Understanding The Great Analytics Gap (and What to Do About It)

Analytics. Its at the heart of every conversion optimization strategy and online business decision we make. But some studies are showing an ever-increasing gap between the information key-decision makers want, and the actionable insights needed to drive business forward. The question then becomes, where are we now, and what can be done about this great divide? Lets take a closer look:

The Beginning of the Gap

According to a survey done by The CMO Survey and Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business, even at this time last year, spending on marketing analytics was down even failing to meet the CMOs own predictions. Although their share of spending on marketing analytics was forecast to increase over the next three years, the trend was still lower than anticipated:

Marketing budgets spent on analytics fell from its projected amount year after year

In fact, looking deeper into the survey, its easy to see how CMOs could come to a decision like this. The percentage of projects using marketing analytics has gone down since 2012. Year after year, progress has shown to be rather tepid, which begs the question: are CMOs just not understanding the value of the information being provided? Or are analytics really not worth spending on?

The percentage of projects using marketing analytics has remained fairly consistent since 2012

Insightful Answers Lead to More Questions

The answer is neither. A study done by the MIT Sloan Management Review in collaboration with the SAS Institute showed that CMOs, global executives and senior management clearly want more use of analytics:

Management clearly sees the need for better, more actionable analytics data

Two-thirds of executives reporting in the survey admitted to relying more on management experience than what the data showed, and a slim minority reported frequently having all the data they needed to make insightful business decisions. Is it a knee-jerk reaction to rely on ones experience even if it flies directly in the face of what the data shows?

The study showed some interesting points that may have contributed to this feeling of lukewarm analytics reception:

Its Not The Data its What You Do With It Than Counts

As many as 75% of respondents acknowledged that their access to useful, actionable data had increased, and their ability to capture and leverage that data is improving although slowly.

Whats more telling, is that only one in eight of the respondents were deemed to be analytical innovators a term, according to the report, that was given to those employees who were part of an analytical culture fostered by their senior management. This culture highly prized data and insights derived from it, and were more strategic about their use of the intelligence they gathered.

One in eight. Let that sink in for a minute.

Only one in eight people have enough confidence to say that their company thrives on a culture where making strategic, data-driven choices is encouraged. Where gleaning insights from that data is a top priority.

And its not a case of analytics data not being worthwhile, either. A Marketo sponsored report on the future of online marketing showed that investment in actionable data is a smart decision that will power successful businesses well into the next five years and beyond.

Forecast investments in marketing technology include social media, mobile marketing and analytics

As you can see, marketing analytics found itself squarely in third place, only behind social media and mobile marketing respectively. CMOs and other key decision makers know that marketing analytics are valuable. So its not a lack of investment because they cant see the relevance.

Building a Bridge Making Sense of Analytical Data

So weve narrowed down that the cause of the gap isnt a lack of CMO knowledge or understanding, and despite prior questionable performance, spending still remains at an even level despite wanting more investment.

The cause of the gap is a lack of relevant, actionable, easily obtainable data data that can be leveraged across all major channels to provide the kind of insights the CMOs and their analytics team need to bolster sales, build customer relationships and increase customer acquisition. Theres no shortage of information. All of this big data is being collected, compiled and dropped into the laps of key decision makers to try and make sense of it.

Analytical orientation is even being noted as one of the key skills for todays CMOs to possess with creativity taking a backseat:

Strategic mindset, customer insight and analytical orientation round out the top skills expected of CMOs.

So how do we build a bridge between the numbers and information were collecting, and the business-propelling strategies that stem from it?

When Experience Matters Most

This is where management experience that aforementioned knee jerk reaction to data, comes into play. Try as we might to wring measurable, impactful details on our customers from the information we collect, theres just too much interference and noise clogging up the connection. A lot of useless chatter clouding our vision and hindering our ability to move forward.

The bridge that crosses the analytics gap isnt going to be built by digging our heels into the digital mud and going deeper into the numbers. Its going to be built on the value of the customer experience.

The perception of marketing is going to shift. While anaytics are still going to be useful, crunching numbers will only get us so far. Key drivers are going to be more experience-based rather than data-based. Things like:

• Managing customer expectations over their entire lifecycle and not just the acquisition process


• Measuring customer engagement, not just counting how many customers youve gotten


• Cultivating and nurturing customer relationships rather than passing them off to sales and hoping for the best


• Quickly and fully resolving customer issues before they grow and fester on social media

As you can see, these are intangible things that analytics simply cannot measure. But analytics can tell us which channels open the door to drive these types of experiences. So its not about choosing sides analytics or customer experience but leveraging both in such a way that they form a continuous cycle of clear insights that forge a path for the next sales cycle and beyond.

