With this knowledge, the BIG question is: what is the biggest waste of money in our marketing and advertising efforts?

The answer: NOT Tracking!!!

You see, if we don’t track what we’re doing we have no clue if our efforts are working or not. This can be scary. Think about it. You spend money to get an ad together, a website up, a mailing out, whatever – and a week, month, year later you have no idea if your idea, money, and energy has brought you any new business…ay, caramba!

So, to help you know where your money is going and to help you from making the biggest mistake in marketing and advertising, here are 3 ways to track your efforts (from 3 different mediums):

1. In store tracking

If you own a brick and mortar business, or any business where physical coupons make sense, you can create color-coded coupons for your customers to bring in to you.

They can have a ‘tracking number’ at the bottom if you’d like, but color-coded coupons make tracking even easier. They stand out for the prospect. And they stick out in a pile for you and/or your staff to separate them.

This simple tracking trick allows you to segment your customers and see what’s working. For example: you send BLUE coupons to past customers you haven’t seen in 12 months; you send GREEN coupons to past customers you haven’t seen in 6 months; you send RED coupons to customers you haven’t seen in 3 months; and you send PURPLE coupons to customers you saw this past month.

After mailing the coupons, you realize (because you track) your 12 month no-shows come in droves. This is a clue to continue to keep in touch with these kinds of customers. It’s money well spent.

2. Website tracking

If you own a website (and you should have a website no matter what biz your in) you can create tracking LINKS to know where your customers are going.

For example: on your home page, you can have a sign-up box in the top left corner, as well as a sign-up box at the bottom of your page. Place 2 different tracking links in your code (get your web person to do this if you don’t know how) – one for each box – and voila, you know which box works best for your site.

3. Offline to online tracking

If you run ads, send direct mail, or market in any other way offline and want to drive traffic online to your website you can create a SPECIAL URL to do that.

For example: you have an ad in the local paper and a postcard going out in the mail; both offering the same free gift. Simply create 2 different URL’s: www.westonlyon.com/gift and www.westonlyon.com/freegift.

Now, you know which marketing piece works best for your biz.

As you can see, you CAN track where your efforts are working – and more importantly – where they are NOT. These examples above are just basic tracking methods, but they are extremely effective.

Start tracking today and avoid the biggest waste of money in your marketing and advertising efforts!