For several years, I have been a strong proponent of tracking telephone numbers. These are unique numbers that route electronically to your phone number, capturing all the critical data about the call. When you use these unique numbers on specific locations, you can measure who is calling from which of your marketing strategies. For years, our clients have received critical data from tracking numbers, allowing them to make important decisions on what is working and how it is working.
After some transition with our tracking number vendor, we now have a new, stable plan in place for our clients to begin ordering tracking numbers once again. Prices and terms are the same at only $480/year per number with no additional fees. Reporting will be delivered around the first of each month detailing the calls generated from each number. The data includes number of calls, call times, length of calls, whether or not the call was answered and any Caller ID information that is available. We recommend placing tracking numbers on your web site and on all print ads or direct mail pieces. If you are not doing this and want this kind of information, please contact me right here to get it set up.
One of my coaching clients took our advice at this time last year and put a tracking number on all of their media buys and web site. Unique numbers were placed on newspaper advertising, magazine advertising, web site and yellow pages ads. We reviewed the results periodically as part of our coaching sessions but seriously broke everything down toward at the end of the year. More than 800 calls were generated from the web site while less than 100 calls were generated from the vastly expensive print advertising they were doing. These results were instrumental in the refining of their media plan. Major expenses that resulted in a low flow of calls were reduced to appropriate expenditures and the money was then put into more web-driving traffic such as billboards and a higher commitment to Pay Per Click.
The bottom line is that with the knowledge of real, objective results, the client was much more empowered to act. Over the years, tracking numbers have given us data that have given clients the courage to drop Yellow Pages ads they felt pressured to maintain, drop expensive advertisements that they wondered whether or not they were working and redirect funds into more productive endeavors.
We are now pushing this full force. I am getting lots of feedback on good clients having good months all over the place. As the economy comes back, I really want to see our market break the cycle of uninformed media purchases. We are calling this initiative Project Watchdog. If things are still slow or tentative for you, using this sort of call tracking will help you sharpen the sword. If things are recovering for you or if you are just starting out, this sort of call tracking will help you avoid mistakes you made in the past by offering you specific measurement on responses.
Project Watchdog - know your call responses for all your marketing expenditures. Contact me today if you want this knowledge.
