3 Free Tools to Enhance & Uncomplicate Google Analytic Reports

Everyone knows that they need to track their marketing efforts. If you didn’t track your marketing you would not know what’s working and what isn’t. Now I know tracking and analytics isn’t really sexy and exciting, but it is a necessary evil that we have to do to determine if our marketing is paying off.

If you don’t already have Google Analytics set up on your website then that is going to be your first step.  Google Analytics does a great job at tracking your visitors as they move from page to page on your website. But if you don’t know what you are looking at, Google Analytics can be very confusing and overwhelming.

The good news is that there are some free tools that can help simplify Google Analytics so you can understand the data that comes from this form of tracking.

Below are 3 free tools that will help simplify Google Analytics for you.

N2K

Need to know helps you find out what you  need to know when it comes to Google Analytics.

So what does it do?

Need to know is relatively new and is definitely worth checking out.

N2K gives you a one-page overview of your Google Analytics data. This report will highlight your key information over the last month.  It takes all of the complicated Google Analytics and presents it to you in a compressed format.

It is incredibly easy to use while still giving you a very detailed easy to read report.

Quill Engage

What story will your data tell you?

Quill is another fairly new free service that will take the data that is gathered from Google Analytics and transforms it into an easy to read and understand report.  Quill gives you the option to receive a weekly or monthly email that is written in plain English.

Take a look at this example report from Quill Engage

blog-quill

Why is Quill Engage Useful?

Quill Engage will literally take all of the data you get from Google Analytics and convert them to an easy to read, easy to understand report.  This will allow you to take action on the data that is being collected.

PadiTrack

Tracking webpages just got easier.

What does PadiTrack do?

Just like the other two tools shared before, PadiTrack connects directly to your Google Analytics account and displays the data in an easier to understand format.  This tool especially works well when it comes to tracking sales funnels.

How is PadiTrack useful?

One cool thing that Paditrack shows you is the conversions for each and every step of your sales funnel. This allows you to quickly pinpoint “problem areas” in your conversion process.
PadiTrack also allows you to see how well your sales funnels are doing against specific segments.  For example you could create a segment of users from a new email campaign, traffic driven from a specific keyword or from new visitors to your website who found you through Google search.

PadiTrack offers a ton of other great reports and comes with a free version and makes a great “add-on” to your analytics toolbox.

These 3 tools are just a few tools to check out that will assist in making those hard to read Google Analytic reports a breeze to understand and read.  Smart to Finish offers website analytic tracking support that will help give you a leg up on your competition.

The Big “Facebook Slap”

In an effort to cater to Facebook users Facebook has a major change coming that will affect millions of businesses that use Facebook to drive traffic for sales and conversions.

In November Facebook made an announcement that stated that it is going to change how your news feed posts that are used for the purpose of:

1. Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app
2. Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context.
3. Posts that reuse the same content from ads

A couple examples of the type of ads they are describing:

Facebook Ads

Per Facebook’s changes the problem with this ad is the part directing people to purchase their Season 1 DVD set.

Facebook Ads

Per Facebook’s changes the problem with this ad is the part directing people to purchase and install the app.

These changes are going to force businesses to purchase more ads from Facebook if you want to promote any type of the above ads. This does two things 1) increases revenue for Facebook and their shareholders 2) allows Facebook to have control over what “advertisement” content users are seeing. Basically Facebook is forcing business to “pay to play”.

Per Facebook’s statement the reason behind this is:

“One of the main reasons people come to Facebook is to see what’s happening in their News Feeds. Our goal with News Feed has always been to show people the things they want to see. That’s why we often look to people on Facebook to tell us how we can improve. As part of an ongoing survey we asked hundreds of thousands of people how they feel about the content in their News Feeds. People told us they wanted to see more stories from friends and Pages they care about, and less promotional content.

We dug further into the data to better understand this feedback. What we discovered is that a lot of the content people see as too promotional is posts from Pages they like, rather than ads. This may seem counterintuitive but it actually makes sense: News Feed has controls for the number of ads a person sees and for the quality of those ads (based on engagement, hiding ads, etc.), but those same controls haven’t been as closely monitored for promotional Page posts. Now we’re bringing new volume and content controls for promotional posts, so people see more of what they want from Pages.”

Moving into 2015 Facebook is still the #1 place to go for businesses to advertise their products or services. Even with this major change Facebook still has the most highly targeted advertising capabilities and the largest diverse audience you will find anywhere. In the 3rd quarter of 2014 Facebook had reported that is has 1.35 Billion active users on Facebook and this number continues to climb.

Facebook continues to be a great avenue to market on with a little training or by hiring the right company to assist you; you will be able to use this powerful platform to reach millions of people when promoting your business.

Written by Skye Hawk, Smart To Finish Diva

The Simple 5 Step Email Marketing Plan

Is your email marketing a well-oiled machine? The simple 5 step email marketing plan.

Now, if you are like any other business online you more than likely incorporate email marketing into your marketing arsenal. You need to ask yourself, are your emails creating the sales you need them to create to sustain your business? Most online business owners would answer no that that question. I am going to share with you a proven system to get your email marketing working for you like the power house that it should be.

First, let me be clear you don’t need the biggest most expensive piece of software and you are not going to need a mega list to see results from this simple 5 step plan.

Each and every email that you send out needs to have one of five clear and understandable purposes.

