Special Offers: Tracking Results

You can market your services from dawn to dusk, but if you don't track your results, you might as well just throw your money away.

by Jason Zigmont HowToSell.net [July 23, 1999]

When they finally start to meticulously track the results of their marketing efforts, many ISPs are truly surprised that activities that they thought were boosting the bottom line aren't worth the money.

Every incoming call to your ISP must be tracked. You need to train all of your staff to ask anyone who calls—whether to sign up or just asking for information—where they heard about you. This information should then be inputted into your billing system. (Your billing system does have at least one field for marketing information, right?)

IDs, please
Every advertising campaign and special introductory offer needs some sort of tracking identification. It can be a number (this is typical of direct mail campaigns), a keyword, or something a bit less formal. For example, 'Reference the bluebird special' or 'Tell them John from WYYZ sent you', etc.

When your employees answer the telephone, they need to know how to extract accurate information from your perspective customers. The most common response is 'word of mouth.' In fact, most callers have actually heard or seen ads that steered them to your service. Or it may have been a combination of a friend mentioning your service and bumping into your ad.

Analyze what you collect
Once you've begun to systematically collect tracking data, you should analyze the information on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis. You will begin to see trends, both seasonal and regional. One area may be more responsive to the newspaper and direct mails, and another may react only to radio.

Now that you know what works and what doesn't, you can adjust your marketing plan so that you're spending your money only where it counts, and lowering your overall customer acquisition costs.

—End

Read Part 1: Special Offers: Handle with Care

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