Revolutionizing Business Insights with Google Analytics & Tag Manager - Fred Pike - S2 Ep. 18

In this episode, we are joined by Fred Pike, the Managing Director and GA & GTM Practice Lead at North Woods Digital. He is a seasoned expert in analytics, an accomplished presenter, and a dedicated educator who has crafted numerous online courses for beginners. In this conversation, he discusses practicing Google Tag Manager in his agency and strategies for forecasting business growth challenges.

Discussion Points - 

• What sort of bogus myth, strategy, or misconception would you like to set the record straight on? 6:32
• Could you explain how you initiated and led the Google Tag Manager practice in your agency? What prompted you to establish this practice? 8:22
• When exploring courses, should individuals begin with beginner-level Google Analytics (GA) courses, or should they consider other topics? 11:22
• How do you position your analytics services in client acquisition? Is it a primary focus or complementary to other offerings? 14:57
• How do you tackle forecasting challenges for business growth, particularly in custom software solutions? How accurate is your forecast for the upcoming months? 19:52
• How do you handle overstaffing or excess production capacity caused by low client demand? 22:53
• How did your agency decide on the practice lead role for Google Analytics and Tag Manager expertise? And how do you effectively market this specialization to clients? 30:21
• What percentage of your business's revenue comes from the GA and GTM revenue stream, considering the time it took to develop and expand this practice? 32:40
• How do you define your ideal customer? What are you doing to ensure your positioning is strong? 36:30
• What is exciting you about the future? 39:11

Show notes - 

• The more I dove into GA and GTM, the more I realized we should be doing this for our clients. They need to understand what's happening with their website, and they need to be tracking those meaningful user interactions. And so, it just grew into a practice eventually. 10:31
• I think you should choose a course that offers an introductory overview of the model used to capture that information. It should also discuss the types of information you should be tracking. 12:41
• The way we typically approach a new client is through some form of strategy, aiming to comprehend their website goals and how they're gauging the effectiveness of their strategy. 15:37
• I think the thing that's really important that has helped me and the companies I've engaged with over the years is a model of the business. It's not the business model itself; it's a model that encompasses the business's structure. This includes the staff members and the anticipated revenue streams. 16:57
• I've never found a great forecasting tool that fits well with professional services businesses like the ones I've been engaged with. You'd expect such a tool to exist, but I've never found one. So, I ended up developing one internally. 18:40
• Many times, we win business because we're discussing topics that no one else has ever addressed with that client.  And, so that speaks to the level of expertise that we have in that in that realm. 32:01
• The way we aim to grow and attract new clients is through thought leadership. We accomplish this through a couple of methods. Firstly, by creating blog posts, where we are actively engaged in writing about various digital marketing strategies and aspects. Secondly, through our webinars, we maintain a robust series of webinars. 37:08
• By feeding the right questions, Chat GPT often offers valuable advice, though sometimes not as reliable. I'm thrilled about exploring this area and its potential to boost my efficiency, possibly by 20%, and that just has me jazzed. 40:01
  

Myth Busted - Anyone can effectively use Google Tag Manager without proper knowledge

Links -
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredpike/
Company website: https://www.nwsdigital.com/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fred_pike

Show Credits - 
Host - Varun Bihani & Jessie Coan
Produced by Bobby Soni 
Edited by Harish Khatarkar
Content by Aakash Damani, Yashika Neekhra, and Juhie Bhardwaj