Month: September 2017

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this is an blog post on Underperforming Mobile Pages are Sabotaging Your Revenue. Here’s How to Fix Them..

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Your site gets more traffic from mobile devices than desktops.

So… why are your mobile conversions so low?

That’s what matters most after all. Right?

Right.

The typical reason?

Your site sucks. Plain and simple.

It’s hard to use. The organization is a mess. And it’s slow as a snail.

But there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that the fix is easy. Just build a new site.

The bad news is that you can’t always do that. Or someone won’t always sign off on it.

Here’s why you might want to rethink that.

And what you should do if it’s still a problem.

Why your mobile results aren’t what they should be

Many sites claim to be “mobile-friendly.”

However, that’s not always the case.

The reality is that most sites aren’t actually mobile-friendly. They’re just accessible on mobile devices.

Yes, there’s a difference.

According to Frank Reynolds at Compulse, there are actually three different terms for how sites appear on mobile devices: mobile-responsive, mobile-optimized and mobile-friendly.

• Mobile-responsive sites are actually user-friendly. They’re built from the ground-up with mobile transitions and user experience in mind, and they resize and adjust proportions, images and text according to specific devices.
• Mobile-optimized sites are built as a distinct mobile version of the desktop site. They look and feel more like an app, they’re just not actually designed to be apps. These are also typically built from the ground up.
• Mobile-friendly sites are simply regular desktop sites that have an accessible version on mobile browsers. They can be designed for a mobile experience, but typically they’re just smaller versions of the larger desktop site. *This is the majority.*

The latter option is, sadly, the option most used by sites looking to add mobile functionality to their desktop site.

The reason? It’s quick and dirty.

And you can throw it on after like a band aid. No need to start over from scratch.

Which translates into “a helluva lot cheaper than building a separate mobile site.”

Unfortunately, shrinking down a desktop site’s user experience into a smaller screen isn’t actually helping with mobile-friendliness.

It’s just making it harder for users to do what you want.

To convert. To opt-in. To give you their cash money bling bling make a marketer wanna sing sing.

Here’s why.

When “mobile-friendly” costs you conversions

Mobile-friendliness (or the lack thereof) impacts SEO.

Search engines like Google look for mobile responsiveness when driving traffic to your page.

Soon mobile-first indexing will be a thing.

This means mobile sites will take priority over desktop sites when showing up on Google’s SERPs.

But when Google says they’re looking for mobile-friendly sites, what it really means is that they’re looking mobile-responsive.

You know, that third option from above. The expensive one.

If your website is not mobile-responsive – designed from the ground-up with a mobile experience in mind – you will see a decrease in search traffic.

Lost traffic equals lost conversions. Less people to buy stuff.

And that’s assuming the same rate of people buy stuff between the two. Which ain’t the case, as you’ll see in a second.

Even if your traffic numbers remained steady, not having a mobile-responsive design will sabotage your conversions anyway.

The biggest trouble is that mobile-friendly designs aren’t always aesthetically appealing.

They’re essentially just shrunken versions of a regular site that are more difficult to navigate.

You know, like the creepy dude with a tiny head on Beetlejuice.

via GIPHY

According to Adobe, 38% of mobile users will stop engaging with a website if the content or layout is unattractive. And 65% rank display as the “most important aspect” when it comes to consuming content on mobile.

Bottom line: “Mobile-friendly” designs are killing your conversions.

Don’t listen to me. Go peep your own analytics. It’s all right there in front of you.

Three times. That’s the difference in new leads or customers.

Conversely, it means you’re losing out on 3x the leads or sales on mobile that you could be, should be, getting.

How much is an average lead worth to you?

Couple hundred bucks on the low end for B2B or high retention products or expensive average order values.

Three * a couple hundred bucks = lots of missed revenue.

Here’s what you should do about it.

Redesigning your underperforming site with a true mobile mindset

So are you doomed if you haven’t built your site from the ground up to perform well on mobile?

Not necessarily.

The trick is to not take the lazy way out.

Call it what you want. But that’s what it is at the end of the day.

Maybe you can’t rebuild your mobile site from scratch for some reason. You still should. Your reason can’t be better than tens of thousands in lost revenue each month.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your friendly HiPPO won’t sign off.

Start with a simple assessment, then.

For example, begin with the design:

• How does it look on mobile? Is everything shrunken down and hard to read or is it resized appropriately and scrollable?
• How well does it respond to mobile touch? (e.g. does it zoom in when pinched, etc.)
• How easy it is for users to perform the same functions as your desktop site? Can they fill out a form as easily on a smartphone as they can on a computer?

