Tracking results of your marketing efforts

Before you implement any marketing campaign—regardless of whether it involves print, telephone, radio, TV, or other electronic media—take a moment to consider how you'll be able to track the results of your efforts. Large sums of money are often invested in massive marketing campaigns without any attempt to understand which aspects of the campaign were the most effective. Because marketing is not an exact science, it's important to learn from your experiences. With a little forethought, you may be able to significantly reduce your future marketing expenditures, or increase your spending for the approaches that offer the best return.

For all print collateral, consider adding a special offer number tied to the campaign, and set up a method for tracking the responses. Regardless of whether you're a small business using pen and notepad for orders, or a large business with an automated ordering system, it shouldn't take a lot of time to get a new tracking field added to your process. (If adding a new field isn't easy, check to see whether there's an existing field that your business doesn't use that can be used for tracking purposes.) Keeping up with the responses can help you detect campaign effectiveness and even help you become aware of seasonal influences if you conduct campaigns at different times of the year.

If most of your orders or sales leads are received by telephone, adding new extensions that reach the same sales staff offers a simple tracking approach. You can use a different extension for every type of media (radio, TV, print) or for each individual placement. Check with your phone service provider to see what automated tracking information is available to you, and use it effectively. For smaller businesses where a central, human receptionist answers all calls, it may be possible to use a fictitious extension that exists only so the receptionist can log calls generated by a specific campaign.

If you receive responses by e-mail, consider setting up a special e-mail alias for each separate activity or campaign that you'd like to track. And, if a visit to your Web site is an integral part of your sales cycle or you're advertising on the Web, consider setting up a special site entry point that will let you track results using standard statistics provided by most Web hosting services. Ask your Webmaster for assistance, because tracking capabilities will vary.

Finally, schedule time to analyze the results of your tracking. If you haven't tracked your results before, you may find the results surprising.

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