Recently I read an article on one of my favorite industry sites or apps, Marketing Land, titled Measuring How Offline Marketing Drives Web Traffic: The Fundamentals, and I was reminded of all the things I can do to help my clients’ marketing efforts in general, not just the digital portion.
As I’ve met with clients in and around Ohio over the last several years one question always seems to come up no matter the industry or customer, “How do I know if this is working?” Over the last several years we have seen a seismic shift in advertising dollars from traditional print, radio and television into more easily trackable digital products. With an online display campaign let’s say, we can tell you how many people saw the ad, how many clicked on it, how many saw the ad didn’t click on it but visited your site at a later date and thanks to Google Analytics we can tell you what your visitors did on the site once they got there. Rightfully so, there is a huge premium placed on tracking the results of our marketing spend.
Unfortunately the days of just asking “How did you hear about us?” are long gone. A consumer may see your billboard, display ad, receive your email, visit your site and three weeks later click on your paid ad on Google. When you ask that potential customer “How did you hear about us?” they will either say “I saw you on Google,” or “someone referred me.” They almost never tell you the ten times they saw your message before they went to Google.
As a Digital Specialist, I am a firm believer that digital is the way to go because of its’ track-ability and audience. We keep learning more and more about how consumers are using the internet, and where they are going to use it. There is no reason we can’t do some of the same with a traditional medium. Below I’ve listed 3 ways you can track the effectiveness of your offline marketing tactics.