Then let’s take a look at all of the other potential issues. Besides lost revenue. Of which, there are many.

❌ Site speed – How fast is your site? Google’s Developer Programs Tech Lead, Maile Ohye, says that “two seconds is the threshold for website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half-second.” Both Google and site users expect mobile sites to load fast. Yours most likely ain’t that fast.

❌ Pop-ups – Are certain desktop features needed on mobile? Most likely, no. Pop-ups and other flash-based elements can cause mobiles sites to crash, reload, and slow down. All of which will damage conversions. Then there’s the whole “intrusive interstitial penalty.” Google says to make content easier to access, not less.

❌ Finger-friendliness – Can someone tap a form field with their thumb? Mobile should be finger-friendly. Buttons or form fields that are too small will hurt your conversions.

❌ Titles and descriptions – When it comes to mobile SERPS, you have less room to work with, so you want your titles and descriptions to be short, to the point, and keyword optimized.

❌ Vertical scrolling – Can someone use their thumb to read all of a page or do they have to sideswipe to find content?

❌ Top-loaded pages – Is your most important information at the top of each page? The layout of your content may need to be different than your regular site.

❌ Modern code – Are you using HTML5? Outdated languages, like Flash either don’t work or severely limit your mobile experience.

It’s important to be honest here. You can probably spot many of these issues from a mile away already.

If your mobile site isn’t living up to expectations, you need to reconsider whether or not developing an actual mobile-optimized or mobile-responsive site is worth the investment. (Hint: Yes, of course it is.)

But if you (or someone cutting your check) is still on the fence, you can use a few tools to prove your point.

If you want to see how mobile-friendly Google thinks your site is, try using their mobile-friendly site tester.

Simply drop in your URL to get the quick verdict. The thumbs up or down.

Green is good.

You can also use Responsinator to double check your findings. It will also preview how your site looks on several different devices.

Ideally, you want to see the site stretch wide across the device. You want to see the navigation menu collapse. And you want to see individual sections of your site rearrange on their own.

If those things aren’t happening or you see too much red in the tools above, try these tips below.

5 ways to optimize your existing mobile site

If you’re not sure your site is truly mobile-friendly (read: mobile-responsive), you have a few choices to make.

✅ 1. Create a mobile-optimized site.

The website’s built. Your boss/client just hired their best friend’s mother’s sister’s cousin who took a single HTML course in junior college to rebuild the entire thing.

Long story short: It ain’t changing anytime soon.

You may need to build a new mobile site that works seamlessly with your current site. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

✅ 2. Fix your mobile site’s layout.

If your site was made by selecting a template or theme from third-party website software, you can customize for mobile users.

If you’re on WordPress, for example, you can use a separate design for your mobile theme than for your desktop theme.

This enables you to provide a different user experiences rather than simply making a smaller version of your main design.

Plugins also abound for WordPress. The problem is that these often wreak havoc on your site speed.

Here’s why that’s important.

✅ 3. Optimize your mobile site for speed.

Almost all websites are too slow on mobile devices.

That finding comes from Google directly.

Image Source

Even if you don’t tweak the design or underlying architecture too much (though you really, really should), consider making changes that will make your mobile site faster and more usable.

This can include steps like:

• Clean up & minify your site code
• Compress & reduce files
• Compress & crop images
• Upgrade your servers & hosting
• Minimize redirects, even 301s, when possible
• Load scripts underneath page content

✅ 4. Measure the conversion roadblocks on your site.

You can run tests to see exactly where people are having problems on your website.

There are many, many things that need to happen before someone converts.

You have various micro-conversions. Then you have funnel or checkout steps. You can even run A/B tests. IF you have enough mobile traffic.

A certain percentage of visitors are going to drop off at each.

A Funnel Report can also quickly pinpoint these problem areas.

You can create a new funnel and segment the results by device category. So you’ll be able to pinpoint the difference in both conversions and conversion rate.

After the funnel, you’re still not done, of course. This is just one conversion point, for example.

There’s still multiple interactions that need to take place. That means you might need multiple landing pages and/or funnels after the fact before someone converts.

The trouble is that this quickly becomes difficult with most (bad) websites.

My favorite sneaky alternative?

Fire up a new site or tool to augment/replace these problem areas. Like your HubSpots or Unbounces of the world.

BUT, pay for them out of your own pocket or budget.

That keeps them out of the clutches of the “I Tried” department who will otherwise make your life a living hell. And most upper management literally has no idea what’s going on.

