Tag Archives: analytics

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Trend Tracker Is Free Help from Yelp

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Launched in 2014 at the platform’s 10th anniversary, Yelp’s Trend Tracker is receiving so much flattering business press of late that it feels like a relaunch (and I’m sure it is)! If you operate a small business and maintain an active Yelp account, whether or not you subscribe to Trend Tracker, Yelp is talking to you. If you’re a Freelance solopreneur who’s claimed your free Yelp listing and then dropped the subject, Yelp is talking to you, too. Or maybe you’re a self-employed professional, a Freelancer or SMB owner, who does not have an active Yelp account? Whatever the case, Yelp and Yelp’s Trend Tracker beckon with insightful and potentially actionable data that pertains to your industry and can support your mission to build a profitable and sustainable business entity.

What is Yelp’s Trend Tracker?

Trend Tracker is an AI-powered, cloud-based tool that monitors customer searches, reviews and interactions to identify trending topics in real time. Trend Tracker reveals and reports customer search patterns, behavior and emerging customer preferences across a broad array of industries. Trend Tracker harvests data from unique searches the Yelp platform receives each month (178 million in January 2025) and measures the frequency of specific phrases and topics used in those searches. This data sheds light on what you want to know, from customer purchasing trends to popular B2B and B2C services. Furthermore, Trend Tracker goes beyond search terms and also analyzes the text of customer reviews, to further clarify the picture.

It can literally pay to know this stuff because from time to time it may be worthwhile to respond to certain information. You may decide, for example, to update the key words in your content marketing material if Trend Tracker data indicates that target customers have begun to use certain terms when searching your product or service category.

Free market research for Freelancers and SMBs

Trend Tracker analytic insights are available free of charge—join the mailing list and you’ll receive data that is relevant and updated monthly and enables those who pay attention to access boots-on-the-ground marketing insights that can potentially help to promote your products and services more effectively. Supported by Trend Tracker, you’ll be positioned to detect and quickly respond to customer preferences, adjust marketing strategies and/or tactics to better align with shifting customer priorities and maybe even tweak your service or product line to reflect a significant shift in customer tastes.

When business decisions are guided by relevant, reliable data, decision-makers are more likely to achieve their intended outcomes. Decisions and actions that are guided by what matters to prospects and customers IRT will be immensely helpful to business owners. One of the biggest advantages of Trend Tracker is its ability to give you the heads-up on developing trends before they go mainstream and giving you time to update your position and be among the first providers to capitalize on emerging customer demand. Trend Tracker enables you to:

  • Identify emerging customer interests before they become mainstream
  • Adjust marketing strategies and tactics to respond to customer interests in a timely fashion
  • Create events and promotions that reflect developing trends
  • Improve your brand’s online visibility and search engine optimization with trending keywords
  • Stay ahead of competitors (who may not have access to reliable data-driven insights)

What else can Trend Tracker do for you?

So what’s trending that applies to you? Trustworthy intel is what’s trending and it applies to your entity in many ways. Trend Tracker data can even be a resource when you must conduct market research to evaluate your business planning, from the feasibility of scaling or expanding your venture to clarifying your decision-making as you verify, or rethink, a side hustle you hope to launch. News flash! Re: business planning, can we acknowledge that Freelancing does not exclusively pertain to B2B services such as marketing, website development, graphic arts and shooting and editing videos? Can we recognize that Freelance expertise can also be applied to a B2C service entity? In other words, could it be that upgrading home interiors is a more satisfying expression of your entrepreneurial talent than cybersecurity? That seems to be the case for the Property Brothers.

You may be interested to know that the Trend Tracker September 2024 issue reported that in 2024, home services produced record growth for business owners in that industry across the U.S. and drove an all-time revenue bonanza for the category. Trend Tracker data indicated that in 2024, home services were the fastest-growing segment of B2C services in every U.S. state plus Washington D.C. and was the top category for new business launches among all industry categories on Yelp as well. This still trending growth cycle is fueled by renter-friendly home upgrade projects. As many citizens come to recognize that attaining home ownership or trading up from starter house to a more spacious (and grand) residence is unaffordable, remaining in the current home for a longer period of time has become yet another New Normal reality.

