Any business owner knows, they must keep a track of their finances. Ideally, on a monthly basis you’ll be monitoring your new clients and income figures, keeping a record of all invoices (the ones you’ve sent out, those that haven’t yet been paid and the invoices you’ve received) and keeping track of your expenditure.
But what else should you be keeping track of?
Here’s a list of 7 things you need to be tracking, if you want to monitor the health of your business.
#1: Email click-throughs and opens
When it comes to your emails, whether they’re automated or broadcast, you’ll want to track the number of click-throughs and opens. These figures will help indicate which email headers were most appealing, as well as what products and subjects your readers are most interested in. Your email forwarding service provider should give you access to these reports.
#2: Bounced emails
You’ll also want to keep an eye on your bounced emails, so you can delete those email addresses and contacts from your email list – especially if you’re on an account that is limited by the number of contacts you have.
#3: Blog views and popularity
You’ll want to be writing blogs at least weekly, as this will help drive traffic to your site. You can then track the number of views each blog has (using something like Google Analytics), as well as which blogs where the most popular (in terms of views and comments), as this will give you heaps of useful information – including which blog posts to promote, what topics to write more about, as well as ideas for future social media posts.
#4: Bounce rate and time spent
Bounce rate and time spent on your website pages. This will help you understand what’s working on your content and what isn’t. You can then take steps to improve those pages that need work, whilst promoting those things that are working well already.
#5: Website visitors
The number of unique visitors and how many visitors return, as well as where those visitors are coming from. Traffic sources will help you understand the behaviour of your visitors, as well as understanding who’s referring them to your site. Returning visitors will help illustrate how on topic your content is, in regards to your visitor’s expectations.
#6: ROI (Return on Investment)
Whether you’re using Facebook advertising or some other promotional techniques, the ROI illustrates how effective those adverts are. It basically involves taking the cost of your advert and compares it with the resulting engagement – meaning an advertisement is only worth its investment, if it actually brings you in the new leads and/or customers you’re looking to acquire from it.
#7: Customer loyalty and retention
In an ideal world, you want to have a list of engaged and responsive customers. You can have a massive amount of one-off jobs from new customers, but if they’re not staying with you or coming back repeatedly, you’ve got a flaw somewhere – and the only way to know, is to ask. Use feedback forms, surveys and even personal emails regularly, to check what your customers think of you, your services and your business systems etc.
As with any tracking, it’s made easier if you utilise the reports at your disposal and commit to regularly updating your figures – so use Google Analytics, your email services reports and the insights on Facebook – and you’ll be surprised at the wealth of information already available at your fingertips.
How many of these things are you keeping track of? Is there anything you feel has been missed off the list? Maybe you have a great tip to help make tracking even easier? Why not share your thoughts and opinions in the comments box below!
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