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Print Media:
Any form of printed advertising is very easy to track, using remote call forwarding numbers (RCFs) yet some companies still write a big check every month to the news papers & yellow pages publishers with no clue as to what they get from it. Tracking your forms of advertising can be a very effective way of deciding if what worked 20 years ago is still working. Sales reps for the news paper & yellow pages company are very effective at showing usage of their product and painting a wonderful picture of how well their form of media can impact your business…PROVE IT by tracking it.
Website Tracking:
Google has made tracking web traffic very easy. Google Analytics is a simple yet powerful piece of java script that you place in the <head> of your website pages that allows you to track just about everything associated with your website. Knowing if you have a high bounce rate or a page that customers abandon your site can be very helpful in determining if you need to make some changes to your site.
Chris has a lot more detail about analytics by clicking here, including videos and better breakdowns showing just how to make the most out of your website.
Creative Media:
One of the hardest forms of media to track is “Creative Media,” things like billboards along roadways, TV, or Radio. Often times a deal is associated with these forms of media, like mention this ad for 10% off or the “Summer Sale is going on now,” my favorite is, “Tell them John sent you.” Most forms of creative media are designed to produce foot traffic to a store or even as simple brand awareness.
If you are investing in a branding campaign don’t even worry about tracking conversions off the product, you are just interested in having your name on the tops of consumers minds.
Tracking “Creative Media” requires that you pull business sales documents from previous years during the same time periods (June-July) and studying the increase in year over year, then looking at current reports (while the creative media is running) then being able to distinguish the difference between economic factors, year over year increases, and making your best educated guess on what the media provided.
Questioners and why they don’t work:
Once a customer is at your location, asking the question, “How did you hear about me?” is never a great way to ask. Most customer don’t care, or don’t remember how they decided to visit you. I bought a car last year from a local dealer, when I was signing the paperwork they handed me a “Tell us how you heard about us.” document, for the life of me couldn’t remember what got me in their door, it could have been the excitement of a new car that prevented my brain from accessing the information. I had 5 boxes I could check as an option, as I recall I checked “Drive By” but thinking about it…I did tons of research online. I had talked to my friends about their cars, I had been to many dealers before…Regardless, the data they collected wasn’t 10% accurate.
If you rely on questioners once the customer has arrived at your business, you are not getting enough data to make a good decision.
Word Of Mouth:
Word of mouth business is how most business get 50% or more of their business…or so they think. I have a customer that rents snowmobiles in Colorado. She stated that her program wasn’t working as well as she had hoped. We went back and listened to her calls, she asked everyone that called how they had found her, overwhelmingly customer stated a friend. The calls we listened to (on a PPC campaign) were finding her online yet were giving her data that wasn’t accurate.
QR Codes:
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[/one_third] [two_third_last] Qr Codes are becoming more used in advertising every day. If you are running any form of printed advertising (yellow pages, magazines, news print) you might consider learning more about QR and deploy them in every form of printed marketing you are doing. You can allow the advertising you are doing to work so much harder for you. If you are looking for more information about QR codes click here. [/two_third_last]
Often times your marketing works hand in hand with your word of mouth. Be sure that you are making your marketing decisions on accurate information.
If you have any questions about anything above please call Chris directly at 720.427.3707, he is always happy to help.