As a way to make home feel more comfortable or look more stylish, people are investing in improvements that upgrade living spaces without upsetting the landlord. Another home services industry hot spot, this one pertaining to homeowners, is weatherproofing services that make homes more resilient to what seems like increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Trend Tracker data shows that Yelp users have increased searches for both renter-friendly and homeowner services—could responding to the growing demand become your side hustle or even your full-time Freelance or SMB enterprise? Aspiring business owners have set up shop as Freelance solopreneurs and SMBs to address those priorities, which resulted in big increases in Yelp searches in 2024 vs. 2023:

  • home organization (+362%),
  • peel and stick tile (+73%),
  • wallpapering (+41%),
  • snow removal (+36%)
  • home automation (+27%),
  • drapery installation (+11%)
  • waterproofing (+23%)

In sum, Trend Tracker can be a game-changer that might potentially have a direct impact on your ability to gain or maintain competitive advantage and monitor customer priorities—and maybe even launch a successful business or side hustle. Tara Lewis, who spent 15 years at Yelp helping businesses connect with their target customers and also served as its trend expert, advises that the best way to get started with Yelp’s Trend Tracker is to check out the latest trends noted in the monthly newsletter and pick one insight to test in your business this month. Lewis says that even a small adjustment can lead to noticeable improvements in brand visibility and sales revenue generated. She recommends the following:

  • Practice authenticity in trend-chasing. Don’t just follow trends; make them your own to help your business stand out.
  • Connect with valued customers through shared trending interests. Form meaningful connections with your community by creating events and social spaces that appeal to those who matter most.
  • Use Yelp Trend Tracker data to highlight what you already offer. Your business may be in tune with rising trends — adapt your marketing strategy to make these products or services more visible to customers.
  • Position your business for long-term trends, not just momentary fads. Some trends are fleeting; others reflect larger shifts in consumer behavior. Identify trends with staying power and incorporate them into your business vision.
  • Your brand’s unique personality is your trendiest asset. Lean into what makes your business distinctive to set yourself apart and keep customers coming back.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: © Freepik

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Getting Serious About Social Media

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What criteria guide your approach to social media? With few exceptions, your marketing strategy can’t be called comprehensive unless at least one social media platform is in the mix. It’s a highly effective tool and not only that— using social media doesn’t cost money (it does require time) and it has the power to amplify your traditional marketing tactics by re-posting text, audio and image content onto your chosen platforms. But like all marketing initiatives, social media requires thought and planning. To make success possible you must develop a credible strategy, starting with choosing (maybe three or four?) objectives you’d like to achieve.

Along with your objectives, you’ll also want to be mindful that certain audiences have an affinity for certain platforms and certain platforms are more suitable for some types of products or services and not so much for others. Moreover, it makes sense to assess the amount of time you can reasonably expect to devote to your social media updates, because fresh and relevant content are key. It will be much more favorable to establish a presence on one or two platforms and make it all pop with engaging and timely content instead of wading into multiple platforms on which you post only sporadically.

Once you launch your campaign, it’s advisable to continually monitor your performance analytics and watch for feedback. Be certain to respond quickly to customer service needs or comments and second, you want to measure visitor response to your content. Both metrics can inform your content topics, plus encourage customer engagement and feelings of loyalty. Focus your efforts where they’ll reap the greatest return on investment (ROI).

Finally, social media audiences on every platform are viewing content creators with increasing skepticism. Content consumers now demand authenticity from the influencers and brands they follow. Be genuine in your approach to social media (and all) marketing so that you’ll earn the trust, respect, loyalty—and business!— of your target audience. Below are common drivers of B2B social media objectives:

  • Website traffic
  • Brand awareness
  • Lead generation
  • PR mentions

Strategy

Devise an overall strategy that keeps your social media presence on-message and active. Establish your brand on platforms whose audience demographics and content style best showcases the products or services you promote. Every few months, you might want to color outside the lines, maybe with a fun collaboration with a complementary (and never competing) brand, a contest, or a (non-controversial) social or health awareness initiative that can stimulate positive customer engagement and even expand your audience.

Brand identity

A strong brand identity provides a consistent, dependable and ultimately reassuring experience for your social media audience. By establishing a recognizable brand identity, (you and) your business will be positioned to cultivate a loyal following that remains engaged across your selected platforms. Your unique brand voice, image style and relatable, consistent messaging across all social media platforms will enhance your authenticity and build the respect and trust of your audience.

Relevant content

Focus on creating meaningful and high quality content that resonates with your target audience. Authentic and relevant content helps the audience feel connected to your brand, encouraging engagement and promoting brand loyalty. 

Personal communication

Facilitating direct communication between you/ the brand and your target audience is the great advantage of social media. The communication is personal and unfiltered, allowing you to learn a great deal about how those who do business with you feel about doing business with you. Social media helps you learn fast about what works and what doesn’t, giving you the luxury of responding personally and quickly and making a timely course correction if necessary.