If they don’t know what a DNS is, you’re probably good to go.

Hey — we have jobs to do! Our livelihood depends on it.

One time we even spun up a new WordPress site on Godaddy to create a convenient workaround.

Are you honestly willing to let your own success be determined by people that literally have no idea what they’re talking about?

Pay the $99/month out of your own pocket. Slay the results. Get a raise paying you an extra $1,000/month because you just made the company $10,000/month.

If they won’t raise you, I will. #realtalk

It’s mean on the streets.

✅ 5. Simplify your website.

Simple websites almost always convert better.

There’s no need for the fancy stuff. Please don’t use carousel sliders. Or god forbid, parallax.

I can’t find a study on this, but I’m willing to bet that a static HTML site would convert better than most “sophisticated” ones.

It would also load faster and be easier to navigate, too.

Or just pay Squarespace.

You think I’m joking. Kinda. Sorta.

But then at least you know they work across all devices.

Conclusion

You might be able to visit a website from your mobile device.

But that doesn’t truly make it mobile-friendly.

And mobile-friendly makes a difference when you consider what matters most: Traffic, visibility, customer experience, and conversions.

Go verify this right now. The traffic and conversions from mobile vs. desktop should be all you need.

Then run your site through simple tools to diagnose what’s wrong and what needs to be fixed.

You might not be in a position to change your site. The Powers at Be might not sign off.

So get crafty. There’s workarounds if you know where to look.

Redesign pieces of your current site. You can use actual mobile-friendly templates and layouts. Even substitute pieces of your funnel with better tools.

Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I hope you enjoyed this article on Underperforming Mobile Pages are Sabotaging Your Revenue. Here’s How to Fix Them.

View original article here

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this is an article on Scaling Engagement: 5 Strategies to Connect With More Customers.

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There’s 24 hours in a day.

With customer engagement as your priority, it can seem like an impossible feat to connect with your audience on a daily basis. Tara Walpert Levy, managing director at Google, writes:

“In the accelerating swirl of chaos, excitement, and yes, sometimes fear, the brands that win will prioritize engagement over exposure. They will flip the traditional approach of using mass reach to connect with the subset of people who matter on its head.”

To scale engagement, your business must focus on executing strategies that boost customer satisfaction while saving your team time.

Let’s think differently about expanding engagement to build quality customer relationships. Here are five ways you can scale up your efforts.

1. Deliver on Brand Promise

We live in a very competitive market. Businesses, large and small, are all competing to garner the attention of their ideal consumer base.

In order to differentiate themselves, companies will develop wild brand promises. They vary from guaranteeing low prices to taglines saying that the customer is always right.

While that may attract new customers, it can become a burden in the long-term. Most companies learn the hard way that a brand promise isn’t a catchy phrase, rather an action a business must live by every single day.

Even big box retailer Walmart had to shelve its nearly two-decade-old slogan, “Always Low Prices.” Now, their goal is to help their customers “Save Money. Live Better.”

If you’re attempting to scale your engagement, delivering on your brand promise is one of the best options. Happy customers will become recurring patrons who tell their family and friends.

But delivering on your promise isn’t easy. It involves meeting (and exceeding) your customers’ expectations. You must provide product value along with superb customer support.

For example, you may have to offer free shipping to an irate customer. Or you may need to budget for a customer appreciation sale.

Building a genuine connection with your customers helps your business. Sticking to your promises is worthwhile for boosting engagement.

2. Take Action on Customer Feedback

All human relationships are pretty much built on the same foundation. It centers on how we communicate with each other.

Communication is a major factor in whether a customer continues to shop with your brand. If their needs aren’t met after constant interactions, they may decide your company isn’t worth their time.

To improve how you interact with customers, start by listening to their concerns and answering their questions. For your sales team, this may look like a representative paying attention to the customer’s needs before pitching a product. Your support team may give more specific responses instead of canned answers.

Then, there’s customer feedback. When a customer offers ideas on how to polish your product, be open to their suggestions and willing to take action.

“The direct relationship between customers and support teams holds a rich source of feedback through which customers can be better served. Support teams and representatives can be trained to probe for information while responding to complaints and inquiries,” says Pius Boachie, a marketing consultant and founder of Digitimatic.

Productivity tool Trello created a Slack community with a channel dedicated to product feedback. It’s a chance for customers to offer their input and get notices about new features.

Implementing feedback is an opportunity to grow your business, while showing customers that you actually listen to their ideas. So do whatever it takes to address customer feedback.

