Do you know how much data is actually out there in the world? Based on some research from Takeo, there are about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created every day. I don't know about you, but that's quite a lot, and nowadays we're expected to understand how to break down that data, we're expected to be data scientists and know how to analyze it, but that's a lot to handle. So with this overview of a Voice of Analytics program, we hope to guide you on how to create and manage the program.

What’s the difference between Voice of Analytics and Voice of the Customer?

Voice of Analytics. What does that actually mean? Let's break it down first. When we talk about Voice of Analytics we're talking about personifying the data that we're addressing. In this case, it’s about how we can utilize passive customer information to better give us some guidance in terms of business decisions in the future.

When we're talking about Voice of the Customer, we're not talking about passive information but about active information. What we mean is things like surveys, reviews, comments on social media, or content that was actually created by your customers.

Voice Of Analytics examples

Diving into some examples of what passive information looks like. We're talking about:

• Number of website visitors in a day
• Email open rate
• Number of email subscribers
• Even the amount of time a customer stays on a certain page

Let’s look at the last example. Say you have something on a page that you think has a lot of content value. You want to make sure that you're harnessing that analytics information to either provide more content on the same page, or provide less content if you think they should spend less time on it. 

How to build a Voice of Analytics program

Since we're talking about launching an analytics program. We need to talk about what we need to build it, so you want to do a few things. 

1. Build a Voice of Analytics program. We'll talk about that a little later.
2. Identify a primary goal. This might be the hardest part just because for a business there are many goals that you're trying to meet.
3. Dedicate time to the cause. What’s the point of setting it up if you don’t spend time refining it?

The Voice of Analytics starter kit

In order to track any engagement with your customers, you want to make sure that you have tools to do that. So what I wanted to show you is a very basic starter kit, if you will, on an analytics toolkit. We've got: 

• LinkedIn
• Google Analytics
• HubSpot
• YouTube 

This may seem like a lot of platforms and a lot of analytics coming your way, but don’t worry. Nowadays, there are better tools to help you manage data. 

Taking advantage of existing resources

One of the things that you can take advantage of is toolkits. 

HubSpot Academy

So, HubSpot actually has a really great academy. They have videos that dive in how to use certain tools dedicated to HubSpot.

Google Analytics Academy

Google Analytics Academy, which is well-known nowadays since everybody has a website, is especially helpful to track engagement on your website.

LinkedIn Learning

Now this one's a little different from the others in that it doesn’t focus on providing information about running your Linkedin alone. LinkedIn Learning offers the opportunity to learn other types of business essentials like SEO and the like.

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Now say you don't really have the time to do all that and dive in, maybe you should consider hiring an SME. If you have the budget and means to do it, consider hiring someone that's, for example, dedicated to video content and analyzing its engagement through YouTube. Or maybe you want to hire someone that's dedicated to your website, and someone that knows how to analyze the data. You may also want to consider getting someone that's really focused on email, maybe someone that has run multiple campaigns via HubSpot, and you could really use their knowledge to your advantage at your company.

Goal setting 

So up next we're going to talk about identifying your primary goal. Like I said, this can be a little difficult just because with a lot of businesses, there definitely is more than one goal, but try to keep that in focus if you can. So what we're going to do here is we're going to categorize based on priority.

Website priorities

Some of the examples of website goals can differ a bit depending on what you're looking for, but these are some of the most common ones that people use. 

Destination goal

Say you have a stellar piece of content out there and you want people to look at it and you want people to share it and you want to have people understand it and get excited by it. Perhaps a destination goal would be good for you because you want to make sure you gain traction on that piece of content and understand how customers use it.

Duration goal

Now, you may be more focused on duration. Say you have a really great video on your website and you want to see if people actually watch all of it or if they paused it or if they engaged with it in any way. By focusing on this goal you can learn how people consume your content and maybe, specifically, a certain type of content.

Event goal

Lastly, probably the most popular one that people use will be an event goal. This is one that we use pretty often just because it's centered around events that we're really rooting for. So, for example, we really like to focus on how many people scheduled a call, but maybe you’re focused on leads scheduling a demo or having someone download a specific file. Maybe this file is a gated piece of content that you're testing to see if your audience finds it valuable.

Email priorities

So there are several different ways to look at email and different goals to prioritize, but in this case we wanted to highlight just three.

Open rates goal

The first one being increasing open rates. This goal is important for businesses who are just starting out and maybe are sending emails out to prospects or leads that they think would be interested in their product or service. Since subject lines are the only way to hook a lead, it basically acts as the gateway into reading more about that email.

Subscriber list goal

The next one is going to be growing your subscriber list. So say you're a growing company again and you're looking to find more leads and more customers to promote your certain product or brand or service to. This is an important goal to focus on because it's all about growth. It's about growing your subscriber list, customer pool, brand awareness. If you’re focused on getting eyes on your product or service, this may be the way to go!

Retaining customers goal

Now, the last email goal is going to be retaining customers. This goal works best for businesses that already have a lot of customers that they're tending to, but have a bit of a problem with customer churn. Now, this isn't very uncommon. This happens quite often given that companies have many customers to listen to and it can be hard to manage. In the end, you want to keep the customers you have because when you start introducing customer churn it can be difficult to acquire new customers.

Social priorities

This can get a little complicated too just like any type of analytics, but depending on the platform that you're interested in, you’ll want to cater your goals to that platform.

Brand awareness goal

If you're a relatively new company and you’re looking to increase brand awareness of your product, make sure you consider this goal because it's a great way to capture information about your customers.

Website traffic goal

This is likely the most popular social goal. Nowadays, we’re all familiar with websites and how to use them, and we tend to carry a lot of content that we want to showcase to our customers on our website. It's organized and you can direct your leads to certain pages on your website.

Community goal

Now, this last one can get interesting. Say you have a community around a certain product that your costumes love talking about. Now say you love talking as a company or brand about the product too. Maybe you should consider building a community! This is really interesting waters for brands. Now that we have platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, there are so many different ways to engage with your customers. Consider this one if you're really engaged with your customers or would like to be.

Dedicating time

You’ll want to make sure you think about dedicating time to your newly launched Voice of Analytics program because it's not something that you can just get done and forget about it. Your VoA program is something that you want to iterate on because that's the only way you’ll reap the benefits.

Make sure to consistently monitor performance

You need to make sure that you're starting to create content based on data. If you have analytics that you can pair with competitor research you’ve already conducted, you’ll be able to create pieces of content that your customers or leads are interested in. Before moving forward, decide to meet up with your team weekly, monthly, or maybe every six months to stay consistent in your exploration of your Voice of Analytics program.

Voice of Analytics program goal

Let’s bring it all together. The whole point is to build a Voice of Analytics program to better inform business decisions like creating content or even creating a new workflow to better manage data. It’s an investment. If you're able to create valuable content based on analytics and based on customer interactions on your website, social media or your emails, you're better equipped to not only support your business but support the customers that in the end, are using your product or service.