Cease Guessing, Begin Knowing: Are Your Ad Dollars Wasted?

I asked a business owner the other day, what I thought was a very broad question: how have you grown your business?

I was expecting the answer to be about something like values or hard work. I was expecting sort of a long answer about what it takes to succeed and how to build something successful from the ground up. I was expecting to be inspired.

His answer wasn't inspiring, it was practical.

His answer: marketing.

That's all. One word.

His answer wasn't broad or philosophical; it was accurate.

This is the answer of an owner who is concerned about actual issues.

He worries about staying in business, keeping his customers happy, making sure he makes payroll and expanding his business.

He doesn't have time for philosophy. He has to worry about where every penny goes.

The Problem

Most companies track where their marketing money goes. For example: 15% on signs and banners, 25% on traditional advertising, 45% on coupons and direct mail and 15% on internet banner ads. Knowing where the money goes is a start.

But, do they know which marketing tactic is truly successful?

A lot of small and medium-sized businesses send their hard earned, precious marketing dollars out into the world and just sort of hope it's working. People are walking in the door, they are calling you on the phone; your marketing must be working. Right?

But, do you know which parts of your marketing strategy are effective? Are people calling your business because they heard your advertisement on the radio or because you sent them a piece of direct mail or a coupon? Do you even know?

Most small and medium-sized businesses simply don't know.

Large companies track every penny of their marketing budgets. Wal-Mart is a prime example of this. They know, to the penny, exactly how much it costs to get each customer to walk through their door. You can bet Coca-Cola, Apple and GE know exactly which ads work and which ads don't.

And if this information is critical for giant Fortune 500 companies with money to burn, you bet it's critical for you and me.

The Answer

Let's say you own or manage a small or medium-sized business. You do a direct mail/coupon promotion once every quarter. You have ads on the local radio station and in the phone book. You also occasionally run ads in the local paper.

When someone calls, you simply have no reliable way of knowing who they are, why they called or which piece of advertising got them to call. Either employees don't ask, they don't write it down, or the person the on the phone makes something up. Bottom line: the vast majority of the time, you have no reliable way of knowing.

Unless…

Unless there was a way to track those calls and figure it out.

That's exactly what new technology offers.

Here's how it works. This software product assigns a different phone number to each piece of advertising. You put a certain phone number on your direct mail promotion, a different one on your local radio ad, a different one in the phone book and a different one in the newspaper. All of these numbers are routed directly to your main phone number (so you don't have a bunch of different phone lines). And then, using our proprietary online tools, you can see exactly how many people, how many leads and customers are calling from a certain number. Bottom-line: you can see which ad is working.

Pretty cool huh?

So, let's say you spent 20% of your marketing budget on radio ads, but in a 3 month span that phone number only generated 4% of your calls. You would know you are dumping money into a marketing source that isn't producing anything.

Using these revolutionary online tools you can see who's calling from which number; you can see their names, see where they're calling from and even track what they're calling about. You can even follow the 'prospect' through from start to finish and see if they ended up buying or not. (Allowing you to judge the 'quality' of your leads from each advertising source).

And the best part: you can actually hear the call. We record it for you and you can listen to it right on your computer.

Benefits of Recording the Call

How did your employee handle the call? Did they sell effectively? Do they need additional sales and customer service training sales and customer service training or more information on your products?

Additionally, you even have access to our exclusive industry-specific scorecard so you can rate your employees on very important elements of the phone call. Did they greet the customer well? Did they ask for the customer's name and use it? Most importantly, did they try to set up an appointment or make the sale?

These are tools that used to be available for only big corporations; now, they're affordable enough for the little guy.

Marketing: Tracking Your Money

Remember the business owner we met at the beginning? The realist who wasn't into philosophical solutions or impractical advice?

He cut through the unimportant stuff pretty quickly. And he's right. After all is said and done your business will grow because you spend your money wisely and you market well.


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ContactPoint is the world leader in sales and customer service optimitics. Their technology records and scores real phone calls so companies hear what their clients hear. To start rocking your sales visit http://www.contactpoint.com or http://www.contactpoint.com/about-you/sell-with-power