Statistics, the word almost makes me cringe as it is a reminder of all the hard work I had to do to finish my degree. I do not think that it is statistics per se but it is the fact that I had to create the numbers from formulas. In business, statistics are generated from asking the right questions and instead of doing all the calculations, the software takes over and you see the immediate results.

Statistics breathe life into websites and marketing departments. Everything you do needs to be measured. You should measure each marketing campaign to find out what is working. You should measure where internet visitors come from and how they got to your site. And you should measure what pages they visited, how long they stayed, and what page they exited from. Measure, measure, measure.

The results of the measurements paint the picture. Graphs, charts, numbers, tables, and arrays all show the results. Looking at the displays from the measurements, give you a visual of what is working and what is not. If a page on a website only gets ten hits while another gets 14,000 then there is obviously something that is not working. If a test marketing campaign brings in huge amounts of business while another test brings in only a small amount, then a look at all the variables and measurements will guide the business to a "qualified" audience.

If you want customers to get excited about staying longer in your store or on your website, then you will need to read the statistics and remove the barriers and add the enticements. Only your measurements will help you do this. I still cringe at the word statistics but I get excited when I am testing a new marketing campaign (either online or offline) and get to "see" the results.