Stop Guessing. Start Tracking...

your marketing that is... :) Remember that the ONLY reason you spend money in your business, is to make more money.

How do you know what's actually working to bring you new customers or bring back old ones, unless you ruthlessly track the marketing results of every dollar you spend.

Sounds hard but it isn't.  Here's how you do it.

For every piece of advertising you put out there - you include an offer that is unique for every ad.  So if you're running a half page display ad in the local newspaper, for example, you include at the bottom an irresistible offer (of course with a deadline imposed) but that contains a unique call to action.  So the simplest would be a unique coupon code redeemable at your business or website, or a specific webpage to visit where they enter their details.  Easy, trackable and you get the added bonus of capturing their contact details to add to your mailing list.

But if your business doesn't fit this model - the dead easiest way to track your advertising is have them call a number to place their order and ask for a person of a fictitious name (eg To order call now and ask for Marlene).  If you have 10 different ads running at the same time, you use 10 different names to find which ads are driving in the most business.  Obviously the person at the other end of the phone in your business is already fully briefed on your tracking strategy so when a call for Marlene comes through, she pretends to be Marlene and keeps a record of the call.

Tracking should apply to every little piece of advertising you put out in the marketplace.  You will be amazed at what the results are.  Often they are the exact opposite of what you'd expect.  Once you find a winning advertisement, keep it as your control piece and make minor tweaks to it (one tweak at a time otherwise you won't know what worked!) to see if you can bump the response rate and beat the control.

Happy tracking!