3. Personalize Communications

Several decades ago, businesses controlled communications with their customers. Major companies decided what, when, where, and how to deliver consumer messages. It was a lopsided relationship where businesses had the upper hand.

Now, with advances in technology, the customer is at the center of the conversation. Not only do consumers choose when to connect with brands, but they also control where those interactions take place. For instance, consumers can opt-in to receive your emails and then decide to read it on their own schedules.

For businesses, this means generic messaging isn’t enough to make a connection with a consumer. Your online ad or email will get ignored, and there’s a possibility that you will lose another potential customer.

Email segmentation is an effective strategy to help your team send personalized messages. With Kissmetrics Campaigns, you can deliver emails based on certain subscriber criteria.

Let’s say a subscriber doesn’t purchase after 10 days. You can automatically send a special offer to entice them to come back and purchase.

You also may want to send customers specific information as it relates to your product. Mint emails subscribers personalized data from their accounts.

Don’t miss the chance to strengthen the consumer relationship with personalized communications. It’s a necessity to scale your engagement.

4. Give on Social Media

Every business is flocking to social media to tell their stories. Some are buying scammy ads to increase leads and purchasing followers to fake influence.

Here’s the truth: it’s not working. And even if they get a few interested consumers, they probably don’t close the sale because the buyer learns about their deception.

Most businesses approach social media with the goal to broadcast their products and news. However, we know it doesn’t work that way.

Social media is an open forum for people to share ideas and talk about the latest trends in a casual setting. That’s why it’s fertile ground for boosting your engagement levels.

To connect with more customers, educate and entertain them. You want to post lighthearted messages that humanize your brand.

For example, you can host live broadcasts on Facebook or Periscope featuring your customers. Or you could post silly GIFs during special days, like National Pancake Day.

You want to be part of your audience’s community. So, you also must be willing to give and not just take.

In the example below, HubSpot is giving its Facebook fans a chance to win two tickets to a concert. The company earned more than 160 shares, 500 reactions, and 62,000 views on this post.

Are you just broadcasting your message on social media? If so, try giving back to your followers to gain more engagement.

5. Develop an Advocacy Program

You’ll learn quickly that your best customers hold the key to spreading the word about your business. These customers act as advocates on a mission to give your brand praise.

So why not make it official? You can start a pilot advocacy program by recruiting your most loyal customers. It gives the selected few another reason to connect with your team.

Also, research shows that it’s a win-win situation. A report by Standard Charters states:

“Successful online companies make users feel excited enough to share the products with their networks. Referrals from friends are still the most powerful way to gain customers, whether for a tiny startup or a multinational corporation.”

Brand advocacy programs are also incubators to experiment with retention strategies. You can monitor customer behavior to learn what keeps them excited about your brand.

For instance, you may offer your program participants a special coupon to redeem a new product. Their reaction can provide insight on how a subset of your customer base will respond.

Do your research and learn how to start your own advocacy program. It’s your next step to increasing customer engagement.

It’s Time to Scale Up

Engagement without a strategy is misguided action. Instead, your goal is to create a memorable customer experience.

Exceed your audience’s expectations and use their feedback to improve your product. Send personalized messages that speak directly to your customers. Plus, there’s nothing better than starting an advocacy program that expands your relationships.

I hope you enjoyed this article on Scaling Engagement: 5 Strategies to Connect With More Customers

View original article here

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Here is an note on How to Master Analytics like Will Smith and Amazon.

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Will Smith is not just a pretty face. Nor is he just a likeable, talented actor.

He’s a businessman and a master marketer. The only Hollywood star that predictably gets over $20 million per flick. Even his movies that didn’t get good reviews, like Hancock and Suicide Squad, grossed over half a billion each worldwide. Wouldn’t you just love the worst of your ventures to make half a bill?

So, what’s the secret to Smith’s success? How has he chosen just the right way to focus his time, attention and resources?

Is it down to luck? An innate knack for making good decisions? Or an unwieldy drive to succeed?

These factors have played their roles, I’m sure. But Will applied a much smarter, more calculated method to propel himself to stardom. One that your company can – and should harness the power of, in order to drastically increase your customer acquisition and retention.

The answer is: analytics.

It’s the skill of observing what your prospects and customers do and have done in the past, using this to predict what they will do, want and need in the future. Then make smart marketing decisions based on this info, to maximize your profits and dominate your market (just like Will Smith).

In short;

Glance back over your shoulder before you plan new things.