Focus On Your Audience/ Build A Community

Social media isn’t just a method that lets you speak to your audience in a monologue that promotes your business. It’s about building a community. When you introduce practices that enable a community—meaningful content, regular updates, responding to questions, complaints and compliments and keeping it authentic (real) you will over time build and sustain an engaged audience that’s truly interested in your brand (and you).

Thanks for reading,

Kim

Image: Jean Arthur in Easy Living, written by Preston Sturges. Paramount Pictures (1937)

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Unlock the Answers Buried in Your Website

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You may be contemplating giving your website a makeover and to ensure that you include the information that prospective clients desire most before you invest time and money on the project,  you’re smart enough to collect data that will serve as your site blueprint.  You want to confirm the role of your website—how much and what kind of information will persuade prospects to pursue follow-up? Reports that indicate how visitors interact with the site are the only way to examine, consider and interpret visitor behavior and then make adjustments in the site if needed.

Google Analytics will do that job and at no charge.  Google Analytics is a most useful service that helps one to find out who visits the website, the pages that receive the most visits, the length of those visits and actions taken while on a page.

1. Acquisition

Where do site visitors come from? Are you receiving referrals from search engines, your social media accounts, or other websites where you’ve contracted to maintain a link to your website?

2. Behavior

What are visitors to your site doing? Behavior Analytics show the pages visited, the    length of time spent on each and how visitors travel through your site. You’ll learn the content that visitors value most and least.

3. Conversion

Do sales take place on your site? Do visitors sign up to receive your newsletter or blog?

4. Goals

You can create conversion metrics to track actions such as sales and registrations for a class or webinar you will give, participation in a survey, or sign-ups for your blog or newsletter.  As a brand reinforcing grace note, you may create thank you pages to acknowledge actions taken (because positive reinforcement matters!).

5. In-page analytics

Find out the percentage of visitors who clicked on links or buttons on specific pages.

6. Key performance Indicators

If you’ve developed the milestones called Key Performance Indicators that identify each noteworthy action that leads to achievement of your goal, you can monitor them.

7. Mobile

I assume that a healthy percentage of Internet users are working from a mobile device. Find out that percentage and have it in mind when you design your new site or post new content.  Make visits to your site mobile friendly.

8.  Overview

Each section of Google Analytics offers an overview report, which presents high-level data that enables you to make a basic status report of that segment of your site.

9. Queries

This gives the search engine optimization report and lets you know the keyword rankings and click-throughs for your site.

10. Views

Here you’ll find five ways to see the data of any of your reports.

11. Web property ID

FYI, the web property ID is the tracking code that identifies your website with a 7 digit number, followed by the 2 digit property number.

I’m a little embarrassed to say that after putting up a website in 2007, I’ve only just signed up with Google Analytics this month.  What took me so long? I look forward with anticipation to reading and interpreting my website reports.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

 

 

 

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Time to Redesign Your Website?

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Have you become disappointed with your website, or are you merely bored? Have you been visiting the websites of your colleagues and contemporaries and thinking about how you may want to do a website makeover? Think carefully about your goals before making a decision.

What would I like the site to do for my business?

Ultimately, a website gives information about your products and services and communicates how doing business with you can benefit those who would become your customers. Your job is to develop a website that gives prospects the confidence to explore more seriously the idea of working with you. Whatever is on your site—text, audio, or visual—must support that action.

Older websites are likely to be static, rather than interactive. That means in order to update the site with new information, it’s necessary to pay a web developer to make  changes in text, photos, videos and lay-out. As a result, static websites often do not reflect much of what is happening now.

Some Freelancers depend upon their websites to pre-qualify prospects through the use of an online contact form.  Rather than posting your email and telephone number on the “contact us” page, there is instead a form for interested parties to complete, so that they will receive a call-back. Serious shoppers only, please!

Content marketing will be featured on the website.  Freelancers who produce a weekly blog or monthly newsletter typically include the link on their website.  Your social media platforms will likewise be accessible through your website, as will videos, webinars and podcasts that feature you in a starring or supporting role.  Case studies to help prospective clients envision how your insights and expertise might help their organization resolve challenges and achieve goals may be posted to the site as well.

How is my site under-performing?

Much depends upon the information you’d like your website to provide to interested parties. Your site can be a one-page affair that is basically an online business card.  You may list three or four services, a photo,  a 3-minute video clip of you in action (or not) and contact info and that may be quite enough to convince prospects that you are a capable professional worthy of consideration.  But maybe you would like to have a much more active and engaging site?

Up-to-date products and services list

If you’ve substantively altered—simplified, upgraded, expanded, or eliminated— the services and products that you provide, let your website reflect what is current.  As well, old content and photos might be replaced and updated with an accurate depiction of how you bring value to clients today.

