers.
Foursquare has garnered millions of users who want to let people know where they've been, where they're headed and where they are now.
If you’re a business owner, it allows you to reward customers with a coupon or offer when they ‘check-in’ to your business. It provides a measurable way to reward your most loyal customers while attracting new ones.
So is your business optimised for social mobile marketing?
Location-aware mobile technology is transforming social marketing
Knowing a consumer's location, as well as the time they're at a specific location, can be a useful“predictor” of his or her intent to buy. You can use location-based marketing to:
Deliver a coupon, offer or discount to a mobile phone user
Display local ads to a person visiting a website from a specific location
Deliver detailed product information when someone is standing in front of the product
Offer incentives for location-based activities such as visiting a store multiple times
Make it easy to find nearby things such as stores, ATMs or even vending machines
Provide events and social opportunities based on a physical location
Share location-based information with others in a social network
Leverage the next trend in Mobile Marketing
Time and localise your mobile marketing to reach people who are actively sharing their location online. Here are a few tips for getting started:
Specify which geographic areas you cover. If you’re a service business that travels e.g. a plumber, you can specify on Foursquare, Facebook Places, Yelp or Google Places which areas you cover. This is also helpful for pizza/food delivery businesses.
Optimize your website for mobile. An easy-to–navigate mobile friendly site is a necessity, not just an option anymore.
Ensure your own location(s) are “check-in” worthy. Would you check-in to your own location a second time?
Allow customers to opt in. Not everyone is going to want to disclose personal information such as their interests and their location, so give them the option.
Be transparent. Once a customer has opted in, make sure to explain exactly how you plan to use the personal information you collect from them, assuaging any concerns over privacy issues.
Create great deals. Reach out to the deal services such as Group on and Living Social and ask specifically for ways to participate in their instant deals.
Make it easy to opt out. Don't “lock” customers into a program they decide they don't want to be in. Just like any level of customer service, it's all about keeping customers happy, loyal and eager to make purchases.
Smartphone owners want quick access to location-relevant information on-the-go.So-Lo-Mo offers powerful new ways to promote practically any product, service, or venue.Whatever your goal, role, or industry, contact us to help you find new customers, strengthen brand loyalty, and increase profits.
