The Growth of Small Business Analytics

There were two very interesting blog posts related to the use of analytics by small businesses over the last week.  Both caught my eye as interesting examples of the trend towards analytical software and automation.

The first comes from Tim Berry's blog via MyVenturepad.  Tim writes about the Huffington Post using A/B testing to pick article headlines.  Online A/B testing is a process where different people are randomly shown different versions of a web page, or in this case different article headlines.  After testing with a number of people, the version with the most success (in this case clicks) is then shown to everyone else. 

A/B testing has been in use for a long time in the direct mail industry and is commonly used by larger online firms.  It is interesting to see the use has spread to things like article headlines.

The other post comes from the American Express Open Forum blog and is written by Anita Campbell.  The article, Are You Ready For the Trend towards Marketing Automation, discusses the growing number of systems a small business can use to automate marketing processes.

The use of analytical tools is becoming key to business success, regardless of the size of the firm.  Small businesses need to be aware of this trend and understand how analytics can improve their performance.  These two articles are a good place to start.

Comments

[Joey]

Thanks so much for this great article. I love A/B testing. When I first started my business (with dreams of how to make big bucks in my mind) I had my website developed. I did not do A/B testing at first. I would just throw a website down for a few weeks and make changes as I saw fit. That was a huge mistake for my business. As soon as I started doing the A/B testing, I started to notice what was working, and what was not. It really helped my business out because I finally knew what was best for my customers. Thanks again for the great post.

[marketing automation software]

Thanks for the post Steve. It's almost vital small to medium sized businesses use tools such as marketing automation to support revenue generation initiatives. Smaller organizations typically do not have formal and structured sales and marketing practices. Marketing automation can help implement lead qualification, lead distribution, lead nurturing in a systematic way. It can also help identify website visitors as new leads. Effectively, it's like getting a new sales person on your team at a fraction of the price.

[Fitzgeraldf]

Analytics is very hard for all of us. While prices vary widely for web analytics software, these tools are well within the reach of most small businesses.

[RedHotFranchises]

Indeed, and the web will continue to evolve, we have to constantly keep our minds open and be prepared to a whole new change, the sooner the better.

[Andrew]

The tools are going to be fantastic. I can't wait to see what the next generation of apps can do. It's awesome seeing the progression of the web over the last decade.