Why Data Matters for Your Business
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
– Albert Einstein
Why is accurate data so important? If you can’t monitor your progress with real numbers, you won’t know whether you’re on track to meet your goals. Measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) informs smart planning, decision making and operations.
Determining What to Track
While there are many different things you can measure and some will be unique to your business, you don’t need to measure everything. A good rule of thumb is to start with KPIs that are directly tied to your business goals. Let’s look possibilities in three areas of your business.
Financials
Knowing your financial position is fundamental, so let’s start with some of the numbers you should consider:
- Revenue
- Expenses
- Profit
- Profit Margin
- Cashflow
- Equity
- Debt and debt ratio
- Tax rate
- Account Receivables
- Payables
- Inventory
- Net Income
Sales
What you can measure in this category will depend in part on how you interact with customers and the type of products or services you offer.
- Number of leads
- Lead acquisition costs
- Lifetime value of customer
- Customer retention or repeat visits
- Number of items or amount purchase per visit
- Daily customer count
- Referrals
Marketing
Each marketing channel you use will generate data. Here are some items you can monitor on your website, email campaigns and social media platforms.
- Unique website visits
- Bounce rate of your website
- Time spent per visit on your website
- Pages on your website with most activity
- Links clicked
- Subscribe forms submitted
- Emails opened
- Emails forwarded
- Unsubscribes
- Social media followers
- Shares, likes or comments for account and individual post
- Video views
- Demographic information
When you monitor the data for your business, you can make evidence-based decisions and measure your success against real numbers.
If you would like to learn more about how this might apply to your business, let’s talk:
