BY IRA THOMSON – SEPTEMBER 9, 2022
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 home services 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 is Analytics?
This is a very valid question.
In short, analytics is simply analyzing data from various sources in order to help a business reach it’s goals.
For us at Home Services Marketing this equates to analyzing customer, online and website data to improve marketing ROI for businesses in Canada.
One use case could be comparing year-over-year service revenue generated from online sources to see if it tracks with your 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 my 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 needs to be able to provide actionable intel 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 landscape design 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 still need to interpret all the data and combine this with business context in order to answer the “whys”. You also need a marketing strategist to effectively implement changes that impact your online performance and, ultimately, your bottom line. This is why we take a team approach at Home Services Marketing with experts in all the essential online areas.
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 impactful platforms we use as part of our home services marketing machine.
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 someone knowledgeable complete your data transition so you retain all your previous benchmarking and don’t have to start from scratch.
Why is Analytics Important for Home Services Businesses?
Analytics, and specifically 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 higher level business questions outside the scope of your website and provide valuable business intel. Analytics can help you better understand customer personas, target markets, improve marketing campaigns and much more.
These insights are particularly important for 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 in their neighbourhood) 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 demographics & locations are most likely to convert to a lead on my website?
- Which content on my website is most likely to engage potential customers?
- 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 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 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 begin with an onboarding call to identify your most important business goals, then reverse engineer these to create a holistic strategy and 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 HVAC 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.
Start Growing Your Home Services Company Now!
Reach out today for a no strings attached consultation with Andy, our CEO and Founder, and learn how we help home services companies grow.
Learn how we helped a landscaping company grow to 1 million in revenue per month from online sources alone.
See how we helped a permeable hardscapes company become an online juggernaut.
Or check out how we helped a landscape company reach the coveted 10M a year mark.
Whatever you do, don’t forget to leverage the power of Google My Business when developing your home services company’s online presence. With it, you can boost organic visibility and local search rankings with relative ease. So make sure to include this powerful tool in your overall digital marketing strategy. Good luck!