Now Its Your Turn

Do you feel theres an analytics gap within your own company or department? How are you taking steps to remedy it? Or do you think that the data has a greater role to play we just havent crafted the right kinds of tools to get the kinds of insights we need just yet? Share your thoughts and perspective with us in the comments below!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today!

8 Tools That Will Help You Get Inside Your Readers Heads

Do you hate the phrase getting inside your readers head?

Althoughyou know you are supposed to be able to do it, you dont haveany specific instructions onhow to do it.

Of course, its important to understand your currentreaders and those you are trying to attract with your content, but thats one of the hardest skills you have to develop as a writer.

Its going to take years of continuous improvement to become really good at it.

However, there are ways for you to get thisinformation much soonernamely, formulas and tools.

In this post, Im going to focus on the latter.

Ive put together a list of the eight best tools for getting inside your readers heads.

They will give you tangible data you can use to produce content that resonates with your readers.

Finally, Ill show you how to use the key features of these tools. I promise that none of them are difficult to use and that they are worth your time.

Tool type #1 Hard demographics data

If you want to know what your readers think, you first need to know who they are.

Thats where demographics come in.

Essentially, any statistic that describes a characteristic of your audience is a demographic. The most common are:

• age


• location


• device preference


• gender


• marital status

The tools in this section will help you figure out who you should be targeting in the first place. They can be used whether you have an existing audience or are just starting off.

1. Demographics Pro for Hootsuite

This tool is one of the most complete Ive ever come across when it comes to demographics.

The only significant limitation is that it draws its data from Twitter.

However, as long as people in your niche use Twitter (which is likely), its really useful.

While you can sign up for Demographics Pro directly, its pretty simple to use this Hootsuite app.

When you click the link in the title for this tool and then click the Install App button on the page, youll be taken to Hootsuite, where youll see a pop-up like this (if youre signed in):

Once you install the app, youll see a new tab on your account called Demographics Pro for Twitter.

To use the tool, simply enter a Twitter handle (e.g., @NeilPatel), and click get profile.

Thatll automatically bring up some basic data:

More useful, though, is the view full profile option. Click that link, and youll see an extremely detailed panel like this:

From this, you can get a ton of demographic information about your (or their) followers and even some psychographics (more on that in section 2):

• gender distribution


• marital status


• parental status


• age


• average income


• location


• types of jobs they have


• types of hobbies they have


• types of brands they like

Its a gold mine of information.

If youre already using Twitter, start with your own profile.

Then, get the stats of some of your top competitors. If you dont know who they are, head to Buzzsumos amplification tool, and search for some keywords that describe your niche:

2. Sprout Social

This is a similar type of social audience analyzer. However, it analyzes both Facebook and Twitter, so theres a potential to get a few different insights.

Once you sign up for an account (free trials available), you can connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts (only your own).

That will populate your account with a bunch of social trends data, but more importantlydemographics.

On top of getting a gender distribution of the audience on each platform, you get a detailed breakdown of their age brackets. Thats another important insight into your audience that will come in andy.

3. Google Display Planner

It might surprise you to find out that the Google Display Planner is another decent source ofdemographic dataeven though itisnt the tools primary purpose.

When you open the planner, you have two options for searching:

• keywords, topics, or sites


• a landing page

I recommend doing both, and several times if possible. The larger your sample size, the more accurate your demographics data will be.

You can enter your own site, a competitors site, orkeywords that you will be targeting with SEO.

Once youve picked an option, click the blue button to proceed:

On the next page, youll get a whole bunch of suggestions for ad keywords. Ignore them.

The only thing we care about here is the panel in the center of the screen that breaks down the demographics of people who search for the terms you entered (or terms found on the page you entered).

It looks like this:

Again, you get a gender and age breakdown.

Additionally, you can record which devices that audience prefers to use.

Is all this information redundant? It is to a degree, but its still useful. By now, you have demographic data from three different tools.

That data may look the same, but there may be differences because its collected from different sources.

Having data from multiple sources ensures that it wont be skewed. You can take an average of all the data you collect or keep it as a range (i.e., average age might be 25-34 and not just one specific number).

