What You MUST Understand About Your Web Numbers
Two years ago, when I first started selling online, I focused on doing what I did best: generating useful content that people would want to pay for. But I quickly learned that selling a product online required me to have to learn about ... ...my Web statistics. "Yuck! Why should I have to do this?" I thought. "I'm not a numbers person. Such small details! I want to spend time on big ideas." Then after a few months of poor sales, I realized I needed to learn more about my numbers so I could learn how to improve my results. (You can't improve something that you can't measure.) After getting acquainted with my statistics, I not only realized that this information would help me immensely, but I was relieved that it wasn't so hard after all. It was just unfamiliar. There are four types of basic "Web numbers" I want you to understand. Don't worry - if I can handle this, you can too! 1. Sales HOW MANY SALES are you making? This should be easy to determine on your end. 2. Unique Visitors HOW MANY PEOPLE are visiting your site? To know this, you'll need to know your number of unique visitors. Do NOT confuse unique visitors with "hits," which refers to number of graphics downloaded. (For example, if you have a Web page with 10 graphics, 10 hits would equal one visitor.) Your Web host may already provide some stats you can access, but many of these programs are hard to understand and only track hits. If this is the case, it's well worth it to use a low-cost outside tracking service such as WebSTAT (www.WebStat.com) that will show you your number of unique visitors. 3. Sales Conversion Rate Here's where we start with some math. Take your number of sales during a given time, and divide it by your number of visitors during that time. We'll walk through this in a minute. 4. Value per Visitor This tells you how much each visitor is worth to you. It's basically your selling price times your conversion rate. Let's Walk Through It Together Say Suzy Q runs a site that sells a special report on how to teach your dog to do a back flip. The report sells for $20. Last month she had 50 online sales. Her Web stats show that during that month she had 1,500 unique visitors. First let's figure her sales conversion rate - sales divided by visitors. 50 / 1,500 = .0333. We'll round it down to .03. (If we're talking about percentages, that's about 3%. Or 3 sales for each 100 visitors.) Now, let's determine her value per visitor. The report sells for $20, and we now know that her sales conversion rate is .03. So .03 x $20 = $.60. That means each visitor is worth 60 cents to Suzy, whether they buy or not. (Here's a longer way of doing this but it may make more sense to you: Based on Suzy's current conversion rate, she makes an average of 3 sales per 100 visitors. 3 x $20 = $60. So for every 100 visitors she makes an average of $60. $60 / 100 visitors = $0.60 per visitor.) This number tells Suzy how much it's worth spending to get a visitor to her site. For example, if she decides to advertise on a pay-per-click search engine, she knows that $0.60 is the maximum she'd want to bid. (For a beginner's guide to pay-per-click search engines, see my article at www.ezine-queen.com/payclick.htm) FR*EE Calculations Template Would you like a free fill-in-the-blanks template to help you make the calculations above? I've put one together for you! Send a blank e-mail to ali-39796@autocontactor.com and you'll receive it automatically. What to DO With Your Numbers First of all, look at your unique visitors. If your numbers aren't as high as you'd like, work on attracting more prospects to your site via your e-zine, search engine listings, advertisements, articles, etc. Then look at your sales conversion rate. If it's around 2-3%, you're doing pretty well for online sales, according to what many Internet experts share. Some months my conversion rate has been as high as 6%, but it typically hovers around 4%. Some marketers with hot products have reported conversion rates up to 10 or 20%. (Hey, it gives us something to shoot for!) Aim to continually improve your sales copy and your sales offer to boost your results. Keep a log of what changes you make and when you make them so you can see which factors help or hinder your sales. (There's a place for these notes in that template I created for you.) Don't Sweat It This may seem foreign to you right now, but once it becomes familiar, you'll actually have fun with it. And there's more where this came from, once you're ready! (c) 2003 Alexandria K. Brown ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is author of the award-winning manual, "Boost Business With Your Own E-zine." To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Incentives For Customers? Whats New?
Lost & Found for the 21st Century
Turbo-Charge Your Viral Marketing- Five Easy Ways
The world of marketing has changed. With increasingly better educated and more skeptical consumers, marketing methods must be increasingly accountable.
Creative Marketing: Just Your Style
You've enlisted some of the traditional marketing
methods to sell your services: you received some
publicity in your local paper; your website is up and
running; and you're listed in the Yellow Pages. So
why isn't the phone ringing off the hook? Maybe
you're marketing strategies need to get more creative!
Making the Intangible Real
How do you make the intangible real? How do you take an idea or concept, something that can't be seen or touched, and convey its essence to others, quickly and easily?
Is Your Marketing Working...
That is the question, you should be asking yourself. Many feel that it is I'm sure. But is it really!
