Do you know your current marketing campaigns return on investment? Are you keeping track? Do you have a system in place for tracking results? If no, don’t feel bad, most small to mid-sized businesses don’t. I like to call this the Yellow Pages Trap. I know the name isn’t going to win me any friends at AT&T or R.R. Donnelley, but it fits.

My experience working with small business owners has taught me that they love spending money on yellow page ads. This love affair with printed directories doesn’t exist because they are a Mecca of advertising success. In reality, for a lot of industries, the return on investment is awful. In the Internet age, 70% of consumers go to search engines to find products or services, not to the phone book. So why do businesses continue to spend between $100 to thousands of dollars a month on yellow page ads just because the directory’s sales rep says they are a good deal? Businesses aren’t keeping track of their results.

What’s Your Marketing ROI?

This brings us back to the original question: Do you know your current marketing campaign’s return on investment? To have success in marketing you need to spend money on what’s working and eliminate spending on what’s not. The only way to know what is and is not working is to measure your results. Now I know what you are thinking, this sounds expensive and time consuming. My answer is, it is a lot cheaper than spending money on ineffective marketing and, with some planning, your tracking system practically runs itself.

Setting up an Online Tracking System

One of the best parts of doing business online, or having a website, is how easy it is to track your marketing efforts. There are a number of analytics packages available both free and paid. My favorite is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free enterprise level analytics package that is capable of producing over 80 different reports. When properly configured, you can track all your online marketing, gaining valuable insight into what’s working and what isn’t.

A basic installation of Google Analytics can be set up by anyone familiar with web design. If you want to tap into the full power of the software I recommend looking for a programmer that has experience customizing the analytics code and filters to give you the tracking that best fits your company’s business objectives. You can find more information at www.google.com/analytics.

Tracking Offline Campaigns

Tracking your offline marketing takes some creativity. Offline you need to plan how you will track each marketing campaign on a case by case basis. Lets look at how to track a full page yellow page ad. A yellow page ad offers four ways for your customers to interact with your business. They can call, email, visit your website, or come to your place of business.

To track walk in traffic your ad should include a coupon with a unique promotion code for that specific directory. This way any customers that come in with the coupon can be tracked not only to your add, but to the specific directory it was listed in.

Another great idea is creating a unique email address for the ad. I recommend using the ads promotion name like this promotionname@yourbusiness.com or promotioncode@yourbusiness.com.

To track phone traffic you can set up an 800 number unique to that ad. At the end of the month check your invoice to see how many calls came from the ad.

Track website referrals by setting up a unique landing page based on the theme of the ad. The URL should be www.yourwebsite.com/adpromotionname. Make sure you have a clear call to action on the landing page. At this point you want to convert the prospect to a customer.

For tracking purposes, your analytics report will show how many visitors came to the landing page. Since the yellow page ad was the only way the customer could have found the landing page url, you know the ad was the referral source. One word of caution, some people will type in the website name and leave off the promotion at the end of the URL. Offline there is no perfect system for tracking website referrals, but it is better than not having the right systems in place.

The Bottom Line

Escaping the Yellow Page Trap comes down to tracking your campaigns. The difference between success and failure in marketing is knowing what works and what doesn’t. Tracking will help you make informed, confident decisions on where to spend your company’s marketing budget. Good luck and happy marketing.

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