Do It Again: What Works Best to Connect You with Customers

practical marketing education series.

© 2014 YP Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. YP, the YP logo and all other YP marks contained herein are trademarks

of YP Intellectual Property and/or YP Holdings LLC affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of

their respective owners.

Lesson 5:

Do It Again. Know What Works Best Connecting You to

Your Customers

Adsolutions.yp.com/PracticalMarketing

#practicalmarketing

© 2014 YP Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. YP, the YP logo and all other YP marks contained herein are trademarks of YP Intellectual Property and/or YP Holdings LLC affiliated companies.

All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

practical marketing | meet your presenters.

Tina Stock | Executive Director, Marketing

An entrepreneurial marketing executive with over 10 years

experience in product marketing, social media marketing, content

marketing, communications strategy, display advertising and search

engine marketing. Tina blogs about marketing at tinastock.com, and

you can follow her on Twitter @tinadstock.

Who is YP?• North America’s largest local search, media and

advertising company.

• Our mission is to help local businesses and communities

grow.

• We generate 40 billion annual impressions on the YP Local

Ad network and have 3,000 marketing consultants helping

over 600,000 businesses get, and keep, customers.



practical marketing | meet your presenters.

Jake Walker | Senior Analytics Strategist @ Piston

Analytics professional with experience across multiple platforms,

brands, and business models. He has a skill set that allows for the

transformation of complex data issues into easy to understand

actionable insights.

Piston

• Full service digital agency located in San Diego California

• Clients include Cars.com, Ray-ban, Oakley, and Chicos

• Piston is a Google Certified Partner across multiple

Google platforms



small businesses need practical marketing.

Part 2: Get customers to know you and

hear your message

The Practical Marketing series consists of five lessons:

Part 5: Do it again. Know what works best connecting you to your customers

* Measure what matters

* Use practical tools

* Don’t waste your money ... or time



practical marketing means measuring your results.



Measuring can be complicated

• % small biz who don’t measure results

• Don’t let a lack of understanding stand in your way of success

Why does measuring matter?

• Spend more on what works

• Understanding why one thing works better than another

• Learning more about your target audience

• Understanding how visitors interact with your website

• Gaining perspective about your place within the market



all measuring starts with knowing your goals.



What are your marketing goals (learned in webinar 1)?

• Brand awareness?

• Customer retention?

• Building a customer base?

• Combination?

Having clear goals is the key to a successful marketing

campaign, online or offline



measuring the easily measured.



Not everything you do is easily measured

• Measuring the easily measured = 80/20 rule.

You can work more, and sometimes you

SHOULD work more, but often the extra work

just is not worth the effort.

• Understand your goals and make sure the most

important items are tracked

Not everything you do needs to be

measured

• Unless you are willing to do it different

– don’t bother to measure it.

• Don’t just measure to measure.

Make sure its actionable



measure by asking.



When people make a contact, ask them

how they heard about you• Small Business Advantage – engaging directly

with customers

• Most people don’t mind answering

• This same concept needs to applied to your

online business

• All campaigns, sources and mediums should tracked

and labeled in a way that is easy to differentiate. Most

analytics platforms will do this for you without a lot of

leg work on your end

Keep track, not by memory• Tracks as much as possible

• Track online and offline

• Consistently test data integrity to ensure

accurate results



measure with call tracking numbers.



What they do:

• Unique phone numbers can be

secured and used to track response

• Lots of small businesses use print

ads or direct mail. Call tracking

numbers help you know which print

tactics are working

• Also works well not just for offline ad

campaigns but for online campaigns

What they cost:

• Varies depending the amount of phone

numbers needed, could even be free

What you get:

• The ability to track calls from mobile or desktop

site within your analytics and media platforms



measure with ad reports.



If you pay – you should get a report

• Consistent and competent reporting is the key to a successful

online campaign

• Understanding what your reports are telling you will drive

online and offline business decisions

Common metrics

* Visits

* Visitors

* Page views

* Bounce rate, exit rate,

completion rate

Quick ROI calculations

* Revenue/Cost

* ROAS (Revenue/Cost)*100



measuring online with various tools.



What tools should you be using?

There are several tools available for business owners to

utilize. Some tools are free, others can cost a little to a lot

depending on needs. Based on your goals and your

business type, you may need several tools to effectively

manage you marketing strategies.

Examples of free tools:

• Google Analytics

• Google Webmaster Tools

• Linktrack

the right approach getting started steps for

successful analytics.

© 2014 YP Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. YP, the YP logo and all other YP marks contained herein are trademarks

of YP Intellectual Property and/or YP Holdings LLC affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of

their respective owners.



measuring online with google analytics.



