© Business.com Media, Inc. All rights reserved. | 888.441.4466

© Business.com Media, Inc. All rights reserved. | 888.441.4466

Table Of Contents

• Overview – Page 1

• Defining Business Intelligence– Page 1 & 2

• Email Analytics & Insights for Small Businesses– Page 3

• Social Analytics & Insights for Small Businesses– Page 4 & 5

• Cost-Effective Vendors for Added Insight & Analysis– Page 6

• Conclusion – Page 7

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An Introduction to Big Data & Big Intelligence

If you’ve read any popular business

journals in the past 12 months, you’ve probably

seen the term “Big Data” often, and everywhere.

The term itself describes the collection and

management of large, complex data sets amassed

by both public and private sectors.

The use and perhaps even the misuse of “Big

Data” has spawned a burgeoning “Business

Intelligence” industry, which is dedicated to

helping governments and corporations

comprehend and capitalize on this vast wealth

of business information.

This fast-developing, tech-focused industry uses

this treasure trove of information to produce reports

that enable leaders to detect trends and spot

opportunities that could otherwise be lost in the

information abyss.

While large corporations invest millions into

Business Intelligence systems and talent,

opportunities exist for small businesses to develop

cost-effective “Small Data” reports that can be just

as useful to improving processes and impacting the

bottom line.

Before you start sifting through your latest online

marketing reports looking for clues, it’s beneficial to

gain a basic understanding of the theory and

concept of Business Intelligence.

Then, knowing that you don’t have the budget or

bandwidth of a Fortune 500 company at your

disposal, we’ll introduce you to several cost-effective

ways you can begin applying this concept to the data

captured by your existing sales and marketing

systems. The end result should be an actionable set

of advice that you – the small business owner – can

you use to enhance the efficiency and profitability of

your business.

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Defining Business Intelligence

As defined by Forrester Research, Business

Intelligence is “a set of methodologies, processes,

architectures, and technologies that transform raw

data into meaningful and useful information used to

enable more effective strategic, tactical, and

operational insights and decision-making.”

While the term Business Intelligence (BI) has been

around for decades, the practice has recently

accelerated very rapidly, closely following the

explosion of technological and software innovation

seen in recent years. In practice, BI broadly

describes the different ways large and small

businesses use raw data to draw conclusions

about how their business is operating, where it’s

going, and how it can improve.

These processes include many related activities, but

most often include data mining, online analytical

processing, data querying and reporting, predictive

modeling, and optimization.

Many factors affect the success rate of a BI project,

but common elements shared by large and small

businesses exist; the level of allegiance to and

availability of these core components can make or

break a BI solution:

• Commitment by the leaders or owners of the

business to implementation and on-going

analysis of data is a must

• There must be an importance placed on the

insight derived from BI

• Consistent data sets are require for analysis

If these criteria are met, and all parties involved are

aligned, then the preceding sections should provide

some strategic guidance you can use to measure

your activities and draw some business intelligence

from your “Small Data” reports.

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Email Analytics & Insights for Small Businesses

When starting down the road of BI,

it’s critical to define some foundational metrics

upon on which the “Small Data” insights and

analysis will be built upon. One of the keys to

gaining an accurate understanding from reporting

is to understand which metrics and key

performance indicators (KPI’s) should be evaluated

between channels, and the data sets generated by

each.

In this section we’ll discuss how you can use data

derived from common small business functions to

gain greater insight into your business.

Making Sense of Email Marketing Reports

According to The Small and Midsize Business

Email Marketing Survey from 2013, 56% of

businesses said they planned to increase their use

of email marketing in 2013.

Below is a list of common email marketing metrics

that nearly every organization tracks and measures,

regardless of size:

Overall Traffic Volume – Is your web traffic

increasing or decreasing over time? Did a specific

email or promotion cause the increase?

Referring Domains/URLs – Where is your traffic

coming from? Consider investing online

marketing/advertising dollars there.

Number of Visits – How well are you reaching

visitors with your current marketing activities?

New Visitors / Returning Visitors (ratio) – Are you

gaining new visitors, or mostly attracting repeat

visits? Which is most important to you?

Time on Site - Is your website content engaging to

visitors? Does it need to be?

Entry Pages – Which pages attract the most visits?

Why?

Exit Pages – Which pages do visitors leave most?

Why?

Geographic Data – Where in the world are your

visitors located?

Search Keywords – Evaluate the most popular

keywords and incorporate them into online and even

offline campaigns.

56%

44%

Source: iContact

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Social Analytics & Insights for Small Businesses

Fact: Social Media is here to stay.

While the popularity of social media networks can

and probably will change over time, the power and

reach of social media for small businesses is

undeniable, and should be included as part of an

integrated marketing campaign.

It’s our intent to show you metrics you can use to

see how well people are engaging with and

responding to your posts, on both Facebook and

Twitter. Since bot networks are unique and

independent of each other, we’ll break out the data

associated with each, to provide you with metrics

you can use to measure your businesses social

media success.