This article will reveal how Smith did it, how Amazon is doing it, and how your company should do it.

The Fresh Prince of Analytics

When Will Smith first ventured into the world of Hollywood movies (from within the clutches of Uncle Phil’s tyrannous reign) he and his manager sat down and analyzed the ten highest grossing movies of all time, looking for patterns.

They analyzed what moviegoers (his target customers) did in the past to determine what they would do in the future. So that they could put Will Smith right where the money would be.

At the time, they found that ten out of ten of the top movies had special effects, nine out of ten had aliens and eight out of ten had a love story involved.

Next stop – Independence Day and Men in Black.

In no time at all, Will Smith became a household name.

That’s a simple example of the power of this technique. In marketing today – especially digital marketing – it’s all-important. It really is the key to consistently better decisions.

Let’s look at exactly how effectively using your data to predict your customer actions can boost your revenue and profits.

Three Ways Analytics Impacts Your Bottom Line

1. It Increases Your Leads & Prospects

Analytics allows you to see, repeat and expand on what works best to boost:

a. Your Leads
You can find and qualify leads better to know which ones are most likely to become paying customers. We get this by observing patterns in firmographic data (data from the company your lead works for), demographic data, geographic data, psychographic data and through the analysis of the industry and economy.

In other words; who they work for, who they are, what’s going on behind the lights, where they live, and what’s up in their world. All five areas, will give you clarity on where to find the most and best leads.

b. Your Prospects
Once a lead starts showing active interest they become a prospect. It’s getting hotter. They’ve seen the trail of breadcrumbs and are on their way toward you.
Analytics can tell you how to maximize your prospects from the five data types plus extra information your sales team learns while interacting with your customers.
A 10% increase in leads or prospects is a 10% increase to your bottom line (if your conversion rate remains the same).

2. It Increases Your Conversions

Mastering analytics can help you polish the method, frequency, and quality of interactions with your prospects. Refining each piece, cranking those conversions up and up.

It takes qualifying prospects to a whole new level of detail. By turning all important factors into data (such as the prospect’s level of need for the service, their budget, their level of authority, and much more), your sales people can quickly focus where the focus is needed most.

As the skill and precision of your qualifying, sales and closing techniques increase, so does your revenue.

A 10% increase in sales conversions is a 10% increase to your bottom line.

3. It Increases Your Average Customer Value (Purchase Size & Lifetime Value)

Amazon is the grand master of upselling and cross-selling.

Their ‘frequently bought together’ feature and recommendation system have arguably been one of the key ingredients in their world-dominating success story. Amazon uses data to automatically customize the browsing experience for its customers based on their past purchases, and optimize sales. So in a nutshell, Amazon’s analytics tells them what customers frequently buy together and they simply (and automatically) pass this info onto their customers, to help them out – which their customers absolutely love.

That’s right, good cross-selling is a service, not an imposition! So don’t be shy about it.

And that goes the same for upselling. Almost all customers are interested in at least knowing the options to upgrade.

Think how often you encounter this, from fast food restaurants offering super-sizing to high class airlines offering seat upgrades. If you don’t want the upgrades, that’s fine, but at least you’ll know what’s available and the cost to upgrade.

These successful upsells should give you some food for thought:

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club lures its customers in with an incredibly clever name. But of course, they’d prefer you spend a little more than a dollar. And they encourage you to do exactly that, by lining up their “humble” one-dollar razor against some more appealing, more expensive options. Notice how they’ve dropped in some social proof to make this middle option even more enticing (using the words “member favorite”)?

Spotify

Spotify uses a similar, common (and effective) technique. The ‘free’ option here seems pretty bleak next to that juicy ‘recommended’ Premium option, with its colorful design and that long list of ticks. Don’t you agree?

Like Amazon, if you use analytics well, you will know from past customers exactly what extra offers to show your customer, in a way the customer appreciates. These are people already buying from you, which means they like your company already. Of course some of them will be happy to buy a little more. And a little more. And a little more.

Again, a 10% increase in average purchase size is a 10% increase to your bottom line.

Plug that Leak

Two other ways to boost the average value of your customer are to increase how frequently they buy from you and also reduce the number of customers leaving you.

By analyzing your metrics – such as the conversion rates of your cross-sell email campaigns or social media ads – you can understand what methods of communication and marketing are enticing your customers to buy from you more often. So you can expand on this.

It’s an easy stat to boost as, again, these customers already trust and use your service. Customers buying from you five times a year on average, instead of four times a year, is a 25% jump in revenue. Yet without analytics, it’s an area of marketing most people neglect. Make sure you don’t!

