How Well Do You Know Your Audience?
I was talking with my boss earlier about billboards we see on our respective drives to work. That got us on the topic of our favorites, and he brought up one that, when he saw it, he felt was the best he’s ever seen. It featured two distinct brand icons that everyone in Baltimore knows. Everything about the billboard was perfect, and he felt the agency behind it really nailed it because they knew their audience.
Knowing your audience is essential to success, especially when it comes to the web. If your website can’t capture the attention of your target market, you’ll have a hard time keeping them engaged on your site, and they certainly won’t make return visits. How do we know who our website visitors are? Where do they come from? Which pages on our site are they visiting?
Google Analytics gives us this information (and much more), and the best part – it’s absolutely free!
If you don’t have Google Analytics enabled on your website today, do it right now. It’s easy to set up, and it’s so intuitive that you don’t have to be an expert to make sense of the data.
Once you begin tracking your website traffic, you’ll have access to data like:
- Number of visitors and page views your website is getting per hour, day, week or month
- The percentage of new vs. returning visitors
- Visitor demographics – age, gender, location, language, interests
- Keywords and phrases searched to get to your website
- Referral sources – other websites, links, social media, paid advertising
- Mobile device and browser information
As I often tell our clients, Google Analytics provides incredibly useful information, but it’s easy to get buried in the data! The list above doesn’t even scratch the surface of the available data, and Google is constantly adding new reports and features to their Analytics tool.
We all want to have a better understanding of our customers. It allows us to target our marketing efforts better, which lets us get the most out of our resources and budgets. Knowing your audience can make all the difference, and result in more leads and sales for your business.
If you do one thing for your business today, enable and set up Google Analytics on your website. If you need some help, give me a call and I’ll even walk you through it! This free tool can really have an impact on your bottom line if you use it right.
Not everyone has the time or the resources to really dig deep into their traffic data – and we get that. That’s why our clients look to us to help them make sense of all the information and put it into action. If you’re interested in learning more about how G.1440 has helped its clients, contact me today by email sengel@g1440.com or phone 410-843-3826!
Sarah Engel is a Marketing Consultant at G.1440 who joined the team after graduating from Towson University with degrees in Business Administration and Electronic Business. She is a forever-long Apple fan, and when she’s not behind one of her Apple devices, she is often found volunteering with her dog King, or heading to the beach for the weekend.