Facebook

From a marketing standpoint, Facebook is all about

reach and shared content, which is why it’s critical

to focus your attention on post metrics, or how well

your posts are received/performing on the social

network.

Considering the size and reach of your small

business on Facebook, we’ve come up with the

following Facebook metrics which you can use to

see how well your content reaches and resonates

with your Fan base:

Fan Reach- This number tells you how many

people actually saw your post. Odds are your posts

will not reach 100% of your audience, let alone

10% of them – you need to understand this right off

the bat.

What’s important here is to realize that you can

monitor Fan Reach by Organic vs Paid, where

Organic Reach shows you the number of unique

people who saw your post in the News Feed

(includes viral reach), and Paid Reach tells you the

number of unique people who saw your post through

an ad.

Engagement Rate- This percentage is derived from

dividing how many people clicked, liked, shared, and

commented on your Facebook post, by the number

of people who saw the post.

If your posts lack engagement, Facebook will

gradually reduce the number of times a Fan will see

your post in their News Feed – this is not a good

thing. Keep an eye on this metric and tweak your

content strategy if you see it decreasing over time.

Click-Through Rates

If one of your main goals with your Facebook posts is

to drive users to your web site, then you’ll want to

pay close attention to Link Clicks. If your post is

receiving Likes but not clicks, you may be driving

engagement but not hitting your overall goals.

Again, content and perhaps copywriting tweaks may

be needed.

When Your Fans Are Online

Facebook shows you when your fans are most active

on the network, doing the things that people do –

updating statuses, browsing photos, etc. This is a

fantastic benefit, as it allows you to focus your Posts

to the days/times when your Fans are most present

and likely to engage with your content.

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Social Analytics & Insights for Small Businesses

Twitter

As a small business on Twitter, quality trumps

quantity. To elaborate, it’s better to have 1,000

interested, active Followers than 10,000 people

who pay little to no attention to any of your Tweets.

Your goal on Twitter should be to build a

following of people who are interested in

your business and engaged in your Tweets,

simply because doing so will increase the

chances that they’ll become paying

customers, if they aren’t already.

This said, pay less attention to the size of your

following, and more attention to quality interactions

and measurable conversions.

Interactions on Twitter

Interactions can be tracked by monitoring how

many times your content is Retweeted, mentioned,

and replied to; you can also track the amount of

direct messages received and the number of lists

you are in - all great indicators that your business

and content is well-received by your following.

Tools like SocialBro, Hootsuite, and Buffer are

affordable options that allow small businesses and

marketers to track and analyze which interactions

garner the highest engagement rates.

Conversions on Twitter

Conversions can be directly monitored by tracking

the number of link clicks performed via your Tweets.

Using a URL shorteners such as Bit.ly and Ow.ly

help to conform to Twitter’s 140 character limit and

track link clicks from specific Tweets. You can then

use a web analytics tool like Google Analytics to

determine how much of your site traffic is coming

from Twitter, and even integrate with it to realize the

full sales funnel.

.

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Cost-Effective Vendors for Added Insight & Analysis

If you’re looking to take your

Business Intelligence capabilities a step

further, these online vendors offer cost-effective

tools to help you extract even more insight from

your digital marketing initiatives.

MailChimp

More than 5 million people use MailChimp to

create, send, and track email newsletters. Create

signup forms that match your brand's look and feel,

and send your subscribers product updates, event

invitations, announcements, or editorial content.

Use reports to improve your campaigns and learn

more about your subscribers. Free for lists of up to

2,000 subscribers.

KISSmetrics is a great compliment to Google

Analytics, as it helps provide more insight into your

customers, allowing you to analyze website visitor

behaviors change over time, identify patterns and

see the most typical and recent referrers, among

other stats.

Alexa helps small and medium sized businesses

succeed on the web. Their tools help benchmark

your site's performance against your competitors, as

well as provide tools to generate more traffic and

optimize your site.

Quantcast Measure provides free, accurate and

dependable audience insights for over 100 million

web and mobile destinations. With detailed

demographic, geographic and lifestyle information, it

gives you the best understanding of your online,

mobile web and mobile app audiences.

Crazy Egg overlays heat maps on your web site, so

you can see where users click and how they interact

with your site. Use it if you’re considering a redesign

or if you’re looking for ideas on how to improve

elements of your web site.

As shown in this report, small business owners can

create actionable reports that drive strategic decision

without having to invest in expensive software or new

talent. By understanding the data that’s currently

available, monitoring it regularly, drawing

conclusions from it, and acting upon it, small

businesses can thrive in the exciting new era of Big

Data and Business Intelligence.

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Rapid technological growth and increased availability of business data

has opened the door for companies of all sizes to better understand

consumers, improve efficiencies, and increase profitability.