Can I accurately measure how prospects respond to my site?

This step can be the key to your website design.  If you are serious about updating your site,  contact an analytics service and sign up to obtain data that will guide the development of your website.  There are a number of modestly priced website analytics services available and Google has a level that offers free analytics. Collect three or four months of data before you act.

To begin with, you’ll learn how many visitors the site receives each month and the pages that are most often visited. Now you’ll know what visitors want to know. You’ll also learn which pages are least often visited and if there are pages that are quickly abandoned for other pages, or seem to cause visitors to exit your site.  If you decide to update your website, ask your developer to build-in analytics or integration features, so that data will be yours at no extra charge, post-upgrade.

Is the site mobile-friendly? 

I write or edit three newsletters and the analytics for each consistently shows that about 50% of readers use mobile devices (smart phone or tablet) to read them. The other half use either desk models or laptops. Don’t frustrate your visitors,  make sure that your site is optimized for mobile.  Both interactive and static websites can be mobile optimized.

How’s the technology?

Recently, I met a truly brilliant MIT educated web developer named Al.  He showed me the site of a nationally known not-for-profit organization that on its website has an inoperable “donate now” button on the landing page.  It is imperative that all links and buttons on your website perform as intended on all types of devices.  Audio features must produce sound; videos must play; documents must download; ecommerce transactions must be secure.

“About us”

Trot out your brand story.  Connect with site visitors and concisely tell them what motivated you to start your business, how you developed your expertise, your vision and the company mission.  Share your guiding principles as the founder and business leader and discuss how that is reflected in your business practices.  Finally, let it be known that you love what you do and value the opportunity to work with clients. Recommended length of the text might be 200 words.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

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Marketing 2.0: How and Why You Measure Results

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Marketing is an essential function of every business.   Smart organization leaders understand that continually reaching out to current and potential customers,  with objectives to create loyalty and trust in the company,  its products and its services and building a brand,  are integral to sustaining a healthy enterprise.  Like all business initiatives,  marketing objectives and strategies must be periodically evaluated,  to monitor and measure results and determine how to adjust and optimize the program if results do not meet expectations.  Choose your marketing activities based on your knowledge of customer behavior.

The measurement of marketing results can be broken down according to a method recommended by Joseph Raymond Roy,  a marketing consultant based in Meredith, NH,  who gives us the acronym DATA:

1. Defining,  identify the result your marketing will promote (increasing the number of potential customers)

2. Assessing,  measure the dollar value of your marketing program (look at the number of customers and gross revenue)

3. Tracking,  determine if customers came to your business as a result of your marketing activities (ask new customers how they found you, or all customers in a survey)

4. Adjusting,  if it is obvious,  do more of what produces the desired result and less of what does not produce results.  In other words,  optimize your marketing activities.

Begin the measurement by calculating the amount of money invested in your marketing activities.  Obviously there is also time involved,  which should be taken into account,  but  it is usually difficult to attach an appropriate dollar figure to one’s time.  How much is the time you spend networking worth?  What is the time spent on social media worth,  or producing your monthly newsletter?

You may develop good relationships with potential referral sources,  but it may take 5 months or 5 years to receive a referral.  Speaking engagements and webinars  are easier to evaluate.  A well-respected venue always has value,  whether or not you receive referral business or meet a future client,  because the very act adds value to your curriculum vitae.  Calculate ROI by deducting the value of resources spent on marketing activities from revenues generated by customers who have come to you as a result of marketing activities.

Tracking  (i.e., forward tracking),  the process of building an identifying mechanism into each marketing activity before it is launched,  so that you can measure the results derived.  If you present a webinar,   the registration of participants,  which includes an email address for each listener,  is a most accurate tracking mechanism.  Responding to a product offer with a special code is another excellent tracking device.   The marketer will be able to identify which customer was not only impacted by a certain activity,  but also will know if that person eventually does business with the company.

There are various types of tracking methods,   including Point-of-sale tracking,  conducted when new customers arrive by asking them how they heard about you.  You will also use point-of-sale tracking when you tally up the sales results associated with the purpose of your marketing program,  be it bigger ticket items,  referrals,  or other customer actions.   Reverse tracking  is the process of going through your customer list and documenting how current customers became your customers.

If you write a blog or newsletter,  measure your reach by counting the number of subscribers,  email forwards and followers.  Point-of-sale tracking  will let you know if demonstration of your knowledge and expertise brings customers into the door.

The ROI of PR should be measured in at least two ways:  first,  through Media impressions,  in which the marketer counts how many media outlets wrote a story or made a radio or television announcement in response to a press release that was sent (a follow-up phone call will likely boost the response rate).   Second,  through Content analysis one can evaluate the accuracy of what was broadcast as a result of the press release and the prominence of item placements in the chosen media outlets.

