Show Notes

Welcome to the e-commerce marketing Partners today’s gas is. Bay leaf Mark Bailey is a best-selling author. He is a marketing expert is a trainer and is also a speaker mud is a digital marketing instructor for the direct marketing Association in New York City is a member of the digital marketing faculty for Market motive and an instructor for the online marketing certified professional program.

Mod is the author of internet marketing an hour a day and wired to be wowed, which the book is coming out this year, or it. It’s really out there welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast by how you doing I’m doing well. Thank you Robert with the second book quiet to be already out right now.

Yes, it is. Yes came out just about a month and a half ago. Okay, so we’ll fast be talking about e-commerce analytics and then later. On we are going to touch men talk about the book and you’re going to give us a few background information about the book will discuss that later, but just to get started.

We’re going to be talking about eCommerce analytics, and we a lot of the listeners are Ecommerce businesses, and why should they be invested in. E-commerce analytics or should they be looking at the e-commerce analytics well, that’s it that’s like asking how important blood is it is to me an essential part of running a business especially if you are an e-commerce business there are three things that you absolutely need to know when running an e-commerce business, and that is what works why it works and when it works and you.

You get those things when you’re looking at analytics every time that I have done a project with a client, and we have done an audit of their analytics and audit of their marketing. I am constantly seeing missed opportunities money left on the table. They’ve missed Trends even worse. They miscalculated.

What’s actually working, and so it mostly if you don’t have analytics you’re going on a gut feeling you’re going on what you think. Might be happening and that’s always affected by what you read in the news or what you read and Tech news, and it’s not always true and analytics is the most non affected guide as to what’s going on your website.

I’ll give you one example. I you know we had a client where we audited their site, and they pulled budget from one of their marketing areas. Put it on another marketing area and what we found is that where they pulled the budget from was their most profitable Channel. It was averaging 14 dollars of profit for every $1 spent.

They moved that money into another channel that only made three dollars in Revenue per dollar spent. So they not only lost the money that they pulled from the budget. They lost the money off the profit margin as well as don’t you know yeah, it’s so if you don’t know what makes you money. Why it makes you money.

You’ll pull budget money from anywhere, and it could kill your business yeah, and it looks like with that example you just provided. They not only lost money with from their profit, but they actually ended up probably spending more to do the marketing because it. From $1 to $3 absolutely. It was a substantial drop it.

You know in results but not only that it killed them because they took money out of the channel That was producing 20 times more the problem was they just didn’t know it and so when you don’t know it you make mistakes like that, and then you don’t know what the mistake was because you’re not measuring it, and we when we’re talking about analytics.

It really doesn’t matter the size of the business. Be small it can be large, or should just businesses start investing in analytics as it start scaling and becoming bigger. I think that’s an important thing is what you said. There is scaling up so if you are a business owner, and this is your business your website, and and you know you’re wearing a lot of hats.

Unfortunately. This isn’t good news to a lot of people. You’ve got to wear the analytics hat because that’s how you know what works. Time and time again when we have worked with businesses and taught them how to do analytics and what they get out of it most of the time they end up realizing where they can put money for greater revenue and greater profit, which enables them then that if they don’t want to do the analytics they can hire someone to do it, but the key is learning what’s working knowing.

What makes you more profitable and once you learn that. Then you can make those decisions, okay, but you’ve got to know what you’re doing with analytics. It is the lifeblood of your business. Okay, so you say you have to know what’s working when it’s working so what type of metrics should an e-commerce business on a be looking at well if I’m digging into.

The web analytics of what’s going on with their site the number one thing. I try to do is quantify $1 $2 Roi so per channel so for example traditionally. I see anything that people are doing in search engine optimization. That’s typically running about a ten to one for every dollar they put into SEO.

They’re making about ten dollars in Revenue email. I see that typically at around 14 to $20 per dollar, and so I try to figure out per Channel. Where are they running in terms of investment in that channel and return. That’s the initial place that I like to start in order to see what’s working, and then we dig in from there.

Then we start looking at Revenue per. You know campaign within that channel and break it down to see what specifically is working after that we get into product groups. What are the most profitable product or product groups are we leveraging that accordingly? I’ve seen too many companies that you know just because they have great rankings in a specific product group.

They keep pushing it, but we find out that that’s the that’s the smallest profit margin profit group, so. Would you spend all your time optimizing and pushing a low-margin product group when you could spend just as much time and triple your money with a high-margin group, so just teaching people about it’s not about getting rankings.

Just for everything. It’s about getting rankings for the things that make you the most money first, so that’s where we’re looking at then. We’ve tried to find anomalies. What’s what’s different. Why is it different and usually we can find something that we can hinge a new campaign. On a specific product or a specific area that we see that there is a real Niche need for it on the other side, and this is I would put this more the business analytics is I want to look at how is the company leveraging their existing customer list, and how are they leveraging that in their loyalty advocacy traditionally, that’s done through email marketing the main reason is is.

