How Can I Know What's Working?
100% of the agents I’ve talked to have said something like, “I was just throwing money at the wall and hoping something would stick. The problem was that I couldn’t tell what worked and what didn’t.” This is a problem for any agent who’s just started.
Let me suggest a tool that we use to measure the offline marketing channels of many of our clients. The concept is called “call tracking.” Simply put, it’s the process of determining how callers found your agency. There are several tools that you can choose from for this purpose, but we use CallRail with our clients. They give you 10 phone numbers and track all their activity for $45/month.
Here’s how it works…you’ll add one of the phone numbers that CallRail provides you on a mailer, a sign in the local high school gym, or an ad in a neighborhood magazine. When a lead sees your marketing piece and responds by dialing that phone number, CallRail will forward that lead to your office. Periodically, you can check the CallRail dashboard and see which of your marketing pieces is working…or not. It’s that easy.
Of course, you don’t have to use CallRail. That’s simply what we use. Take a look at what’s available and go with the service that fits your needs. For instance, if you only need one or two tracking numbers, you may want to check out DBA. They offer phone numbers for as low as $2/month.
Peter Drucker, a prominent management guru, is often quoted as saying that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Put a few dollars to work for you every month to help you find the holes in your marketing budget and work to plug them.