How Big Sea Generates $50,000 in Billable Time Every Year With Automated Reporting

“Everyone is impressed when they come in and they see that we don’t just have fun things up everywhere. We’re literally always looking at the data.

我有一个奇怪的倾向，那就是早上走进办公室，站在房间中间。我等待电视翻过每个旋转木马。然后我开始问问题，例如：

“为什么这样看起来？”

or,‘Why is this number red?’

It really is that little reminder of ‘what gets measured, gets done’ and you’re watching your metrics on a constant basis. You’re required to pay attention to them. So that’s very good.”

-Andi Graham, Founder,Big Sea

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni1Ax3wTSXA]

在databox之前，你们的生活是什么样的？beplay体育appios

Graham:报告和数据一直非常重要，这很难。客户希望看到它，但他们不希望您花时间在上面。因此，我们为这些事情而苦苦挣扎。

We used to have these very lengthy Google Docs for monthly reports that were between six and eight pages and then our quarterly reports were 12 to 15 pages long and they were full of screenshots of Google Analytics. There were screenshots of HubSpot and SEMrush. There were screenshots of disparate and various tools that we were using to do marketing for our clients.

我们将利用营销协调员的时间花费数小时进行这些屏幕截图，有时它们会将数据混合到桌子上，以便我们可以向客户展示一年一度的数据。我们的报告每月需要三到五个小时的时间来组合，这只是将报告放在一起的荒谬金额。当您谈论这些时间转化为美元时，很难真正出售它的价值。

How did your clients feel about paying for reporting?

他们不想支付三到五个小时。我们在围绕的垂直领域之一是景点和博物馆。我们也与一些家庭娱乐中心一起工作。

其中一个有12个地点，因此我们必须报告每个单独的位置以及整个客户。该报告可能需要我们五到七个小时，当您将其转换为小时费率时，客户的价值不存在。我不会去找这个客户，说：“要花费一千美元，要获得一个每月的报告，这对我们做出好的决定很有用。”

They would rather spend that five to seven hours doing marketing, which is what they’re paying us to do. But we need the numbers, right? We need the numbers to make decisions.

Databox has been a huge savior for that stuff. I can’t even begin to explain how much time it has saved us on a monthly basis.

自从您采用Databox以来，生活发生了什么变化？beplay体育appios

我们使用Datbeplay体育appiosabox将五个或六个或八个不同的数据源吸入我们的报告。我们的一些客户有多个位置，他们都有不同的Facebook页面。我们喜欢拥有一个可以拥有一个平台metrics dashboardfor each location and we don’t have to update it.

我们刚刚将每月报告的仪表板设置为“上个月”的时间段，因此每个月的第一个数据都会自动为我们刷新并准备就绪，我们只是将链接发送给客户端。

Sometimes, we’ll update dashboards with specific campaign data, and then we go in and write a little analysis in a text box where we explain why a number looks a certain way. It went from five to seven hours or three to five hours to one hour or two hours and some of them we’ve got down to about 30 minutes of setup.

What happens when you switch the metrics that you are monitoring?

我们确实每个月都会将数据转换为某些行业，因为它们跟踪季节性指标。我们知道，例如，在佛罗里达州的客户在9月和10月的月份最慢。对于我们在北部气候下的一些客户来说，最慢的月份是夏天，因为每个人都在外面，不在家庭娱乐中心。

So we have to switch those things every month based on which campaigns we’re tracking. Sometimes we’ll do really heavy SEO campaigns throughout the summer so we can grow rankings.

客户首先了解你的自动化达怎么样shboards?

At the beginning of the relationship, we always have clients fly in from wherever they are so they can be in our office for a big kickoff meeting. We have dashboards set up for each one.

We have cross-functional teams and so we have their dashboards with client data set up at the end of their workspace. They all sit at one long train of desks, with six or eight people together. And then at the end, they have a TV screen that has a carousel with the KPIs that we’re tracking for each of their clients.

Everyone is impressed when they come in and they see that we don’t just have fun things up everywhere. We’re literally always looking at the data.

我有一个奇怪的倾向，那就是早上走进办公室，站在房间中间。I wait for them [the TVs] to flip through each carousel. And then I start asking questions, like:

“为什么这样看起来？”

或者,“为什么这个数字是红色的?”

