» Nahila asks
What tools/software can I use to gather and analyze customer data for marketing purposes? What about tools to manage the effectiveness of my marketing and ad campaigns?
I run an e-commerce business that sells children’s clothes so I want to understand buying patterns, get ideas for new product categories, inventory levels. Also I do email and mail marketing offers and am not sure how to tell they are effective or how to compare.
I am doing this all pretty manually now … and lucky for me business is growing so fast this just isn’t practical or accurate anymore.
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There’s a lot to address there, Nahila. The first thing I want to address is your desire to “understand buying patterns.” I would think that your e-commerce web site / software / applications should be able to help you with this. I’d be surprised if there isn’t some kind of reporting available in your e-commerce suite. If there isn’t, then maybe you should think about changing / upgrading to one that does include some sort of reporting and trend analysis. Talk with your e-commerce web site host, and see if there is some help available through them or perhaps a feature that you pay for but aren’t using.
Another thing you bring up is getting “ideas for new product categories.” I’m not sure if there is a tool or software that will do that, but I strongly encourage you to kick around ideas with your friends and family. Ask them for honest opinions and constructive criticism. Also, think of ways you could ask your current customers what else they want from you, and don’t be afraid to find bulletin boards and forums where like-minded business people discuss ideas.
Nahila,
I agree with Shane that you are covering a wide area with your question.
So let’s break it down into some manageable chunks:
(1) Understand buying patterns: If your ecommerce package does not have stats (or doesn’t give you enough data) a good starting package to use is Google Analytics. The program is free, so there is little risk to trying it. Very likely it will give you a lot of the data you are looking for to help you understand buying patterns. However, to use Google Analytics on an ecommerce site requires a little extra set-up compared with a non-ecommerce site. The following article is part 1 in a 4-part series on how to use Google Analytics for an ecommerce site — it provides great context and detailed set-up information:
http://www.epikone.com/blog/2008/01/13/google-analytics-e-commerce-tracking-pt-1-how-it-works/
Google Analytics may sound a little complex to set up initially. But in the long run it will provide you with valuable insights and save you a lot of time over doing things manually (as you’ve found out, manual doesn’t scale well as your business grows!).
(2) Tracking performance of email marketing and direct mail — By using individual landing pages for each offer, along with Google Analytics, you should be able to measure how well each campaign results in sales.
Also, when it comes to email marketing, there are a variety of solutions that help you track the effectiveness of individual email campaigns (and automatic the process of managing your subscriber database, as well as the mailings). Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and Campaigner are some of them. These services tell you how many messages were opened, exactly what people clicked through on, etc.
Nahila, you may have identified a nice gap in the market for some entrepreneur! Because you need to pull together a lot of different pieces to make it work.
I would agree with Anita that Google Analytics (GA) is the best place to start as a) it is free, so no risk to start b) they have an API, which means that entrepreneurs may build systems that are more tuned to your specific needs (in meantime you need to spend some time hacking around GA) and c) it is so widely used that you can hire people (if you have the cash) to do specific work on GA to suit your needs.
Re email marketing I suggest categorizing your needs as:
Either: mass email, only small amounts of personalization. The tools that Anita mentions are good and there are many others. I have heard good things about weber.com
Or: highly personalized, lots of one to one but also plenty of canned responses and small scale newsletters/blasts. I use a product called relenta.com and like it a lot.
The tools to create landing pages, offer affiliate tracking etc? Hmmm…. not sure of a cheap and cheerful tool for that.