And if your bucket has a hole, let’s plug it before pouring in more water.

According to the Harvard Business Review, the cost of acquiring a new customer is five to twenty five times that of holding onto an old one. Yet both have an equal impact on your revenue.

Analytics will help you refine your methods for keeping customers longer (for example, by identifying and getting rid of mistakes that are driving them away – showing you the spinach in your teeth) and bringing back those who have already left.

Once more – a 10% increase in average lifetime value is (yep, you guessed it) a 10% increase to your bottom line.

The Wonderful Power of Cumulative Increases

I love this part. If you hit all three of these figures with a 10% increase, you get a 30% boost to revenue, right?

Wrong!

You get a 33.1% increase.

The initial 10% increase makes your revenue 110% of what it was before. The next 10% increase on that makes it 121% of what it was before. And the next 10% increase makes it 133.1% in total.

That is the power of cumulative growth.

And that’s only a little 10% boost from your analytics. A 20% boost to each is a 72.8% total increase in revenue. A 30% boost to each is a 119.7% total increase. A 40% boost to each is…

Starting to look pretty cool, wouldn’t you say?

See how the little things add up and make your bottom line more buxomly?

Turbocharge your Content Strategy

Apart from the numbers at the top end of the funnel, analytics also make it very easy to improve and streamline your content marketing strategy. You can always know what to say and say it so that people love it.

By plugging into social media and analytics tools, you can quickly see patterns in what content gets liked, clicked, downloaded and shared the most. From ebooks to posts to videos to Tweets. The full shebang.

Always know what’s hot or not with a glance at your dashboard!

Because of this, knowing what to talk about just becomes easy. You become the conversational master of your industry. The heart of the party, not the awkward wallflower in the corner.

And of course, with a better understanding of what your target prospects actually want to read/hear/watch, you can create content which attracts, engages and converts more. And yes, that means faster growth, more leads, more conversions, more sales, more profits, more money, bigger houses, etc.

So, How Exactly Can You Start Making the Most of Analytics?

To put it simply, you need to set up systems that collect data for you – data about your prospects, customers, market trends, methods and sales techniques. Data about everything. You need to arrange this in a way that is simple for you to glance at and see helpful patterns emerge.

When you have this system set up, you can make decisions and then watch the impact on your bottom line. If the impact is good, you can go further in that direction. If it’s not, stop.

It’s that simple.

It’s really all about being able to see the 20% of customers, offers and activities that get you 80% of your results. Then focusing on that 20%.

It’s all about efficiency. If Mr. Pareto were still around, he would love analytics.

Two Tools that Nail It

There’s a lot of noise about analytics tools out there, so let’s keep it simple. Here are two useful tools you can start with. Check them out, test them out, and see what works for you.

Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a great choice for detailed and easy analytics. It creates profiles for customers across all devices. It tells you about customer behavior, response to product features, etc. It tells you where people drop off in your funnel and how segment behavior changes over time, and more. A tiptop tool to start with.

The Kissmetrics Funnel Report

Google Analytics
Google Analytics works well as a simpler introduction to analytics. You can start with Goals, an underused feature of Google Analytics. You tell it even very specific actions on your site to track (time-on-page, opt-ins, video plays, add to carts, anything really), the tool tracks it and displays it in Google’s usual easy-to-follow format. That’s the free option, you can also upgrade to Google Analytics 360 for a more comprehensive online-only tracking platform.

Audience Overview in Google Analytics

This is a Story All About How…

Let your journey of analytics analysis begin. I guarantee it will add a twist to your company story (a good twist, not a Game of Thrones twist).

It really is one of the surest ways to crank up your revenue, your content quality, and understand your customer and business better than your competition. Because when you have a solid system in place you can see patterns with ease that your competitors miss. Day in, day out.

And those three key revenue stats really are worth paying attention to! Making changes and measuring results is easy when you keep track of your leads, prospects and average lifetime values.

It makes you more secure too. You can understand and pinpoint profit problems, quick as an F1 mechanic fixing a Lotus, mid-race.

Don’t let the jargon around this topic put you off. Everyone is just trying to sound clever. Remember, you’re just doing it like Will Smith and Amazon – look to the past, take what works, put it into play, and watch your profits grow.

Good luck!

I hope you enjoyed this article on How to Master Analytics like Will Smith and Amazon

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this is a article on How to Leverage Behavioral Analytics In Your Growth Strategy.

