The Biggest Online Marketing Mistake Most Business Owners Make

If you were pressed for an answer, what would you suppose the most common online marketing mistake is? If you're like most of the business owners we work with, you might think of spending too much or too little, writing ads that don't speak to your unique selling proposition, or maybe even pricing your products and services the wrong way. These are all decent guesses, and maybe half-correct. That's because the biggest mistake in online marketing is making any mistake over and over again. How do you stop yourself from repeating costly errors? By evaluating the effectiveness of what you're doing in a subjective way. In other words, by studying the numbers behind your business website. A lot of business owners can talk about the number of visitors their website is receiving, or how many sales they've been making, but getting a good understanding of your online business requires a deeper look than that. Here are three easy to use and understand metrics you definitely want to keep an eye on: The numbers of visitors coming from certain sources or advertising campaigns. Often, it isn't possible to tell that a certain message is or isn't responding to a segment of your market until you take a closer look at your traffic sources. Viewing these with a critical eye could show you where you need to tweak your offers or benefit statements. Your most popular pages. In many cases, business owners see this kind of data as simply "the products and prices that customers respond to most." That's a starting point, but high numbers of views in your frequently asked questions or shipping policies, for example, could indicate that buyers have concerns about how quickly they'll receive their order. This is only a simple example, but it's representative of the kind of trend you should be looking for. Parts of your site where visitors exit. This is even more important, since they can help you to identify parts of your site that aren't fully optimized for conversions, or that buyers are responding to. If potential customers are leaving you at any point other than the one that brings them closer to buying from you, then it's costing you money. There is any number of mistakes with your content or marketing message that you can inadvertently make on your business website. The real mistake, however, is to keep reproducing errors by failing to study the numbers closely enough. Need help studying those numbers? Let Business Builders help, and we'll do what we do best so that you can do what you do best.