Look at your stats! Statistics are important tools for horse business owners (or any business owner for that matter!). If you use them correctly, you’ll have invaluable insight into your current customers, potential customers, the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, and general return on investment (ROI, in case you haven’t heard that one).
1. Google Analytics
For websites, if you haven’t already, make sure to set up your Google Analytics….and use it! You can’t make informed business decisions without knowing how your website is performing. Get your head out of the sand and look at them, and here’s a great reason why!
I was working with a client the other day and we were looking at her web stats. We checked the bounce rates (in case you didn’t know, a bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on your home page and leave within a short period of time without interacting with any of the content).
Anyway, for the first 10 months of the year, the bounce rate was between 2 and 5% (pretty good!). Then the last few months, that LEAPT up to around the 50 % mark and has stayed there…
We have a few suspicions as to why, but the point is if things are not going to plan on your e-commerce site, look for anything that has changed dramatically, so you have a starting point for investigation!
2. Instagram & Facebook Statistics
Instagram and Facebook statistics are a bit easier for some people to tackle, especially compared to Google Analytics. If you have a business account set up for Instagram or a business page on Facebook, you can see reach, impressions, profile views, and website clicks. Don’t pay too much attention to “vanity stats”…..you know, the huge number of impressions your post got. While it’s super exciting to see that number go up, it’s not a good indicator of how your account is doing.
And truth be told, vanity stats don’t add to your bottom line. You want to focus on post interactions and clicks. Clicks are gold! They are the first step to getting a sales conversion.
3. Pinterest Analytics
All social media accounts will give you slightly different statistics. Pinterest analytics are kind of neat because they will tie into your website. You can see click-throughs rates (aka clicks or CTR), saves, and impressions. Again, impressions are not super important for your goals as a horse business owner.
The goal here is engagement (clicks) over likes and sales over followers.
Bottom line, look at your stats, look for changes, investigate and make changes. You’ve got so much free customer information at your fingertips! Use it!