What are the numbers saying?
When was the last time you did a deep dive into your data?
When you do look at your data, what are you looking for?
Do you have a plan?
If you couldn’t tell from the article title and those questions – your business benefits from you looking at your data & analytics. But, it’s not only the ‘looking’ that matters. You need to have a plan going into your research and a plan for how you’ll respond to what you find.
Data Points & Questions
Before you dive in, make sure you know what you’re looking for. Analytics can get complicated if you’re mindlessly scrolling through. Instead, make a list of data points that you’re looking for so as not to miss anything.
Here are a few that are applicable to most businesses:
- Gross & net income
- Increased/decreased expenses
- Services/products that did/did not perform well
- Social posts that did/did not perform well
- Social media audience growth (year to year/month to month)
- Web pages that get the most hits
- Web pages that have a high bounce rate
- Number of new customers/clients
Once you’ve built a list of your own (feel free to take ours and add to it!), connect the dots between your numbers by asking yourself: why?
Why has my income grown/plateaued/decreased?
- Did I drop off social media?
- Have I put out new offerings?
- Did I change my prices?
Why has my social media audience grown/plateaued/decreased?
- Have I stopped posting?
- Did I engage with my audience more?
- Have I shared my social media accounts?
Why does this web page have a high bounce rate?
- Is my website up-to-date?
- Does this page have a lot of links to other sites?
- Does the flow of information make sense?
Everything Works Together
Asking why your numbers have moved in any which way is prime critical thinking that will help you better understand what course of action you need to take. It’s important to remember that all of your numbers work together.
Your revenue increases when your clients increase when your impressions increase when your marketing increases… you get the point. Try to understand what you changed in your business for your analytics to change as they did.
What Your Data Means & What to do With it
Everyone’s data is telling them something different. Each of our businesses are unique, and even two marketing agencies won’t come to the same conclusions every time. Once you have your ‘whys’ established, take a bit of time to explore what that means for your business.
However, here are a few common conclusions you can look to:
- If a product is performing rather well, then don’t discontinue it any time soon! Make it a feature product and look for ways to improve it if any.
- If your social media views are decreasing, then take a look at what’s changed algorithm wise on the platform. Make changes as needed and lean on posts that have worked in the past.
- If your revenue grew faster than it did last year, then find what drew in the most revenue and focus on those services/tools/products more this year. Improve or remove pieces of your business that hurt revenue.
Data and analytics research isn’t a quick and easy process. Set aside time to work on it in depth so you can give your business the attention and updates it needs. Oh, and make sure to track your time! Set a timer for how long it takes to complete the process this month and you can slot that amount of time for next month. More than likely, it’ll become faster and simpler each time.
You should be taking an overview of your analytics each month, prioritizing pieces that change often like social media or number of services/products sold. Then, take a deeper look at your business in entirety each year.
Exploring your business’ data and analytics can be a fun adventure when you get into it, but it can also be scary. Seeing low numbers and negative percentages are discouraging, even if they’re among a mountain of ‘wins.’ That being said, don’t look at those scary numbers as failures, but rather challenges, opportunities to grow. And don’t forget to celebrate where you’ve grown! Running a business takes A LOT OF WORK. When you’re the CEO, whether you’re leading a team or are on your own, few people understand how much you’re doing to build a successful business.
Set aside some time for a deep dive, put on a good playlist, brew a cup of coffee (or tea!) and get to work!
