Where are your customers? That’s a good question. If you are not diligently tracking where you acquire your new customers, then you may not be fully maximizing your marketing dollars. I personally know several business owners who consistently acquire new customers, but if pressed, cannot name their main referral source. At your company, are your new clients being referred by word-of-mouth, your website, or your media efforts? If you do not know the answer to this question, you may be losing out on acquiring more business.
Obviously, the best (and easiest) way to find the source of your customers is to ask them directly. Train your office staff to ask new and existing customers where they initially heard about your business. Once you assemble the data, you’ll have a better picture of where your business is coming from, and you can invest more into those referral channels to increase the conversion of prospective customers.
For example, say your company sponsors several charity events throughout the year. If you notice that one event consistently garners more (or better) customer leads, then it’s likely worthwhile to invest in similar events. This same analysis can be applied to your other marketing channels: trade shows, individual chambers of commerce, networking groups/clubs, print, etc.
In contrast, if you are working in a highly-competitive industry (like service providers) being found on the internet is probably really important to you. Therefore, buying Google paid advertisements for better search engine visibility, or investing heavily in search engine optimization (SEO) might be smarter options than paying for a direct mail piece that will likely end up in the trash.
The bottom line is this: knowing the source of your customers helps ensure that you do not waste your advertising budget. When you aggressively monitor all of your marketing channels, you quickly understand the effectiveness of each one. Regardless of whether you use customer management system software, or just a plain old spreadsheet, the data you gather will tell you which marketing materials are generating new leads, which marketing efforts are failing, and which one brings you the highest return on your investment.