A great quote: “Half of my money spent on marketing and advertising is wasted the problem is I don’t know which half.”

A vast majority of companies out there are just like this. I had a client awhile back that I was convinced that his customers all came from his radio ads. I knew they came elsewhere, so I convinced him to test and track it just to be sure.

Yup. I was right.

Here he was for years spending thousands and thousands on radio and not getting much at all from it. If he had simply tracked where his customers were coming from, he would have known it was wasteful and he could have placed his ad dollars where they were actually benefitting him.

So the key here is to track everything you can. If you can’t track it, scrap it. Ask your customers where they heard about you, and keep a tally.

You can set up special phone numbers for each one of your ads that keep track of how many calls you receive from a specific mail piece. We now even have a really cool scanner for direct mail that keeps track digitally and tells you how much they spent because of that specific direct mail piece. Use Coupons. Track email open rates. Track time spent on your website. So find ways to track everything. Don’t guess about your marketing. Know.