So, you want to get your digital marketing strategy in order, right? Well, where do you start? It’s not brainstorming (although that’s SUPER important down the track). It’s not the content plan. And it’s NOT the advertising strategy. To succeed in all of these areas, you need to take a step BACK and look at the data!
Your website data can dictate so much of where your business has been in the past and where it needs to be heading. Reporting on this data on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis is essential. It really is as simple as that. BUT reporting can sometimes appear anything but simple… all those metric and graphs… yep, it can appear overwhelming at times! And really, all the numbers in the world don’t mean SQUAT if you can’t pull meaningful learnings and insights from them.
So, before getting too heavy into the statistics of any report, I always like to ask myself the following questions to ensure that I keep my head in the game to pull out ACTIONABLE insights!
- What tactics used had the biggest impact on results?
- Which channel had the best performance?
- What was different from the previous month of management?
- What was the biggest learning from something that didn’t work well?
- What channel has the most opportunity?
- Are there any notable changes or differences month-on-month or year-on-year? Why?
- How do these learnings alter our strategy for next month?
Keeping these questions at the back of my mind before starting any report ensures that I will ultimately give my clients a clear image of what worked, what didn’t and what we’ll be doing next month to improve on these results.
Something I also like to do is steer AWAY from the vanity metrics like ‘relevance score’ or ‘page likes’. These metrics, in a nutshell, mean very, very little. There are literally hundreds of metrics you could be looking at, but there’s just not enough time in the day to be across them all! So, it’s always best to focus on about 3-4 key metrics that best relate to your business goals, and hone in on how to improve on these month on month.
Look, reporting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I get it! It can be tedious and hard to understand! But, hopefully by taking on board these few simple tips, you’ll get a lot more out of reporting, and hopefully, get a lot more out of your business online!