None of us likes to be pigeonholed. We are the only and unique personalities. However, when it comes to our professional needs or interests, it is relatively easy to adjust the language that appeals to us, the style or structure of the website and the photos that best suit us.
When I go as a representative of a vegetable wholesaler to the owner of a grocery store, I show her fresh, colorful tomatoes and young asparagus and talk about prices and the products display, not about my fluffy puppy (unless the owner has a similar 😉 in her arms). The owners of the pet food store, in turn, will not be bothered by the offer with pictures of wooden, personalized toys. Also, I will not talk to the creator of personalized wooden ornaments about which food has the best effect on a dog's hair. Not to mention our friend Monika, who teaches Norwegian language. Regardless of her private interests, professionally, we will rather not discuss the history of the Eurovision song contest.
Now let's take a step further. These entrepreneurs also have customers in their on-line stores, but they can't see them, so it is not so easy for them to find out who they are talking to and how their recipients react to provided information.
So what to do and how can Google Analytics help? As always, also now I recommend working in a cycle.
Below I present a few simple steps that should be repeated constantly to create more and more effective communication with your audience.
1. Start by thinking of who you want to target.
This will be your model audience.
Where is s/he coming from?
What language does s/he speak?
How old is s/he?
What are her/his interests?
What does s/he do professionally?
Where does s/he live (country, region, town, city or village)?
This will be your persona. Create a few of them.
Of course, some features will be repeated in each of them, because after all, they are all interested in your service or products, but age groups, gender or place of residence give many possible options.
2. Imagine how these people behave.
How they found out about your store / blog (from social media or from search engine rather)?
How will they navigate through the website (they read the blog and look for detailed information about producs or would they prefer to run straight to checkout)?
3. Design your shop / blog in a way that each of your personas feels good in there.
Combine pages into conversion paths leading to a specific goal, suggest the possibility of going further through a call to action button (CTA). Show where you can find out more, choose the appropriate page and photo style.
4. In Analytics, check if your audience is actually doing what you wished to.
In Analytics set up events to track CTA buttons, check source / medium, and use segments.
A segment is a subset of your data, selected based on criteria you specify. It allows you to compare various data. By using segments, you can check, for example: if your ad targeting a specific group / location is effective, how people in your target audience behave, see trends in these groups over a specific period of time.
The segments can be sey up in: Administration > View > Segments (check it out in film on my YouTube channel)
Stwórz takie segmenty, które opisują Twoje persony, na przykład "Kobieta w wieku 25-34 lat, która korzysta z mediów społecznościowych".
Avoid creating very detailed segments, because you can safely create the right set of features from four different elements within one report. Rather, it should be bricks that you use to build various combinations, for example:
"Woman aged 25-34" + "traffic source: social media" + "mobile devices"
or
"Male aged 25-34" + "traffic source: organic" + "mobile devices".
5a. If your audience behaves the way you want it, that's wonderful!
Work on brand awareness, expand your audiences and provide better and newer products. Make sure to check back regularly that your conversion paths still work.
5b. If your visitors do not behave as planned, find places where they get lost on the designed path.
Event reports set in Analytics will help you see if there are clicks on "More" or "Add to Cart" or "Download pdf" buttons. Modify the pages according to the users' needs and check again. Remember, it is you who must adjust to your audiences, because they can't do it. They are just themselves. And then check again how it went using steps one to five.
I guarantee you that such work is more addictive than watching the Champions League and endless seasons of the "House of Cards"😉
Additional articles (click to go):
Google: About segments
Google: [GA4] Segment builder
Videotutorial (youtube.com, channel Owwwla - Google Analytics od podstaw):
If you have questions or topics that are not covered here, and you are particularly interested in, write to me, I will be happy to help.
Owwwla
