A story with no ending. A puzzle with no solution. A race with no winner. An offline campaign that doesn’t track the results. All highly unsatisfactory and kind of pointless in the end.
You spent a lot of time and a hefty portion of your marketing budget on that print ad, commercial, direct mail or other offline marketing project. So was it a success? Don’t make the mistake of skipping out on the grand finale. It’s a big one—and it’s one that can cost you dearly down the road. Here we’re going to lay out some whys, and give a few hints on the how, of tracking your offline marketing efforts:
You took the risk. Are there rewards in store?
Or was the project an expensive cautionary tale? By monitoring your marketing, you can learn what works, what doesn’t and how to earmark your funds next time. No sense in making the same mistake twice—invest in marketing that produces results and proliferates profit.
Hindsight is 20/20.
From the promotion you picked to the message you sent to the medium you chose to convey it all. Did your project achieve its mission? Get wise to what’s effective, and then fine-tune your future marketing efforts. Tracking allows you the opportunity to reassess your thinking and perfect future projects.
It’s not as tricky as you might think.
Tracking offline marketing is not the voodoo some imagine it to be. Attaching a method to measure your audience’s response to your campaign is, in fact, a rather simple process.
Follow their trail online.
That’s right—you can track offline campaigns straight to the web. Find out when a print ad or marketing piece leads a potential customer to your website by creating separate landing pages, with unique URLs, hosted within your domain. When customers type in this custom URL, they’ll land on the page with your advertised marketing message or offer first. They can still access your website from this point, but this gives you the chance to capture responses and reinforce your campaign content.
Phone-generated sales are for all generations.
Old fashioned? Perhaps. But obsolete they are not. Some still rely on honest-to-goodness live customer service from a friendly rep. Measure your call-in volume accurately by assigning a custom phone number to each marketing campaign, and even to each individual publication’s ad or targeted mailing. Itemized reports can confirm from which piece the call originated, as well as other details, such as time and geographical location.
Dana takes the guesswork out of tracking your offline marketing efforts—and your online marketing too. Contact Lynn Kaniper at lkaniper@danacommunications.com to learn more.