Indoctrinate– This email is to teach them who you are.
Engage– This email it to engage with your leads and get them to purchase your products/services.
Ascend– This email is to get them to purchase additional products/services from you.
Segment– This email will tell you what they want to purchase next.
Re-engage/Win Back– This type of email is to bring them back into your sales funnel.

Each one of these emails is dependent on the previous email which creates 5 different stages of email marketing.

The process looks something like this:

5 Step mail Marketing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not utilizing this simple 5 step email system can be a very costly mistake. Once you understand this email system and how each email works you will be able to create dynamic auto responders that work.

Each step must be done in a specific order because you can’t have one without the other. For example you can’t have engagement from your list until you have introduced yourself. And you can’t segment your lists until you have engagement. Make sense?

Let’s take a closer look at each step in chronological order.

Step 1- Indoctrination (Introduction)

Once you have a lead that has opted in what do you do?

The first step in the 5 step process is going to be to introduce yourself and your organization. In this first email you are going to indoctrinate them into your system/processes.

This first email is going to:

  • Tell them who you are
  • Tell them what you and your organization stand for.
  • You are going to tell them why you are different.
  • You want to let them know what they should expect from you.
  • Let them know how often they will hear from you.
  • And let them know what they should do next or what the next step is.
  • This type of email they will only receive one time

Step 2- Engage with your lists

The purpose of engagement emails is to convert your leads into customers. These emails should be making offers to your lists. Your engagement emails should be a series of emails spread out over a designated period of time.

Step 3- Ascension

Every customer you obtain through your engagement series should also receive an ascension series. This is a great way to cross promote other products/services you have or offer higher ticket products/services once you have built trust with lower level products/services.

One great example of this is to offer free content then quickly move to offer additional higher level content by offering a pro level or upgrade.

Step 4- Segmentation Emails

Now the goal of segmenting your lists is to get your potential customers to raise their hand (so to speak) and show a level of interest into something you are offering them.

When they do show interest via an open, click or opt-in they will be placed within the appropriate Engagement Series. This does mean you may have several Engagement Series created for different purposes. For example let’s say you sent an email to Linda and Jim about your free report. Linda opened the email and downloaded the free report. Once she did that it triggered an action in your auto responder to say Linda is interested in this subject/product. Once that has been triggered she is automatically going to receive an upsell offer to a related product/service that you offer.

Now Jim was not interested in this free report which let you know 1 of 2 things 1) he was not interested in this product/service 2) he didn’t have time to open it. The next email could be one of 2 things 1) a new offer 2) the same offer presented in a different way.

Segmenting your lists and moving them through the sales funnels for the different products and services you have can set off a chain reaction of sales.

Stage 5- Reengagement/ Win Back Emails

Okay, now what do you do when your lists lose interest and stop opening or clicking on the emails that you are sending to them?

If you said leave them alone you are making a HUGE mistake. Doing this can and will leave sales just lying on the floor and can results in huge income just lost.

If you want to capitalize on your low hanging fruit it would be in your best interest to set up an auto responder that is designed to re-energize your tired lists. This process brings them right back into your funnel and throws them back up into steps 3 and 4.

One way of doing this is to threaten to take something away if they do not take action now. Another way would be to tell them you miss them and offer them something of value for free if they take action now. Another way to do this is if you offer a free trial moved to a paid service. You could re-introduce the free trial by “extending their free trial”. There are several creative ways of doing this.

If you are looking to have a professional team to create, implement and manage your email auto responders series for you contact the Smart To Finish Virtual Assistant Team. We offer professional email marketing support including Infusionsoft virtual assistant support and can assist you in tailoring this 5 step sales process to your specific needs.

written by – Skye Hawk, Smart To Finish Diva

The Power of Social Media and Your Organization

What can the power of social media do for you and your organization?

With social media still being in its infancy it is still hard for the world to image a life before social media sites like Facebook & Twitter. If you take a look back over the last few years you can easily see how these sites are changing the way we in society do everything. Professionals and businesses alike use these sites to interact with current customers, bring in new business, network and grow their organizations.

While social media has the power to grow an organization and take it to the next level, it also has the ability to create a divide within an industry causing those outdated companies to fall at the feet of their competitors. Social media is an amazing tool that has a way to open up opportunities that never existed before. It has become clearer to organizations that social media is a vital tool in their marketing toolbox and is an intrical part of doing business in today’s day and age.

So, what can the power of social media do for you and your organization? If you leverage social media to its full capacity you will allow your business to:

  • Create a stronger more unified brand
  • Increase your sales volume
  • Easily share your expertise and establish yourself as an expert in your niche
  • Build a following or community around your organization or within your industry
  • Give your customers a voice
  • Have the ability to go viral and be found
  • Interact with your customers on a whole new level

It’s obvious that social media will continue to shape and mold our society as a whole, but marketers must be careful when utilizing social media as it is not an end unto itself. It MUST be integrated into a carefully crafted marketing plan and work hand-in-hand with other marketing initiatives. This will allow an organization to craft a powerful voice across the marketing landscape.

If you are looking for a professional team to help you build your social media game plan or need a team to execute one you have already created, contact the Smart To Finish Virtual Assistant Team. We have the expertise and knowledge to transform your social media and marketing initiatives that will take you and your organization to the next level.

written by – Skye Hawk, Smart To Finish Diva