As a marketer, analytics are at the top of the list of exciting benefits of a website. For the first time in marketing history, anyone can access the real effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

When we first launched our campaign targeting local businesses two years ago, we used earned media and radio and newspaper advertisements to deliver our message. My hope was that 10 to 20 businesses would call to schedule a presentation of the Community Marketing Program. What we received were three calls from businesses that were not in our targeted group. However, the analytics said that hundreds of people visited our website.

So, what does that mean? It meant that our message hit the mark, but what we wanted them to do was not clear or appealing to them. Without the analytics, I would not have known where we went wrong with the campaign and may have, as they say, thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

What I love about analytics is that if you pay attention, you can discover the things that you’re doing that are making a connection with potential customers. For us, we learned that there was an interest for marketing help from local businesses, but we had to be more creative in engaging their desire to reach out to us.

How often do you review your company’s analytics? What are you looking for and how do you use the information you find? Drop me a note and tell how you use analytics and why.

Guy Williams is the president of Community Marketing Associates. He can be reached at gwilliams@commmktgassoc.com.