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If you’re obsessed with growth, you know how important it is to have a super detailed growth strategy. You and data are BFFs, right? Great, but you also need to understand the context that surrounds that data.

I know that sounds a little dense, but bear with me. What I mean is that information alone isn’t enough. Yes, in data we trust. Sure, lots of metrics are all well and good, but if you can’t leverage that data, there’s no point to it. Think about it. Who makes the growth happen? You might think it’s you, but in the end, it’s actually your audience.

How your users respond to your tactics will decide how successful your growth strategy is. So take a step back and look at your audience. Do you really understand them? Be honest with yourself. Most growth hackers think they understand their customer base, but they only know raw data. Knowing demographics doesn’t mean you understand your audience.

This is where I drop my bomb of a topic. Behavioral analytics, folks.

Understanding and applying behavioral analytics can be incredibly useful for growth strategies. In fact, it could be the energy and edge that your brand has been missing.

Want viral growth? Say hello to behavioral analytics. These analytics give you a look into the minds of your users so you can put yourself in their shoes. You’ll be able to build targeted campaigns that better suit your audience, create messages that reach the right users at the right time, and attract entirely new user bases.

I realize that “behavioral analytics” doesn’t sound all that sexy, but you’re going to discover just how powerful it is. Let’s take a look at some fundamental concepts of behavioral analytics that you absolutely need to know and then explore some actionable strategies you can use.

If you’ve been sleeping on behavioral analytics, it’s not too late. Read this article. Do what it says, and your brand will grow.

What Psychographics Are (and how you get them)

When it comes to behavioral analytics, psychographics are vital.

Psychographics provide a foundational understanding of why your customers behave the way they do.

Demographics are the who. Psychographics are the why.

Each psychographic is a data point that tells you something about your users’ behavior.

Here’s a more comprehensive list of psychographics:

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These go way above and beyond demographics to give you a fuller picture of your audience.

Psychographics clue you in to your users’ behaviors. For example, if you know that most of your audience is composed of parents of 5-11 year olds, you’ll understand why those kid-sized T-shirts are flying off the shelves.

Although you can’t get any super specific data like number of clicks, you still need psychographics to get a general idea of how your audience acts and why they do what they do.

Psychographics will often reveal what’s important to your users.

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Do you understand now why psychographics are so important? They help you see your customers as people and not just information from your analytics software.

Speaking of analytics software, you can find some basic psychographic information in GA by heading over to Audience > Interests > Overview.

You’ll see three categories: Affinity Category, In-Market Segment, and Other Category.

The Affinity Category shows you different lifestyle categories. Google compares these groups to TV audiences.

This category points to specific interests that your users have. Even if you just look at this section of GA, you can get a pretty good understanding of what your audience likes.

The In-Market Segment shows you what types of products your users have shown interest in.

Basically, your customers are looking to buy products or services within these categories.

The Other Category offers a narrower view of your audience.

If you want to go even deeper, Google has a handy guide on using this psychographic info in conjunction with other analytics.

There are many other ways to grab psychographics, from surveys to focus groups. Use as many of these methods as you want. Too much psychographic data is never a bad thing.

Still, psychographics are just that––data. You need to use them in a creative way.

With that in mind, let’s look at some growth techniques that depend on psychographics and other behavioral data.

Data-Driven Customer Personas

Creating an imaginary friend might sound a little childish to you, but that’s essentially what you need to do with psychographics.

Right, I know, it’s not exactly an “imaginary friend.”

I’m talking about creating a fictional person who is a representative of your audience base and not just some creature you made up. These representatives are otherwise known as customer personas.

You’re probably familiar with the idea of the customer persona, but if you’re not, don’t worry. Here’s a brief rundown.

A customer persona (also called user or buyer persona) takes aggregate data and uses it to create a fake person. This person is your average customer.

His or her demographic and psychographic information is representative or your audience (or a segment of your audience).

Here’s what an example customer persona might look like:

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As you can see, you can get really detailed with personas. The more detailed they are, the better you’ll understand your users.

By definition, a customer persona is chock full of behavioral analytics. They help you describe the persona in detail.

Once you have all of your behavioral analytics together, you can take a couple of different approaches to creating a persona.

The approach you take will depend on what you want to accomplish with your personas.

Do you want to create better email sequences? Do you want to improve your Facebook ads? Think about your objectives as you create your personas.

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Specifically, you can use certain analytics based on the results you’re after. Let’s look at some examples of this idea in action.

Let’s say you want to redesign your CRM software to attract more leads. In terms of analytics, you’d want to look for business-related psychographics.

