New – Web Marketing Reporting
Reporting on the effects and progress of your website remains a confusing and challenging problem for most people. The truth is – reporting is largely ignored. Emails are sent and then ignored and as a case in point, I simply ‘forgot’ to send March reports and NO-ONE has noticed.
The case for reporting
You need to know what is happening on your website. This is imperative as it is the only way you can reliably seek to improve your efforts. You might be looking to launch a new product, but what’s the point if people don’t want it, you might be hitting the wrong audience, but how can you tell.
You need to listen to what your customers are telling you and the ONLY way to do that is via reporting and knowing what is going on.
Alternatives
We get asked to produce marketing campaigns, spend money, create email campaigns, make up lists of email addresses, produce micro-sites, customer surveys and all the rest – but we are NEVER asked to research a product or find out if we’re targeting the right audience. It’s a big mistake.
Clients jump into the deep end and largely hope for the best. At NCompass we can now give you the tools to gain all the access you need to the right reports.
Google Analytics
The leading statistical provider on the market today is Google Analytics, every client of NCompass is automatically subscribed to this free service and access is provided. Full reporting is included, but when was the last time you checked your account? For most the answer is ‘a while ago’, or ‘never’.
So much more
Today however there is so much more to deal with (and that is the point of this article). Have you considered what people are saying about you on Facebook or Twitter? Have you noticed anyone blogging about you, have you seen other websites that link to yours, do you know who they are, do you want them to link to you.
Google Analytics struggles with Social Media, it cannot ‘tell’ if a Facebook referrer came from a Facebook Advert, or who might have recommended your website. Twitter, just how do you know how far your comments are going. If I asked you to produce a list of websites you think you should be listed on, where would to start getting that information from.
Back to Basics
So we’ve come full circle you need reporting and you need reporting on everything but you need it in a concise and pertinent way.
Our proposal is to continue to email you a monthly ‘comprehensive report’ that includes everything. But we then need you to contact us a let us know what needs to be taken out, what you actually want and what we should actually be sending you. Finally, we’re going to give you full access to all the tools so that you can find out easily yet more information on your website.
Check it out at http://tools.ncompass.co.uk.