The mere mention of data analytics can cause some to duck and cover. Fear not. You don’t need to become a data scientist to benefit from the valuable insights revealed by customer and marketing stats. This article offers a few tips about identifying, gathering, and analyzing data that can help build business success.
Knowing what you want to achieve is an essential first step in identifying the analytics worth tracking. Your big picture business goals should be as specific as possible, e.g. a 20% increase in guests from Northwest USA. Your more immediate business objectives also need to be described as clearly and specifically as possible.
These are the five steps to setting SMART business objectives.
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S | Specific | Objectives that are vague or overly complicated are a recipe for disaster. Keep them simple, clear, and specific.
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M | Measurable | Make your objectives measurable, so you understand what success looks like. How will you know if you are moving closer to, or have achieved, your objectives?
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A | Achievable | Position you and your team for success by setting objectives that are realistic.
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R | Relevant | Objectives should align with what the organization and/or the team needs to achieve.
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T | Target Date
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Objectives should have a time frame for completion, so you have something to measure against and know if and/or when they have been achieved.
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Once your goals and objectives are clearly defined, your marketing strategy and tactics should be designed to drive toward those goals. But how will you know if those activities are working? That’s where metrics and KPIs become your best friends. Tracking relevant data points will help keep your marketing effort on course.
Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, often get mixed up with metrics. KPIs measure performance relative to business goals. Metrics measure specific business activities. While metrics might tell a pilot the air speed and fuel consumption of an aircraft, KPIs relate to the overall goal – arriving at a destination by a specific time.
KPIs and metrics tell you what tactics are working to help you achieve your objectives. Here’s an example:
The Customer Journey
When building a measurement plan, it is important to think about the data that can be collected at each stage of the customer journey. And subsequently, the data that relates to your specific objectives.
This conversion funnel defines the customer journey in four stages. For travel and tourism businesses, it is helpful to label these steps: Dream, Plan, Book and Visit. Collecting data at each step can reveal where customers are dropping off and opportunities for improving the content and messaging to move users to the next stage.
Customer behaviour can change based on where they are in the funnel and the channel where they are engaging. Some channels are more effective for awareness (e.g. social media ads) while others, like your website, can facilitate advanced funnel activities such as booking. The available metrics vary by stage and channel. The data related to your objectives should be monitored on an ongoing basis.
Website Data
Google Analytics 4, or GA4, is a free tool that provides a wealth of data about your website. Here are few handy things to know about GA4:
Developing Actionable Insights from Your Data
Raw data alone often doesn’t tell us much. The goal for businesses is to turn data into actionable insights. Here is an overview of the process that can help take you from analytics to action:
Data is a powerful tool that can create significant competitive advantage. Remember to consider it in the context of your business goals and objectives. What are you trying to achieve? How can your data help you get there?
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