4. FollowerWonk

The final tool in this section also uses Twitter to retrievedemographic data. However, it provides one important feature that the others miss.

Once you create an account, go to the Analyze tab on the top menu. Enter your Twitter handle, and let the tool scan your followers.

On the next page, look for a graph like the one below that shows at what times your followers are most active.

This information will be useful when you are promoting your content, especially on social media.

Tool type #2 Understand your readers thinking (psychographics)

Once youve nailed down who your readers are or will be, its time to start figuring out how they think.

Ideally, you want to answer questions such as:

• what are their biggest problems?


• what type of content do they like the most?


• what kind of language do they use?


• what bores them, and what excites them?

The tools in this section will help you answer these questions and eliminateguesswork.

5. Faqfox

This is a simple tool that makes getting useful data from forums easy.

Basically, you enter a keyword and sites to scan, and the tool pulls up relevant thread titles for you. You can search multiple sites at once.

Start by inputting a keyword into the first field. You could manually enter sites, but an easier option is to simply pick one of the preset categories. If youre not sure which one to choose, pick generic:

The tool will load the results after a few seconds of search:

I recommend downloading the results into a spreadsheet and analyzing them there.

Remember those questions you need to answer? These results will help you do that.

Youll have some irrelevant results, so start by removing those.

Once you have a few hundred relevant threads left, dig in.

Note down:

• common questions (those thatcome up more than once)


• any phrasing that you wouldnt normally use yourself


• any other keywords that you havent thought of (that you see in the titles)

Then, repeat this whole process at least a few times with different keywords.

6. Crazy Egg

If you know me well, you know I founded Crazy Egg.

Ill let you judge the tool for yourself, but it can be incredibly useful for understanding the behavior of your readers.

The one catch is that you have to actually have readers before you can use the tool.

Assuming you do, Crazy Egg will give you a variety of heatmaps that will show you exactly how readers interact with your content.

There are two types of maps youll want to look at.

First is the scroll map, which tells you how people scroll through your page. You can tell what portions of the page they pay more or less attention to.

Its natural for the percentage to decline asyou scroll down, but you might seethat it declines at certain sections in the middle of the content.

This is a clear indication that something on your page didnt interest your readers.

For example, if I looked at a heatmap for this post and saw that theres a huge drop off withinthis section, I could conclude that my readers dont like reading about heatmap tools (or potentially about psychographics).

Similarly, hot spots lower down the page indicate that youve touched upon something that excites them.

Record this information forall your content, and youll start seeing patterns in the type of content,the tone, and the formatyour readerslike.

To get even more insight into your readers preferences, you can use click heatmaps, which show you what readers clicked on:

Youll see that certain things attract their attention more than others. Again, look for patterns.

7. Buzzsumos Top Content Tool

The heatmaps can give you a lot of insight into what excites and bores your readers.

However, sometimes you need more, or you dont have enough readers to use heatmaps yet.

Thats where Buzzsumos top content tool comes in.

Youll want to make a list of keywords youll be using within your content. Then, search them one by one in the tool:

The tool will return a list of the most popular content in the past year (sorted by total shares).

Visit as many of these pagesas you can, and record down the answers to these questions in your spreadsheet:

• What format does the content use? (lots of images? videos? big font? small font?)


• What tone does the content use? (news articles? personal stories? conversational?)


• Why would your reader be so excited about this topic?

You can leave the last one blank for now if you dont know, but come back to it later.

When you have a good understanding of your readers, you should be able to figure out why these top articles would appeal to them more than the average content.

Finally, searchall theanswers to all those questions for patterns.

For example, if a large chunk of the most popular posts are mainly image-based, you know that your readers love images.

Tool type #3 Assemble your data, and make it useful

If youve used every tool up until this point, you have a lot of useful data.

Dont justputit on a spreadsheet and forget about it.

Instead, create reader personas. Itwill help you and your team when you need to be remindedfor whom you are writing.

I created this final section for a single tool because I feel thatalthough it is a small step you need to takeits a very important step.

8. Make My Persona

This tool was created by Hubspot, and its brilliant.

It guides you through a simple process that uses allthe different demographic and psychographic information youve collected with all the other tools.

It also ensures that you dont forget any key part of creating a reader persona, e.g.,putting a real name or face to it:

Once you answer all the questions, the tool will producea well-organized persona summary:

First, you should share this with everyone whohelps you with content.

