Mind
Your Business and Know Where You Are Going
 |
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 and 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 medium 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 medium 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 medium. 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 which 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 of information you need to judge the
effectiveness of your advertising. If you advertise via a
website, programs exist on the internet that can actually
do this for you. 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 your 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.
Keep
this process going on a constant basis, exploiting the
effective ads and replacing the bad. 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.
Copyright
© 2002, Gary E. Layton
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.
