“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This quote, shared by a few trusted mentors, emphasizes the importance of tracking meaningful data. In our fast-paced business environment, understanding what data matters, how to collect and track it, and how it can truly make a difference is crucial.
Simply put, data is information. It can be numbers, facts, statistics, or even customer feedback. However, not all data holds the same value. As business professionals, it’s essential to identify which data matters most to our specific goals and objectives.
Data can reveal operational inefficiencies, help us streamline processes, and optimize performance. By analyzing data related to production, supply chain, or customer service, we can identify bottlenecks, eliminate waste, and improve overall efficiency. Data can help us distinguish between being busy and being truly productive.
Now, you might be wondering where to find data. Well, in the effort to work smarter, I utilized Chat GPT to assist in the next pass. I asked Chat GPT for a list of tools and resources that business owners can use to track and analyze data.
Here are the suggestions from Chat GPT:
- Web Analytics Tools: Google Analytics provides valuable insights into website traffic, user behavior, conversion rates, and other key metrics, helping you understand how visitors interact with your website and identify areas for improvement.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho CRM can help you track customer interactions, manage leads, and collect data on customer preferences and behaviors.
- Social Media Analytics: Platforms like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or LinkedIn Analytics offer data on engagement, reach, and demographics, allowing you to track the performance of your social media campaigns and understand your audience better.
- Email Marketing Software: Mailchimp or Constant Contact provide data on open rates, click-through rates, and subscriber behavior, helping you track the effectiveness of your email campaigns and tailor future messages accordingly.
- Surveys and Feedback Tools: Tools like SurveyMonkey or Typeform enable you to collect data through surveys and feedback forms, providing insights directly from customers, employees, or other stakeholders.
- Heatmap and Session Recording Tools: Hotjar or Crazy Egg offer visual representations of user behavior on your website, showcasing where users click or scroll, while session recordings allow you to observe how users navigate your site.
- Business Intelligence Platforms: Tableau, Power BI, or Google Data Studio provide powerful data visualization and reporting capabilities, allowing you to create interactive dashboards and reports that consolidate data from multiple sources for in-depth analysis.
- Point of Sale (POS) Systems: If you have a retail business, Square or Shopify POS can track sales, inventory, and customer data, providing insights into purchase patterns and customer preferences.
- Data Mining and Analysis Software: Tools like Excel, SPSS, or Python’s pandas library enable you to analyze and manipulate large datasets, offering advanced statistical analysis, data modeling, and data visualization capabilities.
- Custom-built Solutions: Depending on your business needs, you may choose to develop custom software or hire a data analyst to build tools specific to your requirements.
Data is incredible information, but data does always need to be put into the proper context. Context helps ensure better analysis opportunities and sets you up for better forecasting. While this may seem like an obvious note, of course data is important. Take this moment to step back and evaluate the data you review and the data you provide to others. Are you tracking the right things? Is there a way you can work smarter, not harder, and get better insights to help set you up for success?
While I don’t know the answer, fortunately, NACC is filled with experts who can help. Join NACC at our upcoming Digital Marketing Bootcamp. This four-week series covers various digital marketing trends and provides comprehensive insights into establishing a strong digital presence, utilizing AI like ChatGPT, social media strategies, as well as sharing best practices for your business and how data can help set you up for better success.
Digital Marketing Bootcamp
WEEK 1:
Get a comprehensive strategy review as we dive deep into all the areas you need to be thinking about to maintain the strongest digital presence…
- Establish a Clear & Concise Brand
- Review Your Website
- Lock in your Google My Business Page
- Establish Your Social Platforms
- Email Campaigns…are they for you?
- Blogs…why do them, how use them, where do they live
- Outlining Content & Generating Content
- Execute
- Tools, CRM or others, to help you organize and execute your strategy
Presenter:
Patti Minglin | Founder & CEO | Go Girl Communications
WEEK 2:
The hottest topic in marketing is uncovered – ChatGPT! How to best use ChatGPT inside your business for content and… are there more ways to use it we aren’t thinking of?
We talk about…
- Who can use this AI?
- How to use this AI to help you market?
- Benefits of using a ChatGPT style AI
- Risks of using AI
- Best practices for business whenusing AI
- Best resources to start using it and using AI properly
Presenter:
Barry Saltzman | CEO | Saltzman Enterprise Group
WEEK 3:
We have assembled a social media POWER panel to break down the best way to play in all the major social channels; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.
- Who should be on each channel
- What’s working for content…
- How to gain engagement, get clicks, shares!
- What tools to use for content, scheduling, design.
- To boost or not to boost (ads)?
- How to interact/engage that best grows followers and reach
- Influencers – do you want them, do you need them, how to get them.
Presenters:
Facebook Powerhouse … Katrina Syrris | Paul Gregory Media
Twitter Top Performer … Alex Mayster | Executive Director of Communications & Jacque Clermont | Director of Community Relations | District 203
LinkedIn Super User … Dr. Tajuana Ross, Ph.D | Keynote Speaker & LinkedIn Super User
Instagram Influencer … Emma Kirincich | Social Media Associate | Itzy Ritzy
TikTok TrendSetter … Kendall Palmer | Associate Account Executive Social/Digital/Influencer | Praytell
WEEK 4:
Our panelists and presenters return in this final week and pull all of our ‘Bootcamp’ lessons and information together to workshop and collaborate with program participants. Get direct access to our subject matter experts, ask the questions you need answers to, and leave with a clear path forward of what to do, what to use, tools, resources, strategy, and even suggested content!
Participants will be broken down into small groups.