Since you’ve started reading this blog you’ve probably come to the realization that your website and online presence is an essential part of your landscaping business.
Having a strong online presence is not only extremely important for new online customer acquisition (it’s very likely that a large chunk of your new customers are finding you online, specifically on Google), but it’s also essential for offline marketing & reputation as well.
Growing your business online not only requires careful & precise planning to put all the correct pieces in place (SEO, paid marketing campaigns such as Google Ads, high performing and engaging website, building online brand equity and more) but also a robust and ongoing strategy to continually grow and improve.
The primary function of analytics for your business in this whole equation is tracking and analyzing online customer data to answer high level business questions in order to grow your business.
In this blog we’ll answer 4 important questions about analytics to show you why and how you should be utilizing this essential tool to grow your home services business.
- What Does Analytics Even Mean?
- What is Google Analytics?
- Why is Analytics Important for Your Business?
- How we Use Analytics
- What is Analytics?
Analyzing data from various sources in order to help a business reach it’s goals. It’s that simple!
For North Shore Digital this equates to analyzing customer, online and website data to improve marketing ROI for home services based businesses in Canada.
One example of this at it’s highest level could be comparing year-over-year service revenue generated from online sources to see if it tracks with yearly growth goals. Another example, at a more granular level, could be analyzing organic website traffic conversion rates to see how leads & service inquiries are growing month-over-month.
One very important (and often unasked) question of analytics is: “how does what I’m measuring directly relate to the highest level business goals and bottom line”. Analytics is only as good as its ability to contribute to, and impact, business growth. This is where a lot of organizations (and even some marketing agencies) miss the point. Analytics is only as good as the actionable intel it can provide to grow your business.
Analytics is also very useful for answering the “what, where & when” questions (exp. what marketing campaign and content led to that HVAC service call? Where are most of my landscape maintenance contract inquiries coming from? When do I get the best ROI on Google Ads campaigns for seasonal landscape lighting or snow plowing campaigns?
But Analytics can’t do everything! You need an expert to interpret all the data layered with business context in order to answer the “whys”. You also need a marketing strategist to implement effective changes that impact your online performance and, ultimately, your bottom line. This is why we take a team approach at North Shore Digital with experts in all these areas of digital marketing.
- What is Google Analytics?
From the horses mouth, “Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic”. And at a higher level, “Google Analytics gives you the tools you need to better understand your customers”.
The latter being the most important function of Google Analytics. It’s a platform that allows you to analyze customer interaction on your website with the primary goal of growing your business. You can use this customer data to improve online performance ranging from website usability to SEO to paid marketing campaigns.
Google Analytics is also highly integrated with Google Ads & Google My Business which are 2 very effective platforms we use as part of our search engine marketing machine for home services based businesses.
A final note; recently, Google Analytics announced it will be transitioning from their long running flagship service, Universal Analytics, to the updated Google Analytics 4. In just a few months, Universal Analytics will stop working. So if you’re currently using Universal Analytics we highly recommend migrating to Google Analytics 4. Just make sure you have an expert do this so you retain all your previous data and don’t have to start from scratch. Benchmarking is important to not only see where you’ve been and what worked and didn’t work but also where you’re going and how quickly.
- Why is Analytics Important Home Services Businesses?
To hammer home the messaging: Analytics, and Google Analytics, can provide you with important data and insights to help grow your home services business online. It doesn’t only answer website questions. It can also answer business questions outside the scope of your website and provide valuable intel to help with everything from developing customer personas to improving marketing campaigns.
These insights are particularly important for Home Services business (such as landscapers, electricians, plumbers & HVAC companies) since a large portion of new customer acquisition happens online. Even when initial awareness occurs offline (exp. a potential customer spots your service vehicle or employees near their house) there is an extremely high chance they’ll then follow up online by visiting your website, searching for you on Google Maps or finding your online business profile and reviews.
Some important questions that Google Analytics can help answer for home services businesses:
- Which of my paid marketing campaigns is giving my business the best ROI?
- Which demographic & location are most likely to convert to a customer on my website?
- Which content on my website is most likely to engage and convert?
- Is my organic presence growing over time and how is this translating to service inquiries and revenue?
- Which call-to-action or website configuration is most likely to convert to a service inquiry.
The list goes on, but you can see how answering questions such as these can greatly help online performance and business growth.
- How We Use Google Analytics To Power Your Home Services Marketing Machine.
At North Shore Digital, our analytics infrastructure is carefully planned out before we put even one line of code on your website.
Analytics needs an action plan and we make sure to track and prioritize only that which is most important to your business growth and bottom line. Every home service business’ goals are unique and we work closely with you and your team to ensure we are collecting the most impactful and actionable data.
We being with an onboarding call to identify your most important business goals, then reverse engineer these to create a holistic strategy and home services marketing machine that delivers performance aligned with your growth goals – this is the reason you hired us in the first place!
Next we identify important website actions that align with your business goals. For example, online landscape design inquiries through your specific services pages.
Finally, we connect these goals to SMART KPIs and online targets. This is where Analytics can really deliver. Ensuring online efforts are delivering on targets and high level lead and revenue goals are being met.
ONLY after we work backwards from your highest level business goals to specific online targets does it make sense to set up Google Analytics.
A Final Word
You may have noticed a recurring theme in this blog. That is, the use of analytics to grow your business. Or else, what’s the point? This is why we don’t use analytics in a silo. We start with a depth of experience with home services businesses combined with a thorough and ongoing consultative process to ensure we are using analytics effectively and aligned with your business goals. We offer a complete marketing solution for home services companies that can be found at homeservicesmarketing.ca
Ira is North Shore Digital’s Co-Founder & Director of Product. Ira takes a data-driven approach to your website experience and campaign management.