Nowadays, customers are active on several social media networks and search engines. To be successful in business, you have to engage your customers at their favorite online hangouts. Failure to establish a strong online presence at all social networks and websites frequented by your customers can lead to loss of market share. But, therein lies the problem. Within a few short weeks, you could end up having a mountain of customer data to chew on and everything becomes confusing and, hard to manage.
Understanding Marketing Dashboards
Simply put, a marketing dashboard is a visual representation of the most important metrics of your marketing strategy. So, rather than get buried in acres of spreadsheets that you may not be able to quickly analyze and make a decision, you simply view your key performance indicators in a graphical easy-to-digest manner.
The following are six reasons why you should start using a marketing dashboard.
1. Gives You a Bird’s Eye View
There is so much that happens during the execution of marketing strategy that you might get too focused on one task and fail to appreciate the bigger picture. A marketing dashboard helps you see if the overall objective of the business is being met even as you focus on tactics and campaigns.
2. Improves Efficiency
A bird’s eye view allows you to notice patterns and trends that you may not otherwise have noticed. These are golden nuggets of information that allow you to tweak your campaigns in terms of marketing resources. For example, you may notice a slowdown in traffic to your website which could lead you to increase your advertising budget. The result is a leaner more efficient marketing operation.
It is much easier to spot trends and patterns on a bar chart than in rows of numbers. You can also make quick comparisons. Also, one of the advantages of being able to spot a trend is that you can make projections about the future. This helps you plan ahead and execute your vision for the business.
3. Monitoring and Comparison of KPIs
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics used to appraise factors that are vital to business success. They differ from business to business. For example, for a business using its website to drive sales, a KPI could be the conversion rate of traffic from different social media networks. A KPI line graph could be set up to quickly compare which traffic converts better. Thus, if you find that traffic from Facebook converts better than Twitter traffic, you could reduce your Twitter advertising spend and reallocate it to Facebook. This is just one example. There are numerous ways depending on your business that you can monitor and compare your KPI’s and make an timely informed decision.
4. See the Most Effective Channels
This is closely related to the previous point. With a marketing dashboard you can quickly tell which marketing channel is bringing home the bacon and allocate more resources to it.
5. Generate Marketing Funnel Graphics
In ordinary use, the word “funnel” is used to refer to a tube or pipe that guides a liquid or powder into a small opening. To understand marketing funnels, you also first need to understand conversion. A conversion occurs on a website when someone takes some action that you want them to take. This could be making a purchase or simply completing a form.
A funnel is a series of steps that a website visitor takes that leads to a conversion. In online marketing, a simple funnel is typically as follows:
- Visit a website
- View a product
- Add the product to the cart
- Make a purchase
A marketing funnel graphic is a visual representation of these steps. It allows you to see the under performing areas of your business and make improvements.
6. Get Quick Insights into Your Website Visitors
A marketing dashboard can, at a glance, give you quick insights about your target market. For example, you can quickly see the demographics of your website visitors, for example; their countries, their cities, their age, their gender, their language, the technology they use to access your website and much more. The more you know, the better placed you are to offer products and services that match their needs and wants.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a dashboard is a tool that allows you to see the most important stuff about your business, fast and efficiently. To make the most of data on your dashboard, just make sure that any data on your dashboard is actionable.
