The Truth is in the Tracking
American statistician W. Edwards Deming once said, “If you can’t track it, you can’t improve it.” Sounds boring? It’s not boring if you want to invest money in marketing initiatives that generate positive results. More often than not, results don’t show up right away, so if you are going to start a specific marketing activity, you need to be fully committed. Let me explain why this is so important.
To achieve success, you need to reach the right audience with the right message using the right medium or method. You need to do this over and over again to get a good return on your investment. In order to know if you are getting a good return, you need to track your results.
With technology now in the forefront of almost every aspect of what you do, you can more easily track results. You can track by viewing website traffic, the number of inquiries you receive by email from a specific promotion, or number of people that buy a specific product or service.
SHOEme.ca’s current ad campaign is a great example. It is catchy, creative and trackable. Right now it is running at SkyTrain stations, on the trains and in buses in Metro Vancouver. I have seen these ads running for at least three months so I imagine SHOEme.ca must be starting to see some very trackable results.
The ad says; “Buy shoes at work (we won’t tell). Save 15% when you shop 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Visit: SHOEme.ca/9to5.”
This ad can be easily tracked because of the specific website address given. Using web analytics, they can track the highest and lowest traffic and sales points throughout the day related to this ad. It’s that easy. If they wanted to track results on the bus versus on the SkyTrain, they can assign different website addresses for each.
The truth truly is in the tracking.
What marketing initiative are you currently tracking and how are you tracking it?