"Thanks for calling, how did you hear about us?" Ugh! Please don't ask this! Okay, at the risk of ticking off every business owner who spends a dime on advertising, please keep reading and don't get offended. As a consumer it drives me crazy when the first or last words out of the mouth of an in take person is "how did you hear about us?". Quite frankly I don't remember how I heard about you and why is that important to me? I just need to get my AC fixed! This conversation goes on everyday, so let me speak for your customers... "it's annoying." The stats say consumers are exposed to 4,000 - 10,000 ads PER DAY! That makes my head spin and now you want me to remember where I heard your contribution to those thousands of messages? Don't get me wrong. After a quarter century in advertising I recognize the importance of knowing what's working. Digital advertising has created even more demand for attribution way as a way to demonstrate ROI. When you're the one writing the checks, you need to know if your marketing is really an investment or just an expense. But it's not your customer's job to tell you.
Instead of "How Did You Hear About US", Ask "What Led You to Contact Us?"
When a potential customer calls or walks into your place of business, they are almost always trying to satisfy a need. Sometimes it's an urgent need (its 97 degrees and my AC is out) and sometimes it's a future need (we're planning to add a deck this summer or next). What is not important to them is how they heard about you. Instead of making them think about your advertising with "how did you hear about us", why not asking "what led you to contact us today?" This opens the door for them to share what they need. What may also happen is they will share with you a bit about their customer journey: "after the storm the other day we had a crack in our ceiling, and I noticed some water and I went to Google for a roofing company and when I saw your ad I remembered hearing one of your commercials and thought I would give you a call." Of course, every customer won't follow that script perfectly, but this a more disarming way to find out what your customer wants and actually hear the story of their journey.
There Are Multiple Ways To Measure Performance
If your goal is to measure the efficacy of your marketing, there are a number of ways to get that done.
- Creating some sales benchmarks at the outset of a campaign and then periodic measurements. Depending on how many different tactics you're using, this is the most obvious and simplest ways to measure marketing performance.
- Google Analytics benchmarks is another great tool. Month over month, year over year, quarter vs. quarter etc. Measuring traffic to your website, and the myriad ways to examine traffic to your site is a great way to better understand consumer engagement. Obviously if one of your marketing tactics includes digital marketing elements there are measurements all along the way, but be careful here because you may just be measuring recency and not the total impact. If you are utilizing traditional media (Radio, TV) your media partners may be able to provide you with attribution resources as well.
- If you are using different mediums, you could promote different products or services through each specific medium. However, take caution measuring here. There are other variables involved beyond just effectiveness of a medium. Consumer demand is a factor as well as how the product or service fits with the tactic. But if you have multiple services that have equal demand this could be a valuable tool.
- Okay! If you absolutely insist on asking the question, here's a more effective way to do it. First, don't put them on the spot and make them respond during their initial inquiry. Also, you may want to consider only asking people with whom you will actually be doing business because you want more people just like them. What about sending them a brief survey with these questions: 1) What made you choose to do business with us? 2) What was the best aspect of your experience with us? 3) What could we have done better? and 4) "We market our business in many different ways. Can you tell us where you have heard about us? You can select as many as apply." For question 4 your choices should include everyplace where you advertise as well as a number of places where you do not. This will either tell you how on target your advertising is or how much confusion exists in the consumer's mind. An alternate to question 4 could be "We market our business in many different ways. Can you tell us which of these outlets you use during the course of a typical week? Select as many as apply." Instead of asking how did you hear about us, here you're assessing with which mediums they interact.
The Joy Of This Blog
The Joy of this blog is that yes, you need to know if your marketing dollars are working. But my advice is to put in the hard work and research on the front end to develop your plan. Choose the best medium(s), outlet(s), and tactics for your business and then make a commitment to let your plan work. The more scrutiny you do on the front end, and the more you work your plan, the better your chances of success and the measurements will take care of themselves. Then you can assess your progress on a quarterly or yearly basis. Or said a different way: Plan - Focus - Win!