Analyize This!

I used to hate marketing.

Why? Because you can't tell how effective it is. Is that giant billboard with the painting cows really helping you sell more chicken sandwiches? And if so, enough sandwiches to cover the $700 monthly expense? That's a lot of chicken! Of course that's just one example. Magazine ads, TV spots, radio blurbs, they're not free and may be costing you more than they are worth. The landscape is changing however, and now marketing comes with proof! By getting the right analytics you can see the powerful effects marketing can have on your business.

While old media still lacks many essential tracking features, online marketing will let you know exactly the kind of results you are getting. Using another Google tool, Google Analytics, you can track how many visitors come to your site each day. Beyond that you can see what pages they view, how long they spent on your site, where they came from, and much, much more! If you also display a different phone number on your site you can track how many calls you get from your web marketing each month. Now you can compare the number of calls you get to the number of visitors you get to your site. This will let you start to see how effective your site is in bringing in new business each month as well as what you would be willing to pay for additional web traffic.

The important thing with tracking is to start! Any data you gather will help you be more efficient and give you a place to start from as you implement new campaigns.