Online data analytics systems  will track all visits to your website,  customized to your needs.  How many potential customers abandon your website and how many follow-up with inquiries or engage by clicking on your newsletter or blog? What is the impact of your social media outlets on your marketing objectives? Here is how you’ll know.

The ultimate marketing metric is the percentage of your customer base that result from marketing activities,  or Marketing Originated Customers.

It may take a service provider 6 – 12 months to have results to measure.  Obtaining a contract from a new or returning client is a longer sales cycle than selling ice cream cones.  Metrics make it possible to know which marketing activities yield the best results and that knowledge will give you the opportunity to optimize your marketing efforts.  You will do more of what works,  perhaps launching an advertising campaign during a particular season or increasing your participation in certain business or professional groups.  Other activities may be diminished or dropped altogether.  Gross sales will give a dollar value ROI to your marketing program when compared to the pre-marketing program value.

Marketing metrics ensure that you receive a solid ROI on your marketing activities.  Appropriately chosen and implemented marketing activities that are tracked and optimized will always pay for themselves.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

 

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Big Data and Small Business Marketing

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Let’s start with the definition.  When the term  “big data”  is used,  what does it really mean?  Jon Miller,  co-founder and CEO of Marketo,  calls big data a catch-all term for very large and complex data sets that exceed the processing capabilities of the typical available computer software.  In general,  big data refers to the compilation of everything that takes place over the internet: transcripts from Twitter comments or call center conversations,  online videos,  podcast uploads and visits,  webinar broadcasts,   all blog postings,   all website visits,  all credit card transactions,  all ATM activity,  all online purchases,  online advertisements,   downloads of music and uploads of photos.

As regards marketing,  big data refers to all information that details retail sales,  online sales,  market share,  website visits,  blog reads from your website,  newsletter reads from your website,  responses to online customer surveys,  online response to special offers and online advertising,  plus all marketplace and industry data about global,  national and regional  business conditions.

Whatever it is you need to know about customers,  the industry and the business conditions in which you operate is buried within big data.  But in the avalanche of information,   deciding which data to access and interpreting what is brought forth is the marketer’s challenge.  Determining the right questions to ask is the primary imperative,   as the late great management guru Peter Drucker pointed out.

If you want to use big data in your marketing plan,  then  propose questions that will elicit the answers you need to fine-tune your marketing mix.  Maybe you’d like to become more effective in converting website visitors into customers?  A list of the names of prospects who visited your website,  spent more than one minute reading your blog or newsletter,  forwarded the post to someone and and then tweeted some content about what he/she found to others would indicate a serious shopper for your products or services.  Big data can help predict which marketing activities are most likely to convert a prospect who has reached that level of engagement.

Google Analytics can reveal part of the game plan,  but only big data can get seriously granular.  For example,  algorithm-based predictions can forecast the expected impact of marketing campaign activity on those who surf your website,  indicating who should receive special offers via email or who should be invited to join a focus group.  Algorithm-based predictions can also forecast the likely impact of marketing activity on the next quarter’s,  or next four quarters’ revenue.

Based on what is learned through big data,  the marketer can make much more specific and informed decisions about target or niche markets that have the most sales potential,  strategies to build brand awareness and loyalty,  advertising choices and budgets for targeted media outlets,   social media choices that create the most buzz and the ROI of that buzz and the marketing message that drives sales.  Who will be your best customers,   why will they be your best customers,   what is the average amount of money the customer will spend in your business,  how loyal is the customer to your brand,  what types of advertising does the customer respond to best,  what kind of social media does the customer respond to best and will those customers create good word of mouth  (still the best form of advertising)  for your business?

So how can small businesses and Freelance solopreneurs access big data?  It can be done by hiring a marketing firm that we most likely cannot afford.  At this time,  big data usage will be the playground of big businesses.   If it’s any consolation,  marketing firms are still trying to get arms around big data themselves.  For now,  traditional marketing analytics will have to suffice for the 99%.

Traditional marketing analytics are useful and certain data we already own: bricks & mortar sales data,  online sales data,  seasonal sales variations,  customer zip codes,  popular service packages,  pricing and the number of Foursquare,  Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter followers,  for example.  Market testing is expected to remain a vital part of developing a marketing strategy,   even when big data is used.  Business owners and marketers will continue to measure the impact of promotional strategies employed.  Finally, whether big data or marketing analytics are used when devising a marketing plan,  proposing the right questions,   as Peter Drucker advised,  is where one starts.

Thanks for reading,

Kim