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In
the minds of many people, advertising is thought of as a necessary
evil. If you're like many folks I speak with, you have this vague
feeling that your ads are not working as they should or even worse,
that you're wasting your money. However, you don't have specific
information to base this on, because you have not taken the steps
necessary to accurately track your ad response.
Of course, everyone likes getting new business as the result of
advertising, but do you have clear and realistic goals for your ads? If
the answer is no, consider implementing a specific, logical plan. Below
are some tips for tracking your ad response.
First, let's talk about print ads. If you are not the only one
answering the phone, have you instructed your staff to ask everyone who
calls how they heard about you? If not, you are missing a step. And is
it even practical for you to do this? Maybe not, but you can say
something in your ad like "mention this ad and get 10% off." This
provides an incentive for your customers to volunteer how they heard
about you.
In this day and age, it's important to recognize that even if your ad
appears in print, as long as it contains your web address then you have
to realize that many people will not call you when they see your ad;
they will go to your website instead. This didn't used to be the case,
but now that most people are online and used to checking out
websites--and purchasing products and services that way, as well as
doing research--you need to track your website traffic in order to
effectively track response to print ads. And of course, many of you are
doing web based advertising as well.
Why bother, you ask? Because you will be making decisions about the
effectiveness of your ads and you don't want to miss the big picture.
Let's say that you have a print ad running, and you assume that people
will call if they are interested. So you've instructed your staff to
ask "How did you hear about us?" That's very important, but you have
not included anything on your website to find out this same
information. So if a person sees your print ad and then purchases
online, you have no clue that the print ad worked.
Here's another example: let's say you purchase an ad in a print
magazine that also has a website that includes a link to your site. If
you are not tracking your website traffic, you cannot know who the
referrers are to your site--in other words, from which site did they
click to get to your site? Even if they do not purchase anything, you
should follow the traffic. If you discover that many people are
clicking over to your site from this ad's link but not purchasing your
product or service, then the fault lies not with your ad but with the
way your present yourself or the way your website is designed.
One simple way to track ad response is to put a code on your website
that people need to fill in when they make a purchase. This is
certainly helpful, but what about the people who forget to fill this in
or who do not make a purchase? Finding out the true traffic to your
website--number of visitors, which pages they looked at, where they
live--is way more effective.
There are many different methods for tracking your web traffic. The
cheapest way is to use whatever free statistics your Internet Service
Provider (ISP) offers. This varies quite a bit depending on your ISP;
some offer very sophisticated tools and some offer stats that require a
technical expertise to decipher. If you donít know what the
situation is in your case, call or visit the website of your ISP to
find out.
Another option to determine details of your website's traffic is to use
a web based service that will track all the activity for you, and then
provide you with easy to understand information that does not require
any technical knowledge. All you need to do is embed a small amount of
html code on your web pages and then you can access the data online in
real time any time you wish. This is the method I use and I find it
extremely helpful. There are several different companies that offer
this service. The one I recommend is called Web-Stat. The fee is very
small and the details they provide are amazing.
The final option is to purchase tracking software that runs on your own
computer. You will need to have access to the stats provided by your
ISP and then plug that into the software program. This is the most
expensive option and requires the most technical skill, but it can give
you the highest detail and is a popular choice among larger companies
that have very extensive websites and huge traffic.
You can find out all sorts of key information when you track your
website's traffic: how much time do people generally spend looking at
your website? Which page do they land on to start (it may not be your
home page) and which page do they leave from? How many different pages
do they view? If people are using a search engine to find you, which
key words and which search engines are they using? What are the busiest
days of the week and busiest times of the day? How does this month's
traffic compare to last month or last year? Wouldn't you like to know
all this information? If so, then take the time to set up a system.
It's one-time work that will pay off for years to come.
Track
your website's traffic with Web-Stat: Free Trial
Janice
Hughes and her partner Dennis Hughes publish The Share Guide, a
holistic health magazine & resource directory for Northern
California, and shareguide.com
a resource on holistic health for the online community.
Dennis
and Janice are experts on marketing--after having published the
magazine for 18 years, they have the tools to help you get the word out
about your holistic health business.
To
learn more about advertising in The Share Guide: click here
©
2007 by Janice Hughes, all
rights reserved
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