I want to chat to you about tracking – some do it, some don’t and most that do, do it wrong. So it’s no wonder that most businesses are frustrated with their advertising and marketing. In order to market effectively you need to track the things you do so you know what’s working, but if you don’t do it right you’re wasting your time.
“No problem – I’ll ask my customers how they found me.”
Wrong.
Ouch, sorry, I’m not here to rain on your parade. But I am here to let you know why this is wrong and how you can make it right.
First off, what are you really asking your customers with that question? What are you tracking? In reality, you are tracking nothing more than your customers recall ability and you’re asking them to name whatever Media that first comes to mind. Unfortunately, your customers don’t care about your need to track your advertising – life would be much easier for us all if they did.
“But I don’t want to prompt them with the right answers, I want to know what Media stands out in their mind.”
Ok, again, what are you tracking there? Absolutely nothing at all to do with your business – but you’ll gather some terrific stats that I’m sure the Medias would appreciate getting their hands on.
No, if you want to track whether or not your advertising is working you need to layout the options and you need to do it very clean and simple. All you need is a piece of graph paper, or a printout from Excel, with a box to write the name of the Media or form of advertising and lots of small, empty boxes for customers to put a checkmark. You head the form up with “Where have you seen my business” and you ask customers to put a check mark next to every single one that applies. It’s quick and easy for the customer and it’s quick and easy for you to analyze.
Where have you seen my business
Gateway Gazette | |||||||||||||||||||||
Western Wheel | |||||||||||||||||||||
Etc, etc |
Now there are a couple of tricks here.
1) DON’T just include the places where you DO advertise – include as many as you can think of. By doing this you eliminate the worry that you are “leading the witness”. And just for kicks, make some up.
2) I recommend placing them in alphabetical order by name and don’t identify what form of Media it may be – some will be obvious, but if the customer isn’t familiar with one of them, the name isn’t going to mean anything to them, which is ok.
3) If you don’t get a lot of walk-in traffic for your business, keep this chart by the phone and ask each customer if they can take a quick moment to answer yes or no to the following list. In this instance I would recommend skipping over any fake ones you’ve made up simply for the sake of time.
Click here for an editable and printable template that you can start using today. I’ve already got you started with an extensive list that you can add to or remove from.
Since I’m on a mission to keep my articles as close to 500 words as possible these days, I’m going to leave it at that for today. There is soooooo much more to say just on this little chart, but I’m already over 600 words! :-)
So, go get this chart started – first and foremost you need to get it filled out.
I’ll be back soon to tell you how to analyze it and use it.
~ Planning – a nutritious part of your healthy marketing efforts. ~
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