What it does:

• Allows for the tracking of basic web site metrics

• Gives website owners the ability to track on site interactions

• Allows for the tracking of custom digital campaigns to keep

track of visitor referral sources

What it costs:

• Your time commitment to make

changes based on insight learned

• Free – no $$ required - for the

standard version

What you get:

• Enterprise level analytics

for tracking all aspects of

your online business



what do you learn when measuring with google analytics?



You find out if what you’re doing is working:

• Measuring site traffic lets you know if your website is functional

• If your media campaigns are getting the right people to your site

• If once on your site, visitors are finding what they need quickly,

easily, and on YOUR terms



what do you learn when measuring with google analytics?



You learn where not to waste resources:

• Making sure money is spent in the right areas

• Ensuring time & money spent on web design is providing a return

• Time is being spent on the projects in the right places



search engine results page (SERP) landscape.



Start with the basics

• Visits, Pageviews,

Unique Visitors

– Site Level

– Page Level

• Clicks on “Calls to Action”

– Checkout buttons

– Downloads

– Request Forms

– Contact us

Social Media Links

Click to Call– Mobile

– Desktop



step 1 – understanding your site.



The key starting point to any successful implementation

of analytics is knowing your site

Understand how you want to funnel

your visitors to conversion

• How many steps?

• What does a conversion mean to you?

• Is there more than one way for a visitor to

convert?

Keep it simple

• Complexity makes life difficult for you and your

visitors

• The more complex your site, the more

complex your analytics needs to be



step 2 – understanding your audience.



• Successful implementation and

utilization of analytics is not solely

based on data

• Knowing your customer goes a

long way in understanding what

the analytics is telling you

• Utilize what you know about your

customer to ensure all the

important areas of your site are

being tracked

– When in doubt, track it anyway



step 3 – picking the right tools.



The tools needed to properly track web

traffic will not be the same for every

business

A good place to start is with a traditional

analytics platform

• Google Analytics is a very comprehensive platform

that offers a free version

• Google also offers an online help forum with lots of

useful information

Other tools to consider

• Google webmaster tools (for SEO)

• Social media analytics

• Mobile analytics (can be setup

within Google Analytics as well)



step 4 – implementation.



Implementation of analytics on your site

can be very simple or very complicated

depending on what you need to track

Google Analytics makes it easy to get basic

pageview and click tracking on your site

• Google continues to simplify and increase cross

platform functionality

Ensure you have tracking in place

for all the most important areas

• Conversion pages

• Downloads

• On site interactions



step 4 – implementation – a simple “how to”.



Help and Support:

https://support.google.com/analytics/?hl=en#topic=3424286

How to Set Up:https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1086338?hl=en&ref_topic=172

6910

Where do you place your code?

• Paste your snippet (unaltered, in it’s entirety) into every web page you

want to track. Paste it immediately before the closing </head> tag.



step 5 – understanding the results.



You have measurable traffic…now what?

• Visits, pageviews, new visitors…these are all metrics you want to

see increasing

• Rising traffic means successful marketing campaigns and more

opportunity for conversion

Not all traffic is built the same

• You have more traffic, but that’s only half the battle, “conversion” is

the name of the game

• Check and see if click thorough rates, conversion rates, visits to

pages where conversions can take place are on the rise

• Having more traffic that simply leaves right after arrival is wasted

opportunity



practical marketing check list “to-do”.



You and Your Customer• Write your story

• Describe your ideal customer

• Document your marketing goals

Get customers to know

you for the right things• Have a website that can be found

on search engines and converts

visitors to customers

• Claim and enhance all your

business listings. Respond to

reviews if needed

Consider blogging. Blog posts can

become emails and facebook posts






Zero in on customers

who matter• Look at a competitor’s search ads

• Analyze a display campaign

• Sign-up for an email newsletter

Turn customers into fans• Gather testimonials – put them

somewhere public

• Get a personal facebook

page and follow one of your

favorite businesses

Consider getting a facebook page for your

business (based on your marketing goals)






Know what connected you

to your customers• Start a monthly marketing tally sheet

• Get at least 1 call tracking number for

your marketing activities

• Gather a list of all your reports at least

once per month

• Schedule a quarterly review of your

marketing activities

Advanced: if you have a website, add Google

analytics and log in at least one time per month



measure what matters q&a.



Understand your goals and always keep those in mind

Know your

audience

Monitor site activities regularly* Understand your site metrics and baseline stats



summary.



Part 5:

Do It Again.

Know What Works Best

Connecting You to Your Customers• Visit adsolutions.yp.com/practicalmarketing for

your “Do it now” worksheets on measuring what

matters (TC)

• Share your thoughts socially #practicalmarketing

• Learn More! Sign up for our FREE monthly

Practical Marketing newsletter at…

http://adsolutions.yp.com/small-business-marketing-center

• More advanced learning available at…

http://www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org/YP

http://adsolutions.yp.com/small-business-marketing-center

http://www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org/YP

Small Business & Entrepreneurship

Do It Again: What Works Best to Connect You with Customers