The great promise of online advertising has always been that advertisers will now be able to effectively track
successes and failures of their online advertising efforts. This promise has been met.Yet, for those of us who still employ offline promotions and advertising methods, we must consider various ways in which we can effectively track our results in old-world media.
TRACKING RESULTS BEFORE THE INTERNET AGE
How long has it been? Ten Years? Believe it or not, it has been less than ten years since Internet went mainstream.
Companies still utilize same methods to track results as they did before we laid our hopes on Digital Superhighway.
TV advertisers ask you to call extension X. Radio advertisers offer you additional savings if you tell them you heard it on XYZ radio station. In newspapers and magazines, advertisers suggest you clip attached coupons.
Why do you think advertisers employ these tactics?
Simple. They need to know what advertising is bringing customers in front door and to their cash register.
By understanding what advertisers are bringing them customers and dollars, they have a better understanding of where to spend their next wave of advertising dollars. Additionally, they can do a side-by-side comparison of their Advertising Return on Investment (ROI) to determine which method brings them most percentage of return per dollar spent.
UNDERSTANDING HOW WE SHOULD MEASURE
The truth is that we really do need to know how people are deciding to visit and buy from our business establishment.
Some consider this idea silly or even a waste of their valuable time. Far too many people, who think of tracking in this fashion, end up searching for a job at some point in their future. Unless pure dumb luck is on side of business owner, a business simply cannot survive if it does not track effectiveness of its advertising.
Somehow, some way, a business owner or his marketing staff must look at their advertising and promotion budgets, and look at their advertising mediums and find a way to know which is doing job for them and which is not.
DISCOVERING WHAT MOTIVATES OUR CUSTOMERS
Somehow, we must get our customers to tell us how they found us and what ad motivated them to come in and purchase our product or service.
Everyday, businesses motivate their customers to tell them how they learned of them by having customer call a certain extension, offer them an additional discount to tell them which advertisement they had heard, or to offer them a coupon to use.
Others motivate their customers to tell them how they had learned of their business by offering a very specific product in their advertising. They know that if someone shows up at their business to buy a certain product, then they will know how person had heard of their business.
This is why you should make your radio advertising focus on a different promotion than your newspaper advertising. Different mediums should focus on different leader pieces so that you can see which medium provides best results.
