How to Gather Actual Marketing Data

It’s no secret that you need to track your marketing efforts—how else are you going to know what works and what doesn’t!

But there is a trick to tracking your marketing that many companies either forget or don’t know about. The trick is in tracking multiple sources. When a prospect reaches out to you, make sure you are asking specific questions like:

• How did you first hear about our company?
• How have you recently heard about us?

Specifically wording your questions in this way, makes the prospect think about how they really did learn about you, whether it was from a friend, an ad, the web, or even community involvement. Encourage prospects and even customers to talk about places they have seen your company and teach your employees how to document these conversations so when it comes time to review your marketing efforts, decisions are made from actual data instead of assumed data.

Also, remember that 10-25% of your marketing budget should be dedicated to simply brand building—introducing and reminding your market of who your company is (name and identity), why you are different (your unique selling position and services offered), and why the market should remember you (not because you said so).