It really is that little reminder of ‘what gets measured, gets done’ and you’re watching your metrics on a constant basis. You’re required to pay attention to them. So that’s very good.

How do you communicate the reasoning behind these metrics?

We go through a pretty intense goal setting process with our clients. A lot of times they come in and they’re just like, “We want to make more money.”

And we ask, “What does that mean? How does that look? How does that translate into the work that we’re doing?”

For all of our clients in different verticals, the way they “make more money” is very different.

We have to track all kinds of different metrics tied to revenue. So we start by just sitting them down and talking about the “why”, which are the big hairy audacious goals. These are the goals behind what they are trying to do with their business.

When we set goals, we categorize them into awareness, affinity, and action. If we want to grow brand awareness, what does that look like? Brand awareness includes goals like search volume or even email open rates if we’re doing cold emailing. We’re looking at fans and followers.

Then we start looking at affinity, which is obviously engagement, time on the site, etc.

Then “action” is obviously conversions. We’re tracking all kinds of different conversions in different lead funnels. So awareness has to happen before affinity can happen. Affinity has to happen before action can happen. And all those things tie back into the big picture.

How do you measure your progress towards those big goals?

我们跟踪一年一度的进度。如果我们有收入目标或要达到的目标，那也是我们发送的报告的封面屏幕上。

我们从客户那里获得收入号码。如果他们不使用HubSpot销售，我们不会与他们分享报告。

我们每季度计划所有的工作。因此，我们发送季度报告和每月报告。由于客户收入的季节性，我们将去年的第三季度与今年的第三季度进行了比较。

How do you present these dashboards to clients?

We send them an email that has a link to the report. Then, we schedule a phone call to review it with them. Some of our clients look at their metrics all the time because they have a live link. Some clients are not as focused on data. They want to know about the tactics and how we’re going to support these campaigns they’re running or events that they have coming up and that sort of thing.

They usually need to report up the chain as well. So we just try to figure out how we can tie our behaviors to what they’re doing. For example, we say to them, “This PPC campaign brought your cost per conversion down, so you paid $4 for every birthday party that was booked at your family entertainment center versus $14, which was the previous cost per party.”

It’s usually a phone call with them or a join.me where we go through the report itself.

在a quarterly basis, we do the same thing. They get a longer Google Doc as well. So, they have a link to their Databox report and then they have a longer Google Doc which actually has their tactical plan. And we have a little bit more of a narrative inside there the campaigns that we’re planning.

帐户经理在本月的过程中会做什么来跟踪这一点？

我们有一个负责数据本身的团队的分析师。客户经理和战略家共同努力。他们是每周与客户打交道的人，并每周拨打电话和来回发送电子邮件。

我们每个星期一都会发送一份每周报告，该报告概述了过去一周的预览，以及我们仍在等待的事情，这始终是该电子邮件中最长的部分。我们的一些客户有一个登机电话。实际上，我们有一些客户每周进入办公室参加会议。

谈话的一个例子可能是：“我们刚刚看到您的排名开始为此下降。我们将在下周更改或旋转内容。”其中大多数来自我们的分析师查看数据，但这也来自我们每天工作时直接在仪表板上的东西。

How do you put together the quarterly plan?

我们现在正在为第四季度进行季度计划。我们刚刚根据第三季度收到的所有数据完成了Q4。

I just reviewed the Q4 strategies from one of our account managers. I noticed that one of the SMART goals they had set in the campaign included an increase in conversion rate. The conversion rate had not changed for the previous 6 quarters.

I started looking through the entire strategy and I didn’t see any tactics tied to conversion rate optimization. I asked the account manager about it. Her response, which I thought fantastic was, “We’re not doing on-page conversion rate optimization. We’re changing the messaging. We’re adding video strategy.” She had a really good response that these are all things that are going to contribute to us converting more visitors because we’re doing better targeting. I was sold on that. I just wanted to know that, if we’re going to set a goal, there will be tactics tied to achieving that goal.

我们在季度策略中有一个有关我们与我们谈到的基于叙事目标的数字目标的季度策略。然后，我们分享我们可能在季度进行的15种活动，以及它们将影响哪些目标。

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