Hey folks. As your Arlington based Website Design / Marketing company, we want to make sure and keep you in the know with tips and things to watch out for so you can start improving your company presence online and your marketing efforts overall.

Today we will discuss tracking because if you can’t measure it, you can’t use it.  This is a simple concept that is often skipped over when going through the day to day activities of running a business and that is tracking information. I’m not talking about tracking sales and profits and all that. I am talking about tracking the events that cause your sales and revenue to go up. Now regardless of whether or not you have a service or product you are selling, you need to be sure to track the events that cause your sales so you can then capitalize on them and generate even more business.

So how do I track events?

There are several ways of tracking events online including website analytics and the built in analytics programs many email blasters and online advertising systems have built in. These numbers and figures are often over-looked but oh so important as they tell you what happened when and where specifically for those marketing efforts.  This info is crucial for determining whether or not that marketing effort (SEO, advertising online, directory listing, mass-emailer, etc.) is worth continuing.  Once you know what is effective, you can then try to duplicate that effectiveness across the board.

Tracking offline is often more difficult to keep up with but also just as important.  It could be as simple as asking the new clients that phone in where they found you or including it in the conversation when you meet with them.  For those selling products, you can include the “where did you find us?” question in the shopping cart sign up (online) or just ask the person buying from you and write it down.

Tracking does not need to be high-tech to be effective at giving you a bigger picture of where your marketing is working and where it isn’t.  Often times, asking your clients where they found you or how they heard of you can be great for tracking and conversational.

The point is folks, if you don’t track, you are losing out on bundles of info that you can use to get the edge upping the ROI from your marketing efforts.  Ultimately, if you can’t track it, you can’t tell how effective it is and then you end up with money spent ineffective marketing without the expected return.

I hope this post has been helpful for your business and I encourage you to start tracking as much as possible as soon as possible.  Here at Big Cloud Media we specialize in tracking.  We also specialize in installing tracking tools online, analyzing website analytics, comparing real-world numbers with online and offline marketing results and much more.  This is our passion so if you feel you don’t have the time to do it or the know how, we can help.  Once tracking is in place, you can then start seeing the benefits of it in the more effective marketing and the increased sales and client numbers that result from it.

Thanks for reading and contact us today if you would like to have a consultation about your online marketing and how to make it more effective.

Big Cloud Media

ps.  feel free to leave a comment about this topic or send it to someone you think will benefit.