Next, you should be looking at this before you write any content yourself. Always ask yourself what this person would find valuable and interesting. Print it out, and hang it up if you need to.

Note that you can create multiple personas if thats what the data supports.

Conclusion

This is not a huge list, but every tool on this list can be useful.

The better you understand your readers, the more youll be able to write exactly what they want to see (and value).

I recommend trying at least a few of the tools, but if you really want to get a clear picture of what your readers think and care about, use them all.

If I missed a tool that can help writers understand their audiences, please post it in the comments below, and Ill give it a look.

28 Social Media Statistics Every Marketer Should Know

Social media is a much more analytical channel than some may think, and thereare a ton of statistics you should keep in mind as a marketer. These social media statistics can help you benchmark how well youre performing compared to others online and certain stats can show you where you should spend additional time.

This article will compileengagement statistics, like how quickly you should respond to fans, as well as demographic statistics from the social sites themselves to help you decide where to establish a presence.

Social Media Engagement Statistics

At Sprout Social, weve always believed that engaging with your current and prospective customers is one of the best things you can do on social media. With that in mind weve built and maintained our own industry report called The Sprout Social Index which looks at social media engagement data. Heres a quick look at some of the social media stats from our Index:

1. Messages Sent to Brands Are WayUp

Sprout Socials social media industry report is always being updated and weve consistently seen the number of messages sent to brands on social media increase. From an average of 1,790 incoming messages in Q3 of 2013 to 2,742 in Q4 of 2015.

2. MessagesRequiring a Response Are Up

Not only havethe number of messages sent to brands increased, so too have the number of messages that actually require a response. In Q3 of 2013, only 15% of social messages sent to brands required a response, but in recent quarters, that number has hovered around 43%. You can see these first two statistics broken down by various industry below.

3. Brands CantKeep Up with Inbound Messages

Even though the number of messages being sent to brands requiring a response has increased, therate at which brands respond actually dropped. In Q4 of 2013, 14% of messages received a response across industries. Today, the response rate has fallen to less than 11%.

4. Social Media Response Time is Down

The rate at which brands respond to inbound messages has decreased, but fortunately, the time it takes companies to respond to those messages has also decreased. In Q4 of 2013, you had to wait about 13 hours until you received a response from a brand on social. These days that number has fallen to 11 hours.

5. Brands Send More PromotionsThan Replies

Weak response rates and slow response times make much more sense when you consider brands have been using social media more as a promotional channel than a customer engagement platform. In fact, on average, brands send about 3.2 promotional messages for every customer reply.

6. Small Businesses Average MoreMessages per Employee

Organizations with 0200 employees, though likely without all of the resources of their larger counterparts, are actually much more efficient at managing social media. While small businesses receive an average of 10 messages per employee, they actually answer more of those messages with a response rate of 10.7%.

7. Medium Businesses Average 6 Messages per Employee

Businesses with 2011,000 employees average six messages per employee and respond to 10.1% of those messages.

8. Large Businesses Average 0.5 Messages per Employee

Businesses with 1,000+ employees receive an average of 0.5 messages per employee and respond to 10.6% of all incoming social messages.

9. Instagram Messages up 115%

Instagram is seeing immense growth in popularity and customers use it like any other networks to reach out to the brands they want to start a conversation with. In fact, last quarter, brands received 115% more messages from their audience on Instagram, but they only increased the messages they sent by 28%.

10. Response Rate on TwitterIs 12.9%

When it comes to the specific major networks, youre much more likely to receive a response in a timely fashion if you reach out to brands on Twitter. Twitters response rates is 12.9%, which is 36% better than they are on Facebook.

11. Response Rate on Facebook Is 8.9%

Though response rates arent as high on Facebook, that doesnt means brands arent utilizing the network. In fact, since Q4 of 2014, brands have increased the amount of messages theyre sending on Facebook by nearly 90%.

Pull Your Own Engagement Data

If youre curious to see how your engagement compares to those above,try starting a free trial ofSprout Social. Were extremely proud of our own Engagement eport and there is so much that you can learn from the data.

Right off of the bat, youll haave ahigh level look at how you compare toother companies in terms of response rate and response time.

You can also take amore granular look at your response time and response time by day of the week, andeven by hour of the day.

While diving deeper into your social media presence is key, sometimes you want to take a step back and look at the overall trends. You can do this with Sprout too by looking at your average engagement rate and time over custom time periods.

