In the world of digital marketing, there's almost too much information on customer behavior analysis. It's like an internet overshare.
You need to be judicious in deciding how to understand your customers and what to do with customer data. Otherwise, you'll be spinning your wheels and wasting money.
In this article, you'll find five recommended consumer insight tools. These tools will get to the heart of the information you need and show you how to use it most effectively.
Google Analytics
There are many options for analytic software but Google Analytics is the most popular. It monitors the traffic to your site and offers statistics about how your website is performing.
It shows you how customers find your site and the length of time they spend on a page.
You'll also find demographic information on your customers, like where they live in the country.
Additionally, Google offers the following tools that are great for customer behavior analysis:
Google Surveys
You can create custom surveys to get a better idea of who your customers are and group them into specific audiences.
Google Trends
You'll be able to see which topics are of most interest to your consumers. Staying on top of the trends in your industry is essential for effective consumer communication.
Goal Funnel
This is a tool inside of Google Analytics that shows the shopping process of a customer. You'll be able to see where in the process they stopped shopping and it can help you improve your site's purchasing experience.
Try a variation of the above tools to see which ones are right for your business goals.
YouTube's Customer Behavior Analysis Tool
Putting videos on YouTube to promote your business is fantastic, but do you know who is watching them?
YouTube Analytics makes it very simple to learn more about your viewers and get a better idea of your audience on that platform.
It has a demographics feature that shows you the location and age of your viewers. Take advantage of these details so you can cater your videos to certain age groups and regions.
Also with this tool, you can see where in your video people stop viewing. If that's happening a lot, you may want to consider shortening the length of your videos.
Or for example, if you see that viewers are consistently dropping out at the 1:50 mark of your video, consider putting up text with your site's URL about ten seconds before they leave.
Understanding your YouTube audience is essential to creating effective online content and making sure your videos are getting hits.
Don't Be out of the Social Media Loop!
The world today does not operate without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Don't be out of the loop!
Having a presence across social media platforms is essential to connecting with consumers. It also allows you to directly interact with your followers, read their comments and engage in real time with them.
It's very exciting for customers to engage directly with a business. Having a company rep react to comments or tags helps build a strong and personalized relationship with consumers.
You'll also learn a great deal by reading your customer's comments and posts.
Managing social media and staying active on it will help your business thrive. The best way to do this is to hire a social media manager. This person will be solely responsible for your social media activity.
It's well worth having a point person for social media so your activity and your messaging is consistent.
What's Your Social Media Impact
To really understand your consumers, it's not enough to just be active on social media. Take your efforts a step further by looking at how customers are talking about your business across those social media platforms.
A free tool called Social Mention breaks all of that down for you.
After a quick search of over 100 social networks, it lists all recent mentions of your product/business.
It measures your mentions in four categories:
- Strength: The rate at which your brand is being mentioned on social media.
- Sentiment: The ratio of positive mentions to negative mentions.
- Passion: The frequency at which your brand is being discussed.
- Reach: How many different people are talking about your brand, your scope of influence.
Taking these things into consideration can help you measure and strategize your social media efforts.
Keep It Conversational
Many companies these days are communicating with customers on their websites via instant message.
It's certainly a fast and easy way to chat with consumers. But with the Intercom platform, it can also boost your customer behavior analysis.
Intercom provides many different customer service tools while simultaneously collecting live user information. It tracks people as they enter and browse your site, gathering data on them.
That information is organized so you can filter customers and send customized messages based on their online habits. You can get as specific as sending them individual, small group, or mass communication messages.
Sending targeted, relevant messages is a great way to improve customer service and grow customer retention.
Strategize Your Resources
It's clear that online marketing and customer behavior analysis are essential practices for business growth. However, experts reveal that a lot of companies waste their money in those efforts.
You have to be careful, pick the best tools for your business goals and strategize.
Consider working with consultants who can identify your business goals and use consumer insight data to its fullest potential.
It's hard to do all of this while keeping costs down, but a strong consultant will be able to assist in marketing while reducing costs and making sure resources are being used effectively.
Effective Tools for a Personalized Marketing Plan
It's easy to lose money in marketing and customer behavior analysis. Staying informed and working with the most effective tools is a way to avoid that money pit.
Once you find the best tools for your business, you'll have a better understanding of exactly who your customers are and how to appeal to them.
Your marketing will improve, your business will grow and your customers will keep coming back for more!