The reasons for tracking sales and marketing processes are many, if it can be done economically … and one knows what to track. Tracking split tested pages enables one to improve results.
Of course there is the usual “sales funnel” online and off in which the bulk of contacts with prospective customers and clients are fleeting and trivial. Some people from the initial great bulk are motivated enough to examine some aspect of your business more carefully, a smaller number of which … buy from or sign up with your business.
Each stage in the narrowing funnel can be tracked to see where the process needs changing or tweaking, where the bottlenecks lie, what needs greater resources and what can be cut. And the numbers need to be monitored because the market is always in flux, not only seasonally.
Fortunately, a lot of tracking can now be done relatively inexpensively. Knowing what to track has often been fairly simple until social media and more interactive marketing methods added controversy about what sort of social interactions and social media sites constitute priorities to business bottom lines.
If basic principles of human relationships have not changed–like being respectful–nonetheless, applications to specific businesses and contexts may require testing which can be aided by tracking.
A short list of relevant resources follows. Some are free or have free versions, others are for a fee.
Google Analytics – Google still holds the lions share of searches … except that now Facebook queries rival Google in shear volume. Google’s free Analytics software is still very valuable, with free tutorials for set up and use, and increasing numbers of options and features. Google Analytics can even be added to Facebook fan pages.
Yahoo Site Explorer
Hypertracker – fee basis
Mixpanel – fee basis, more expensive than Hypertracker, but has stripped-down free version
Kontagent – Provides analytics for Facebook games and applications. Facebook is the largest social media phenomenon (China excepted) at present. Stripped down free version available
Radian6 – comprehensive tracking of social media conversations
Social Mention – “Like Google Alerts but for social media” Do real time searches for social media topics in blogs, videos, etc. Some analysis per search (free)
Trackur – monitor what’s being said about your brand in social media (fee structure)
Crazyegg – heatmaps and monitoring what people are doing on your pages, where they click (fee structure)
Clicktale – who comes to the page and how long they stay on each page (three month stripped down free version available)
Any other suggestions?
Tags: site optimization, split testing, tracking
Do you think that this cms is good for first site ?