Economies all over the world are increasingly relying on knowledge for financial prosperity rather than reliance on natural resources. Business organizations are no longer exempted from the switch to a knowledge economic structure as the quality of information an organization has about its product, market and consumer expectation is as important as the quality of the product itself.
For startups, these “undisclosed” information war could appear overwhelming when compared with the quality of market intelligence at the disposal of blue chip corporations but such fears are simply over blown because analytics are accessible by start ups for the same uses as their larger counterparts.
Today, simple information analysis tools do more than most startup founders could imagine. In practical terms, analytics are digital services used to track and report website traffic, content consumption patterns etc. These can be used for bench-marking, industry intelligence and online reputation audits.
Analytics helps users understand the behavior of component groups of users. In addition, it provides answers in form of graphs, charts, percentage change and comparative rates. For instance, consider the following questions:
- How much traffic does your website generate at any given period?
- Where does the majority of that traffic come from: country, state and city?
- What are some key demographics of your target audience: age, gender and social status?
Getting answers to these questions can go a long way in determining how successful a startup is. It may be assumed that an entrepreneur who understands the demographic features of his target audience and their changing preferences through market intelligence is likely to accurately predict consumer needs than his counterpart who is not.
This is where analytics support start ups to constantly check, review and test content, products and services and how people respond to the changes made over a period of time. In addition, analytics also show you what people really want when they get into your organisation’s website. It has the potential to increase business efficiency as website owners can now know which online marketing channel is effective in terms of traffic generation and which one is just a cost pusher.
The most popular analytics service is Google Analytics, a free web service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. To start collecting basic data from a website or mobile app: Visit google.com/analytics, click the Sign in to Analytics button and follow the on-screen instructions. The service is basically free and accessibility is flexible. Operating a Google analytics account is as easy as operating a Gmail account.