These might include the user’s role at work, how much time they spend at their job, or even the search terms they use to get to your site.

So an example persona for that would look like this one (the one on the right side):

This persona is great for SaaS because it uses analytics that relate to work. There’s little personal information here, but there’s enough to give you an idea of who the persona is.

But that type of persona isn’t ideal for every sort of situation.

Another example: Say you’re the head of growth at an ecommerce apparel startup.

You’d be more concerned with personal behavioral analytics and not so many work-related data. So a persona for you might look something like this:

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The types of analytics you use should all depend on your goals and the kind of product or service you’re selling.

It doesn’t hurt to get as many data points as possible, but you’ll want to refine them to zoom in on your average customer.

Creating a persona doesn’t take much time, but it can change how you see growth. That said, you have to make sure your personas are as accurate as possible.

If you get the wrong analytics, well, your entire customer journey might just go down the drain.

But if you get it right, your customers will feel like you really know them.

This is a perfect example of how behavioral analytics can make all the difference in your growth strategy.

Remember, you’re not simply looking at a bunch of random numbers. This information has real uses that you can take advantage of starting today.

Let’s take a look at another one of those advantages.

Customer Segmentation

You’re segmenting your users…right?

Okay, maybe you’re not. That’s okay. But you totally need to be.

Some marketers and growth hackers see their audience as one big mass, so every campaign gets sent out to everyone.

But not everyone has the same needs and wants. Your customers are all different.

So if you group people into similar segments, you can deliver more accurate, targeted messages and have better results.

That’s why segmentation is part of every good marketer’s (and growth hacker’s) playbook.

And––you guessed it––behavioral analytics can help you segment better.

The basic idea is to create segments using one or more behavioral attributes.

If you group generally according to behavior, you’ll get an inside look into what different types of customers are looking for.

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Just this basic behavioral segmentation already gives you a much better understanding of the different kinds of users you have.

All you need to do is a little behavioral research to get started with this. In GA, you can go to Behavior > Behavior Flow to see an overview of the average user path on your site.

While this isn’t incredibly comprehensive, it can prep you for actual segmentation later on. Odds are the trends you see on Behavior Flow will reflect your audience as a whole.

This type of segmentation is flexible and can be used in a variety of ways.

Take email marketing. You can see what emails people open, which people almost never open your emails, and maybe even how long a user spends reading your email.

You probably look at data like this all the time:

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But have you considered that you can use this information to tap into your subscribers’ brains?

All of those are behavioral analytics in their own right, and they’re great for segmentation.

There’s a lot you can do with these analytics. You can send a special discount email to the loyal subscribers who regularly open your emails, or you can send more targeted emails to people who tend to open one type of email.

And your results are almost guaranteed to improve.

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The possibilities are endless.

And if you’re using Kissmetrics, you don’t have to worry about any of this because the behavior-based delivery feature does it for you.

Still in doubt? I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t, and it can pay off big time.

MailChimp found that segmenting subscribers by interest made every metric soar:

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If you’re willing to get even crazier with segmentation, get ready.

You can also use behavioral analytics to group your customers by their place in the customer journey.

This concept is a little more advanced than the techniques we’ve gone over, but it packs a serious punch.

The typical customer journey is more or less like this:

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By using behavioral analytics, you can find out what stage of the customer journey a user is going through.

Behavior Flow can often show this. If someone has checked out lots of your product pages but hasn’t made it to the checkout, he or she is in the consideration stage.

Once you’ve found out where someone is in the customer journey, you can place him or her into an appropriate segment.

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This approach is a growth hacker’s dream. Not only can you segment your customers, but you can also get a better grip on the customer lifecycle.

It’s awesome, isn’t it?

If you’re serious about converting and growth, you should strongly consider this advanced tactic. It’s one of the best ways to hyper-focus your messages, and you’ll reach the right users at the right time.

Conclusion

Growth is all about people.

And by people, I mean your users.

A good growth strategy has to be centered around your customers. Otherwise, your strategy will fall flat on its face.

If you’re focused on sheer volume and ignore your customers in the process, you’re going to get nowhere fast.

Analyzing and leveraging your users’ behavior is one way to enhance your current strategy.

If you understand your users’ behavior, you can more easily determine what kind of content they want and what kind of messages are best to send to them.

Like I said, it’s all about people. We want to be understood, and we want our needs to be taken care of.

As a growth nut, it’s your job to make sure that happens.

I hope you enjoyed this article on How to Leverage Behavioral Analytics In Your Growth Strategy

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