Tracking numbers
Knowing that at least half of your advertising works is a good thing… not knowing which half is working is not such a good thing. Yet this is a common dilemma for many people paying for advertising and promotional marketing.
Using unique tracking numbers on every piece of advertising or promotional marketing you do is one way to learn what’s working and what is just costing you money.
Tracking numbers are a telephone number tracking service which allows you to monitor the number of calls you receive from each individual advert or piece of promotional marketing you do – as it corresponds to its own unique tracking number.
You get a set of several different phone numbers and you direct them all at your existing phone extension. You won’t have to get a new phone line or change your main number – everything will still work as it used to.
You answer your existing phone in the same way you have always done. The only thing which changes is that you now have access to some very powerful intelligence. You can go online and see what calls have been generated by what advert or promotional marketing based on which phone number the call originated from.
As a quick example of how this can work, let’s think about typical types of advertising and promotional marketing. A local business might have two or three adverts in the local papers, a website, a brochure and some business cards – that five or six pieces of individual marketing material.
So which one(s) tends to generate the most enquiries? Which one(s) does it make sense to continue to pay for? With tracking numbers, each individual piece of marketing material is assigned its own unique phone number, all directed to your business’s main number, and you can then monitor which numbers are producing the most enquiries – and which marketing material is proving most effective.
You can go one further and ensure that each advertisement or piece of promotional marketing has its own unique reference code that you ask people to quote if they are responding to a specific offer or promotion. The key is to be able to accurately monitor and track what is working – so your marketing isn’t stumbling around in the dark!
There are many providers who can set up tracking numbers for you – do your homework and try to find one which has a solid reputation and represents good value for money.
If you’d like to learn more about tracking numbers, reference codes and other ways to monitor and track your advertising and marketing spend we can help. Call Elite Edge on 01706 642634 or email marketing@elite-edge.co.uk and ask to speak with Marie.