The hard part about marketing analysis used to be getting enough data to analyze. This is no longer the case as businesses are now awash in data. Shifting through it and trying to make sense of it, let alone trying to make a marketing plan based on the tsunami of data is no longer possible without the proper tools. Like any other big job that requires the right tools, people have invented better instruments to help them accomplish that mission. Analytical tools measure how customers and companies interact with each other. They collect data and reveal patterns in customers' purchasing habits and preferences, and sort them by using a variety of filters that help a company identify their primary audience, develop more effective marketing campaigns, and target those campaigns more effectively. There are hundreds of such tools, programs and instruments out there that do just that. Here are three great marketing analytics tools for small businesses.
Google Analytics: It’s simple and it’s free!
Google Analytics is an excellent and very user-friendly tool for small businesses, especially those that have never used such a tool before. Even better, it's free. At least using the basic version, which is a good place to start for those who are not familiar with how analytic tools work, or how they can be used to help a business grow. This program, as Google explains, can show a business “what's working and what isn't” when customers interact with the company's website and online ads, as well as when they deal with the company's representatives through email, by phone or in person. The tool can be linked to Google AdWords and Google Data Studio, and can be upgraded to Google Analytics 360, which can be integrated with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Sales Cloud. Before putting out money to buy a tool that might not be the right one for your company or might be so confusing that it never gets used, start with Google Analytics. It is free, simple and for a fee, expandable.
RavenTools: First two weeks for free – then $99 a month
RavenTools is one of the more affordable analytics tools for small businesses. A company can take it for a test-drive for two weeks, risk free at no charge. If a company determines this is the right tool for their job, it can sign up for $99 a month. RavenTools is all about tracking SEOs (Search Engine Optimizations) and generating what it calls “White Label Marketing Reports.” It tracks and analyzes how a company's SEO campaign is performing by drawing information from more than a score of data connectors, from Bing ads to Twitter feeds. It is an excellent prospecting tool as well, as RavenTools tracks the social media habits and patterns of clients. That can help a company keep existing customers, determine what is working to keep them, and then develop a marketing strategy to identify, reach out to and broaden their prospective client base.
Grow: Full integration across hundreds of platforms
Grow bills itself as “your business command center,” and that is exactly what it feels like to use. Grow integrates with hundreds of platforms to track and pinpoint trends that can impact a particular business, and point out areas to concentrate its marketing efforts and dollars. It accesses data and then condenses it all into a clear, concise, easy to understand dashboard. It is unique in that it also will assess not only the effectiveness of campaigns that attracted customers, but also how much those campaigns cost per customer, and per repeat customer. Grow's three-step setup is also uniquely customizable, and can be used to help various departments of a company collect, analyze and use business intelligence to stay up-to-date, as Grow promises to “accelerate your growth.” As for price, that depends on what your company wants and needs. They have suites for companies “from 2 to 200,000” employees, and offer bare-bones to full package deals, including packages that offer “in-depth” consulting from their staff. Grow also provides a free trial for those who are not sure what level of service works best for their small business.
This article was written by Mark G. McLaughlin for Small Business Pulse