TrackingTracking is the process of building some kind of identifying mechanism into each tactic that you want to measure, and then identifying and recording the actions that result from the tactic. It is an evaluative tool. It is the quintessential evaluative tool. How You Do ItThere are a great many ways, both old and new, to include mechanisms in your advertising, sales promotion and public relations. Here are a few common techniques.Response Cards: As you know, many sales letters and catalogs have traditionally included response cards. If the reader wants to order a product or service (or receive more information before deciding), he fills out the card and mails it back. The card contains a code that identifies the promotion to which the reader responded. When the advertiser receives the cards, he can determine which promotions produced which inquiries/orders. This purely physical method may sound quaint in an era of toll-free 800 numbers, email, landing pages, and purely online commerce. But it is still in use and still effective. Telephones, Departments, Coupons: Or, the sales letter or catalog may direct the reader to call a toll-free number and have his credit card handy. The toll-free number is assigned only to this specific promotion, so when that line rings, the advertiser knows which promotion triggered the call. Some catalog advertisers use a different toll-free number on every page. Similarly, a newspaper ad might direct the reader to visit a retail store and bring in a coupon cut from the ad (this technique is a century old and still going strong), or to call the store and ask for a certain extension or a certain department or person. Or to go to a specific page of a web site. Online: Of course, marketing that is conducted entirely online makes the tracking process almost effortless. With the right software, you can collect, store and analyze more information than offline sellers ever dreamed of. This is a boon to entrepreneurs and small business owners. Gather Data Wherever and Whenever You CanOnline or offline, there are dozens of established methods. As you can see, the old and the new can coexist, even in a single company. And marketers are devising new methods all the time.But the basic process is timeless: gather prospect data wherever and whenever you can within the sales cycle, and as fine-grained as you can, and then store and analyze it. It's so simple that one wonders why so few marketers do it. If you are wondering that, see
Attitudes
and
Boost Your Career.
StrengthsGenerally speaking, there is no other tool more accurate than Tracking. It gives you incontrovertible evidence to prove to senior management that your ad/PR program is profitable.WeaknessesIt takes some time, thought and effort to set up a system. However, once you have the system set up, it's easy to add a new element to it.For example, if you launch a new advertising vehicle – say, post cards – it takes only a few seconds to assign a code to each promotion for which you are using post cards, and to add the code to a card before you send it to printing.
Return from Tracking to Measuring What They Did
|