Well jump into more key social media stats, but if youre curious to see how well youre engaging, and to use a tool to continue to improve that engagement, check out Sprout Social free today.

Social Media UsageStatistics

This next section looks ata number of social stats from the networks themselves, detailing things like the amount of users on their platformandwhere those users are located. Keep these numbers in mind when youre deciding which social media networks are most valuable for your time.

Instagram Statistics

12. Instagram has 400 Million Monthly Active Users

Instagram has seen amazing growth since its launch in October of 2010. The image sharing site now boasts over 400 million monthly active users, surpassing Twitter and approaching LinkedIn. Its pretty clear that companies looking to create a strong social presence must look to Instagram, if not just as a test.

13. 75% of Instagram Users Are Outside of the US

While thepercentage of users outside of the US is slightly lower than most of the other networks, Instagram still has plenty of opportunity to grow all over the world. This could also spell good news for companies whose core markets are in the US.

14. 80 Million Instagram Photos Shared Per Day

There are an average of 80 million photos shared every single day. Start taking and submitting your own photos to Instagram to make sure youre getting your share. If youre not sure how to get started, check out this free Instagram Webinarwith Peg Fitzpatrick.

15. 40 Billion on Photos Have Been Shared on Instagram

While the site averages 80millionnew photos every day, in the lifetime of the website, there have been over 40 billion photos shared.

Facebook Statistics

16. 1.04 Billion Daily Active Users on Facebook

With more than 1 billion daily active users, Facebook is the worlds largest social media network. So even if you have one of the most niche products on the market, youll likely find your customers on the network.

17. 1.59 Billion Monthly Active Users on Facebook

When you expand the scope, there are 1.59 billion monthly active Facebook users. At the time of writing this article, thatsnear22% of the worlds population.

18. 934 Million Mobile Daily Active Users on Facebook

One of the most impressive aspects of Facebooks user-base is the amount that they access Facebook via their mobile devices. Out of the 1.04 billion people using Facebook every day, 934 million of them access in on their mobile device.

19. 1.44 Billion Mobile Monthly Active Users on Facebook

Of the 1.59 billion people using Facebook on a monthly basis, there are 1.44 billion doing so on their mobile devices.

20. 83.6% of Daily Active Users Are Outside of the US and Canada

Of the 1.59 billion people using Facebook every single day, 83.6% of those are doing so from outside of the US and Canada.

Twitter Statistics

21. 320 Million Monthly Active Users on Twitter

Twitter has 320 million active users, which is abit behind Instagram and Facebook. Though the numbers arent s robust, Twitter users appear to generate more content, creating around 500 millionTweets per day.

21. 80% of Active Twitter Users Are on Mobile

Similar to the amount of folks using Facebookon the move, 80% of Twitter users are active on mobile, which poses a great opportunity for companies with a solid mobile experience.

22. 79% of Twitter Accounts Are Outside of the US

Twitter seems to have more users based in the US than Facebook, with only 79% of them accessing their accounts outside of the US.

LinkedIn Statistics

23. LinkedIn Has Over 400 Million Registered Members in Over 200 Countries

The social network for professionals boasts a robust group of users with 400 million registered members in more 200 countries.

24. More Than 2 People Sign up for LinkedIn Every Second

Not only is the network bigits growing. According to the companys page, more than two people sign up for LinkedIn every second.

25. LinkedIn Has More Than 40 Million Students & Recent Grads

The LinkedInnetwork isnt just vast, its comprised of professionals. Over 40 million students and recent grads use the site, which makes sense as they may be the most in need of jobs.

YouTube Statistics

26. YouTube Has Over 1 Billion Users

The video sharing giant that is YouTube boasts over 1 billion users, which is a massive audience. As video content becomes more prevalent, its important to remember YouTube as a site to share your content.

27. People Watch Hundreds of Millions of Hours on YouTube Daily

Not only have people flocked to YouTube in numbers, but they also consume an incredible amount of content from the site. Every day people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube.

28. 80% of YouTube Views Are From Outside the US

Just like most other social networks, YouTube has a big audience outside of the US. In fact, 80% of YouTube views actually come from outside of the U.S.

Now that you have a better idea of how often you should spend time engaging on social, and on what networks you should work toward establishing a better presence, use that information to turn social media into channel you can use to stay ahead of your competition!

This post 28 Social Media Statistics Every Marketer Should Know originally appeared on Sprout Social.