The key to success in any business is to know where you want to
go and how to get there. Easily said but very hard to put into
practice. Some of the very best of plans and programs go astray
because we rely on gut feelings and instinct instead of actually
acting in response to hard data concerning the effectiveness of
what we are doing.
You work your tail off. Formulate business, promotional and
advertising plans and do your level best to follow those plans.
Unfortunately this is not enough. You must find a way to test
the effectiveness of these plans and programs as you go along.
To do this you must have a means to obtain feedback from
consumers plus the means to test the effectiveness of your
advertising.
A sad truth in advertising is that some ads appeal to some
people and some to others. The same holds true for the
advertising media selected to get your message out to the world.
A killer ad for one segment of the market is a dud for another.
That’s just the way it is. Big Corporations spend millions in
the never ending quest to find what type of ad and what media is
best for them.
Most of us do not possess the millions to waste money trying to
find the ’don’t miss’ ads and the proper media. We must proceed
within the financial capabilities we have. We cannot afford to
waste money on advertising which is not effective for our
purpose. Small business people offline or online are faced with
some tough problems in their advertising programs. There is
never enough money available to do everything that needs to be
done. This being the case we must be careful in what we do and
when we do it.
We can help ourselves by learning the basics of writing good ads
and doing some simple research to discover what specific media
appears to be most effective, at the moment, for businesses like
our own. The data is there it just takes a little time and
research to discover it. OK, fine we have done our research and
are satisfied that we can produce effective ads and know the
media we wish to use. What now? Remember we don’t have a whole
lot of money available so we want to get the biggest bang for
the buck that we can.
Well, if it were me I would look for a program through which I
could visibly see the results of my advertising. If I placed an
ad, I would wish to be able to see what the exact response to
that ad has been. I would want to know who saw the ad? When?
How? Then I can measure the effectiveness of the ad by the
actual response of the viewers. How many viewers actually asked
for more information or purchased my product or service based on
the ad they viewed? Pretty strong stuff is it not? This is
exactly the type information you need to judge the effectiveness
of your advertising.
Would you believe that programs exist on the net, now, which can
actually do this for you? This is true for all online media.
Just go to your browser and search for ’Ad Trackers’.
What you must look for is a system which is fully automated,
easy for the user to work, and one that in fact does furnish all
the basic data you need to determine the effectiveness of you
ads. Some systems are better than others and they all cost
money. You must carefully examine the benefits you receive
compared to the costs involved. You have more than likely spent
money placing your ads and now you are spending money to track
how well these ads are bringing in customers. You must make the
judgment here. Only you can judge where these activities are
taking you.
It makes sense that money considerations dictate that you start
something like this on a small scale. One or two ads on one or
two media so you may learn first hand what is working and what
is not. We must throw away any pride of authorship regarding the
ad copy we write. The only important criteria here is that the
ad works or does not work. If it works you use it more widely
and keep using it until it loses it’s effectiveness. You keep
this process going on a constant basis, exploiting effective ads
and replacing bad ads. And you do it based on the factual data
you gain from whatever ad tracking system you employ.
For those of us who are really serious about making a success of
our own business it makes a lot of sense to be able to know what
our advertising is doing for us. Not only that but we need to
identify the ever changing audience out there so we may change
directions as we may need to. Tracking your ads is a key to this
capability. None of us can afford the millions the large
Corporations spend for this purpose but we have to dig in our
pocket and somehow find the money to purchase one of these
affordable ad tracking systems.
Such an action is critical if you are going to successfully
compete for business on the Internet. Some would say that your
survival counts on it.
About the author:
Gary Layton is co-owner of PathTrax.com. By providing their
users the ability to measure and track results connected to a
specific ad or advertising media, PathTrax is helping small
businesses expand the profits in their bottom line. PathTrax
delivers flexible tracking URL's to track Who, Where, When, How
Many? All for only pennies per day.
http://PathTrax.com/x.pl/GL121,1
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