Finding the pulse of the customer and succeeding with Google Analytics!

Google Analytics is indeed having a huge impact on almost everyone in the world today as it analyses all that one needs to know about people and their choices. Due to this, it is indeed a very important business tool.

We all know that the major challenge is any business is understanding one’s customers. For this we do need to work on it incessantly.

Understanding our customer(s)

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Everyone needs to know who our potential customers are and what impact they could have on our business.

Earlier, people used to do this by conducting manual surveys of potential customers and trying to see what people are looking for. Brochures were often distributed, views were asked, noted and compiled. This was done many a time till the business hit the spot of 100% success.

Naturally, the whole process took so much time and money that there were more misses than hits in the business world. In fact, this resulted in a new area called market research where a whole department would be working on just this aspect of business.

Even in the digital world, this is very much present. For, the key to success of any business is having a comprehensive understanding of one’s customers Whether we are build or optimize the experience of a customer, understanding and knowing one’s customers better is always the key to growth.

Some things we could do are

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1. Ensuring intelligent customer engagement

A satisfactory customer experience is valuable for retention of customers. This in turn results in more revenue.

In the area of technology, engaging with one’s customers in real-time has become more easily accessible thanks to new tools. Messenger is becoming an ever more popular customer service channel, while tools like Drift allow you to talk with your customers as they browse one’s website.

Even though technology has a lot of strength, there are some areas where one must keep in mind.

·         Remove bias: One must get the uninfluenced, impartial opinion of the customer without any bias. For, we want genuine insights, even if they’re negative. An example of this could be a question like  “What or where do you think we could do better?”

·         Be concrete: We must use simple language that asks for feedback on a specific topic for clarity. For instance, we could has, “How have you improved in sales using our software?”.

·         Focus: Our surveys should always address only one area of the customer experience.

Keeping these things in mind as we personalize our customer survey helps a great deal

2. Creating robust buyer profiles

Often, many people make the mistake of using generic demographics like age, profession, and location to develop their potential buyer’s profiles. These data points do not provide enough information to create messaging that resonates with the audience on an emotional level.

One thing we could do to analyze customer preferences is to use the Acquisitions tab on Google Analytics to see which social media outlets, industry blogs and professional forums the website traffic comes from. This could then be used to find out where and when to reach them more effectively.

Acquiring keyword data is also a helpful way to discover the terms and descriptions that certain buyers use to describe one’s services.

To segment customers based on keyword searches, we could use Google Webmaster Tools to create a list of common keywords that drive people to one’s site. This can then be grouped into overarching themes and assigned to different profiles based on the data we have available.

These keywords can then be put across the website copy, content marketing efforts, and other online interactions. Speaking the same language as your customers is a subtle way to make our current audience feel more welcome.

3. Generating data from customer analytics

Every action has value. Each and every customer action needs to be analysed, whether it is clicking on a link or reading through a web page as this provides valuable insight into customer behavior.

This data leads us to conclusions about what our audience doesn’t understand, what they do and don’t like, and how we can create a stronger website experience.

If people had trouble navigating to a certain sales page, for instance, we need to adjust the interface to allow for a more user-friendly experience.

If theirs is one page people that people spend more time on than others, we need to analyze that page’s content to see what’s retaining people’s attention.

Most of all, if there is a page with a high bounce rate, we need to understand what’s making people leave.

4. Anticipating and planning

Planning for future customer engagement is just as important as creating a plan for the present.

One thing we would need to do always is to put our teams in the right frame of mind to respond to customers during stressful or challenging situations.

 Additionally, when we look and study historical behavioral data, we will learn which features customers have found most valuable over time, and which features they didn’t use. Understanding the most popular and most visited pages can also help us plan content strategy making us focus on topics and formats that will best solve the challenges that our audience faces.

Drawing trends across the most commonly-used features would to determine why our customers liked them. Additionally, looking at market trends and analysis will give us a good idea of what other companies in the space one is in, have already accomplished. This shall make us  devise new features that explore these areas.

5. Traverse the customer’s path

The only way to completely understand the unique and dynamic customer buying journey is to put ourself in your customer’s shoes.

All this requires is a change in perspective, a change in the way one operates. Each step of the customer needs to be noted and then understood from his/her point of view.

Here, technology has indeed made it much, much easier to understand and interpret data to make the business cater to exactly what people are looking for. We just need to learn the tools that we have completely and holistically to ensure we take the right steps.

We welcome you to join our course in Google Analytics to take you forward in your journey.