Let me know if this has ever happened to you:
You’re sitting in your office when Mr. Marketing/Advertising Sales Guy comes in for his presentation. He unpacks his bag and proceeds to have a pleasant conversation about a whole bunch of nothing. Once the unpacking is complete, he tells you just how excited he is about his company’s new initiative. About how his company’s website is #1 on the search engines for and how they’re scoring a bazillion – YES, A BAZILLION – visitors a day who are just screaming, begging, and hollering for a bankruptcy lawyer with an office in your state/city/zip code.
The rep is sure that you’re a great fit for this particular medium of marketing, and he really wants to make sure it’s YOU – not the other bozo down the hall – who snags this incredibly valuable piece of real estate. And it’s only $2,500 a month, which is incredible . . . after all, you need only receive two cases a month to break even. Get three and you’re rich in no time flat!
So you sign the contract, pleased with yourself that you’ll be on a yacht in no time, martini in hand and ascot around your neck. Just like the last scene in Trading Places.
Then three months go by and you have not one single iota of an idea in the world as to whether this ad is doing a damn thing for you. Sure, people say they found you online. They also say they saw you on TV but you haven’t been there for years.
Wake up and smell the coffee – using your consumer as the means of tracking marketing effectiveness is a waste of time.
If you want to know whether an ad is paying off, you’ve got to track it using an objective means. For example:
- A special toll-free number listed only in that ad
- Create a separate landing page on your website for people who click onto an online ad
- Tell people who see a particular ad to ask about a special promotional item that only viewers of that ad can receive
If you aren’t tracking, you aren’t making money – you’re spending it and hoping for the best.
Photo courtesy of Chaval Brasil.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!Related posts: