Companies Need to Make Better Use of Analytics - eMarketer

Knowing where your web traffic is coming from, and how visitors spend their time on your site are unbelievably revealing statistics. I'd go so far as to suggest that if you have a website and you don't have an analytics package of some sort, you're wasting your time and money. It's the equivalent of dropping 50 cents into the newspaper stand, yet still reading the paper through the glass window. You're making the investment, but not getting the full story.

Setting up an analytics script is not expensive, and is even more useful and effective when combined with small-scale advertising campaigns through Google's AdWords (or other similar services). And for the record, I think that the first response in the chart is below is crap. As I mentioned above, setting up an analytics package is not expensive, and it's not that time consuming (most companies should be able to parse the data in about one man-hour per week). The next four reasons are much more likely to be the actual reasons that most companies don't have an online measurement strategy. To be clear, I'm not questioning eMarketer's statistics, I'm questioning the reasoning of the respondents.

Have a website that isn't hooked up to an analytics package yet? Are you looking to refine the view of your customer base and figure out how to more effectively market your business? Need someone to talk with who can answer questions? If so, we're happy to help. Give us a call at (719) 355-3579 or drop us a line at info@ideavise.com.

Thanks for reading.

—Jason @ Ideavise

via emarketer.com

Frustration + Observation = Opportunity

I'm frustrated with my chosen profession. No, it's not because of my job, our clients, the company, my business partner, or any other internal source. I'm frustrated because there seems to be a conspicuous downward trend among service providers in the small-business space.

To wit: After a really good meeting last week, our client expressed a great deal of frustration regarding a vendor who had previously handled their web projects. In this case, the client and vendor discussed and agreed upon a timeline with regard to a specific project, and the vendor proceeded to drop the ball in a big, big way. In this instance, he wasn't a few days off, or even a few weeks. They were a full month late, resulting in not only lost revenue for the client, but an immeasurable loss of respect for the brand.

Unfortunately, this client isn't alone. In the past few months, I've talked to many clients that share the same frustration. Some of them have actually paid sizable deposits to their vendors in advance, only to be left with an unfinished project, a diminished bank account and a contempt for web-marketing agencies. I can't say that I blame them—I've been on that side of the desk too. It's no fun.

Brian and I founded Ideavise almost two years ago to address what we perceived to be a underserved portion of the marketplace. We've worked with many different vendors over the years, and felt that there was room for a different kind of company that was focused on small business as its primary market. Like many of our clients, we're passionate about entrepreneurship and passionate about serving the needs of small-businesses—people just like us. We avoid the hard sell and hate fine print. We value our reputations (and yours) and believe that there are very few things in business more important than a person's word.

If you've had or are having problems with a service provider, I'd encourage you to view it as an opportunity to find someone who understands your needs. And if you find yourself looking, we'd love the chance to earn your business the good, old-fashioned way—with a smile and a handshake, true to our word, with respect for you and your timeline.

Thanks for reading.

—Jason @ Ideavise