The direct marketing Association came out with a study last year that they said the average business is making forty three dollars of Revenue to every $1 spent on email wow and that’s just average I’ve seen companies making a hundred to one I’ve even seen some companies making you know a thousand to one simply because they are evaluating their customer list and they’re looking at it to see how do you move someone from a?

One-time customer to a multiple purchase customer how do you move someone from a multiple purchase customer to an advocate or someone who will recommend to a friend and keep moving them the first thing I look metric that I look for there is what’s called RFS. Yeah, look at my customer list and find out recency frequency and spend and find out who my top 20 percent of customers are and what am I doing with them?

How often do I contact them? What offers do I present to them do I reward them for being best customers, and how do I move them into being a source of referrals because then that’s like finding a gold mine when you get existing customers that refer new customers. That’s a cheapest kind of marketing you can do and usually.

Top 20% customers your top customers. They will refer people that will immediately become a top 20% customer and like what type of return. Do you get once you find like perfect customers were going to be referral marketing customers what type of how many customers do think they bring in in to the business do they have statistics on that I’ve not seen a lot published however.

I see more and more studies about referral marketing coming. Out my own experience is that this is why I look for the top twenty percent of your customers OK recency frequency spend and typically what I will find its the top the next then you go the top twenty percent of your twenty percent, and those are the ones that are recommending that are posting on social media.

They’re the ones that are talking about you, and so you should have some program in place to enable them to communicate that message to reward. Them for referring new customers, and how do you how do you how can you tell your 20% or your top 20% from your list and from your database huh? How do you find that out?

That’s really like I said, I’ll look at the list based on recent see frequency and spend you know depending upon the type of business it may be a little different. You know so for someone who might be doing software-as-a-service looking at your top 20% of you. In terms of usage time okay, and then I would go out and even look at well.

Who are they are they customers that are they publicly visible do they have a unknown brand name, and if so maybe if I you know offer to you know, I’ll give you this for free and maybe we develop a sponsor relationship.

And you tell people that you’re getting this software from us you so it just depends on what kind of business you are and how you can adjust that to really reward your top 20%.

Okay, and to keep track of all of this. It sounds like you need to be using some powerful analytic. You know analytics tools, so what some tools that businesses need to invest in to look at all of this the easy answer to that is anything that gives you Insight we think so. You know you can start small as long as it gives you good information to grow you don’t always have to jump into the most expensive the most robust if you’re not going to use it.

You know many times. You know like people have asked me about MailChimp, and you know it’s it’s an email program that has some CMS elements. Where I can manage and see who’s opening who spending and doing things like that but is it worth it to jump all the way up to an Infusionsoft product. It depends.

Are you you know? Do you have the throughput to justify it, or are you getting what you need so be willing to start small and master a certain level of marketing and analytics once you’ve mastered. Then to grow into another system won’t take much at all because you’ve understand you understood the fundamentals of what it takes to work yeah, and I think that’s how what you’ve mentioned about mastering something because a lot of times people get distracted with upcoming Trends, and all maybe you should you need to be using this maybe you need to be using this and then they forget to master whatever tools they working on or ever strides it.

They’re working on and then they jump onto the next. And usually when you do that. You really can’t get the results of not only that’s right it by just all of them since you didn’t invest time doing them exactly. I can’t tell you how many times. I’ve heard business people business owners say I have Google analytics, but I really don’t know what to do with it, and I and they all say I should be spending more time, but they don’t and so I can’t recommend that you buy the.

Level of analytics that’s going to give you more business Insight, if you don’t know how to get basic business Insight out of a very simple program like Google analytics, so you’ve got a start learn how it can affect your business, then you can make a better decision as to well do I need to grow and by knowing how it works.

You’ll then be able to ask good questions to help you decide what would be a good answer. Yeah, you know just because it’s more robust in it costs money, and it’s bigger. It doesn’t mean you’re you’re immediately going to turn it on and know how it works, but a lot of adults will comes with the fuck like you had mentioned earlier businesses business owners have to wear a lot of hats, so I guess that comes with their priorities or time and how much time do you think business owner needs to be invested in when they are looking at the analytics is this a day-to-day thing?

Need to be doing me one hour how much time do they need to invest well that is a great question. Here’s the thing I think the reason why people don’t want to invest in analytics is because they look at analytics as reporting. It’s going to tell me what I did what I have found is if you look at analytics as marketing because when you are measuring your marketing your analytics gives.