Seven Secrets For Building Customer Loyalty In Your Restaurant
Imagine how much your sales and profits would increase if each of your customers come back just one more time a week or a month. You would boost your sales by 50%. Getting your existing customer base to visit more often is easier than you think. This is because, unlike a prospective customer who has never dined at your restaurant, your existing customer has already tried your food and service and therefore trusts you. Here are seven strategies for getting your customers to come back again and again.
The Truth About The Fallacy Of 7
Ted Nicholas is a marketer with a proven track record. He has started, operated and sold 21 profitable businesses, and is responsible for the direct or indirect publishing of hundreds of books and publications. Ted Nicholas is a well- known and respected leader in the information marketing business.
How to Market and Protect Your New Ideas
The intellectual property transfer market is now estimated to be worth over $100 billion. If you have a new idea, a patent or an invention, you may be able to license it or sell it for millions of dollars. Many Fortune 500 companies are now making their intellectual property available for sale or licensing at new online intellectual-property exchanges. These companies are trying to maximize their return on research and development investment and generate a new source of revenue by licensing their unused and underutilized inventions to others.
10 Ways to Get Your Flyers Noticed
An inexpensive way to promote your services is to createvarious flyers and distribute them wherever you go -- pinthem to the bulletin boards at the library, bookstore,handout out at networking events, or playing tennis. Hereare 10 tips on how to get your flyer noticed and remembered.
Postcards ? Picture Perfect Promotion
There is a simple but almost mystical law which governs promotion and marketing and their relationship to the amount of business generated: business will come in to the degree that you get your message out, promote, let people know you are there, advertise, write to people, call people, e-mail people and generally communicate to existing or potential clients.
Marketing is More Than a Token Process
"Necessity is the mother of invention!" The first time I heard this was nearly twenty years ago when I was introduced to Tony Robbins' material. I was listening to, and applying, information from his thirty day series. I have to admit, the first time I heard this it didn't quite register.
Writing Marketing Copy That Sells
When your prospects see your marketing materials, your brochure, your web site or your ads you want them to read them. You want prospects to read not just the first sentence but the majority of your copy. Once they've read it, you want them to decide that they need your product or service and either make a purchase or contact you for more information.
Good Vibes/ Bad Vibes
Have you ever walked into a store or business and felt uncomfortable there for no apparent reason? Have you ever walked into a store all happy and left quite frustrated? Have you ever wished your house could feel happier? The process called energetic clearing can make a significant improvement to any location.
Make Your Marketing Solve a Problem
You may be engaged in a marketing activities that are working against you. Or, at the very least, are making sales more difficult. It's a common problem - marketing that focuses on what your company can DO and what your company KNOWS and how much experience you HAVE.
How Would You Handle This?
We have been talking about choosing groups to participate in that meet your needs and goals as a business professional. Once the decision is made on which groups to belong to, then a certain level of participation is required in order to achieve the individual goals set by the business professional.
Heres A Robust, Turnkey, Interactive. Best of Breed, Mission-Critical Solution to Kill Buzzwords
Fellow Publicity Insiders, what does this phrase mean?
"We envision a center of excellence where our accelerated changeagents can maximize their core competencies."
Huh? - or - "The company is a global leader in pressure-sensitivetechnology and innovative self-adhesive solutions for consumerproducts and label materials."
Clue: they make stickers.
Pity the poor reporters who have to dig through this pile ofdrivel to find a news story. Free help is here. Bullfighter, anaptly-named software program from Deloitte Consulting, works likea spelling checker program to spot questionable words and phrasesin Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents. Bullfighter can bedownloaded at:
http://www.dc.com/insights/bullfighter/
For a humorous & irreverent look at buzzword bashing thatincludes real-life, buzz-laden press releases and pitch letters,go to:
http://www.buzzkiller.net/default.htm
Have a seamless, win-win day!
Wife?s Marketing Prowess Helped Edison See the Light
It is well known that Thomas Edison was an inventor, a genius, and he never slept. Did you know that Mrs. Edison was a genius and never slept too? She was the marketing guru behind his engineering success.
True, Tom had discovered what is today known as the light bulb. When he showed it to the Mrs. Mina Edison, his second wife, she asked "what are you going to call it?"
Five Mistakes Absolutely Guaranteed to Drive Away Your Best Clients
We all work hard to attract even one paying client. In fact, we work hard to attract serious inquiries. Yet amazingly, many business owners seem determined to drive away business! Every example cited here is based on true, thoroughly documented experiences, with both newbie business owners and five-star marquee players.
Deciphering Marketing Lingo: Whats the Difference between a USP, Single Message and a Tagline?
Maybe you've heard these different marketing terms, maybe you haven't. Either way, let me help to clarify the difference between them, because you should have all three if you want to market successfully. And knowing what they are may be your first step to accomplishing all three for your business.
Marry Your Marketing Plan
Make a vow to keep up your marketing schedule in good times and not so good times.
|
