Orders are easy; you get the money, you give some of it to your supplier, the supplier handles the rest. It is very simple, very straightforward. Analytic reporting and analyzing is something that is our personal responsibility as the website owner. No one is going to twist our arm and make us do anything, like a supplier would for a delinquent payment, yet this is something far more important to the success of your business.
Always Keep a Log
The way in which you log is not as important as it is that you are logging your results. Be it in a spreadsheet that you will track results, or in a notepad, the important thing is you find something that works for you. The spreadsheet is the ‘normal’ answer, but if you’re not comfortable with it, don’t use it! Write by hand if that’s better for you, write it in a simple word processing document. This has to be something that is easy for you, or you are going to think of excuses not to do it.
A lot of marketing is going to boil down to running PPC campaigns, changing text on your homepage, and a host of other seemingly small, similar things. If we do not take the time to analyze what our efforts are actually doing, then there is no point in doing it. We cannot throw money or time into a machine, and expect results. We have to see in what areas our advertising is succeeding, and where it is failing, and change things accordingly. There are no hard or fast answers that can be given; your market is unique, and you have to work within it to be successful.
But with a little bit of extra planning, and weekly due diligence, we’ll be able to take full advantage of all that advertising gives us. Running a business is work, but if we take that little extra effort day to day, we’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results!
I read this African Proverb a while back and I think it can be useful in business related topics. It reads, “Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or an antelope – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” To me this says, if you don’t prepare today to be running when tomorrow comes, you’re already in big trouble. It also means that no matter where you stand in the food chain, whether you are a Mom and Pop store or a big corporate entity, you had better hit the ground running every morning.
