Getting a handle on marketing analytics, online reputation and website performance can be more than a handful for small businesses. In addition to the learning curve – what should you pay attention to – it’s downright time consuming.
Today, Yahoo! Small Business has launched a new free tool, Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard, that may help you manage it all in one spot. It’s part of Yahoo’s move toward providing business services and data.
We’re going to give it a look and will report back to you on what we think.
Here’s what Yahoo has to say about it:
The dashboard helps entrepreneurs discover new marketing opportunities to grow their businesses, while getting a clear picture of their marketing results, online reputations, and website performance, all in one place.
“This dashboard will give small businesses a clear understanding of the effectiveness of their online marketing campaigns, especially those created in partnership with Constant Contact.”
Designed specifically with the small business owner in mind, the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard provides a clear, consolidated picture of a business’s marketing results and reputation, making it easier to discover new insights and develop new ideas for growth.
The tool also enables small businesses to easily analyze website metrics and maintain accurate and comprehensive business listings across the Web.
With all these key business metrics accessible in one location, small business owners with limited resources can spend more time focusing on their core businesses and less time buried in multiple interfaces and spreadsheets.
Some of the key features included in the free Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard include:
- Search engine and directory listings: Enables monitoring and provides recommendations on new listing opportunities, covering over 100 sites (including Yelp, Yahoo! Local, and more)
- Online reputation management: Pulls information from up to 8,000 sources (including Facebook and Twitter)
- Site traffic analysis: Enables users to understand key website performance metrics (including Google Analytics)
- Small business-focused news and advice: Provided from Yahoo! Small Business Advisor
- Campaign tracking: Provides email marketing, SEO, and SEM campaign tracking (must subscribe to these services)
- Support: 24/7 in-house free customer support
Additionally, business owners can opt for paid premium services within the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard that enable them to enhance their marketing and analysis. For example:
- Local Visibility Pro: Small businesses can increase their online visibility by submitting their business information to over 100 search engines and directories
- Reputation Management Pro: Users get more comprehensive data, plus the ability to track their competitors, receive email alerts, and share positive customer comments via social channels or email
- Integrated campaign tracking: Small businesses can also attract new customers by taking advantage of marketing services from featured, best-in-class third party marketing vendors, including Constant Contact and OrangeSoda, and display and monitor results from campaigns with those vendors from within the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard
“We created the Yahoo! Marketing Dashboard to help small business owners who feel overwhelmed by online marketing options and monitoring a wide range of sites and so cial networks to keep up with customer feedback,” said Shannon Parker Hane, director of product marketing, Yahoo! Small Business.
“Now, within a single tool customers can conveniently evaluate their marketing options, campaign results and online reputation without having to search across the Web for information.”
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- Small Business Administration revamps website & social media tools
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