You feedback like I said as to what’s working. Mites working, and how you can maximize your return in that case you’re using analytics as a marketing tool. Not as a reporting tool, and so if you look at analytics as marketing all of a sudden now, it makes it a little easier to spend an hour a day, maybe a couple hours a week taking a class and understanding how Google analytics Works may be paying someone to help you set it up and customize it specifically to your business.

And just learning maybe four or five basic reports that will help you know what’s going on so in that case if you look at it as a marketing spend or marketing investment that might make it a little easier rather than just looking at it as something to feel guilty about not doing yeah. I think actually fall in that group of people who will look like looks at analytics like or you know yeah, it’s a reporting thing you have to invest time you feeling guilty.

It so I like what you’ve done that we you know switching and looking at it a different way because I’ve never thought of that. I’ve never looked at analytics as just marketing and I know you have to look at it for your marketing, but I’m just never seen it that way it because when you when you’re getting into analytics and when you’re looking at the data.

I mean I could run through countless examples and client studies where we we have found opportunity. Is that resulted in immediate new cash flow we have found other places where money was being wasted and there was no return and so immediately we will able to take that money and put it into a profitable spend other areas where we found that this page was turning people away where this page had a twenty percent conversion rate and so because of we’re looking at it as a marketing aspect.

We’re learning. What’s working? What’s not and we can make immediate changes, which immediately affect the bottom line revenue of the business, and that’s why I think it’s just so exciting as as a marketing tool because its immediate feedback, and you I tell people you can find gold in your analytics.

You just got to dig for it ok that within your phone from all your experience in online marketing you have experience for like 20. Twenty years yeah one of the things you saw when you’re dealing with different businesses and different clients will focus on businesses do better than others, and that’s what prompted prompted you to write in your new book.

Yes Wyatt to be wild so just Alice give us some background information about the book and what people can learn from the book like you said um. You know after you know sixteen of those years were spent on the agency side working with clients helping people develop new websites and working on the marketing side some people you know they came to the agency.

They got some help. They got what they needed and they took off other people they would come and you know this was probably their sixth agency in six years. It never really benefited them, and there was some success, but never long-term 6. S and so I wanted it really was just a matter of sitting back and looking at what why did it work for some people and not others and the answer.

That’s wired to be wowed. It’s that great marketing isn’t an accident audiences love to be wowed your customers they they long to be wowed they want to get those emails that when they get them. They say oh wow this company knows me. They know who I am they know my preferences. They’re not trying to sell me things.

I don’t want. And that is being wowed problem is that I think a lot of times businesses get wowed by the wrong things, and I call that shiny object syndrome that you know the newest technology or new trend and they see it they hear it, and they say you know what if we do this will make money and to rephrase it.

They’re saying okay. Here’s our business plan number one. We’re going to use Facebook and number three. We’re going to make money, but they forget what step to how are you going to use Facebook to make money and because they don’t answer that question or they don’t formulate a strategy. They’re not going to wow anybody you are just going to be posting into the black hole because no one’s going to respond to it, so why are to be wowed is the step to what’s your plan?

How do you define your message defined? Your audiences, and how you’re going to interact with them, and how you’re going to turn that into Revenue, so it really goes back to master in that channel. You know exactly what mastering your your message mastering your audience and mastering how you talk to that audience OK, and how come people get the book they can get the book it’s on Amazon, but if you want to go to wired to be wowed that’ll take you right to the page there or.

Search on Amazon for Matt Bailey or wired to be wild wired to be wild as probably the most direct way to get there. Also how can people reach you they can reach me through my website at site logic SI te. Ello GIC site logic or just go to Google and search for Matt Bailey, and I usually come up pretty high.

Do you have any final thoughts as far as analytics and e-commerce marketing you know it just sensual. It’s absolutely essential and the time you put in to learning analytics will be greatly rewarded. Don’t look at is as something you have to do or as something that you know is going to drag on your time the investment you make in time and a knowledge and analytics will pay off huge dividends with understanding.

What works. Why it works and knowing what to do with that information? And one final question. What is one thing an e-commerce business can do right now at this moment to help grow their business and help take the business to the next level to the right direction the one thing they can do is make sure that in their analytics.They are tracking goals. They’re growing their email list and that they know the value of a visitor then week.

Value for this etre, and then that just branches into so many other areas knowing where that visitor came from the value of a Google visitor as opposed to a big visitor that helps you make much better decisions OK much.

I really appreciate to come into this show sharing all the information you shared, and yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you Robert. I really appreciate it. Thank you, okay, take out. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing podcast join the e-commerce, MO. Importas Facebook group to learn connect collaborate and grow with other e-commerce marketers at e-commerce marketing podcast FB e-commerce marketing podcast for FB subscribe to us on iTunes by searching for e-commerce marketing podcast and please leave a rating and review.

Thank you for listening. See you next time.