In a post at the Internet Marketing Strategy blog, Ian Lurie claims that you can create a successful marketing analytics program in just 27 easy steps. It sounds like a lot of steps—and there is a lot to consider—but his process is both comprehensive and straightforward.

Lurie begins by explaining that analytics is not a pretty graph. "It's the extraction of useful business intelligence from the data," he notes. "That takes it from being a toolset to being a business strategy, and makes everyone understand its importance."

The rest of his advice ranges from critical strategies to technical issues and mundane—but important—practical matters like these:

• Gaining the support of development, marketing and sales teams. "Otherwise," says Lurie, "you may not be able to get whatever analytics tools you need set up, or you may not be able to get insight from the marketing folks, or the sales team may have you pilloried for messing with their pipeline."

• Ensuring each page has analytics code in place. He humorously imagines hypothetical situations in which this might be a problem, even if you've already checked everything out.

• Automating as much of the process as possible. "You do not want to be cutting and pasting numbers every week, trust me."

The Po!nt: However good your analytics program might be, don't ever rest on your laurels. "Never stop learning," says Lurie. "Analytics providers are always rolling out neat new stuff."

Source: Internet Marketing Strategy. Click here for the full post.

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