As a start-up business, the ability to measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts is crucial. By understanding which marketing channels are providing a return on your investment, you can focus your efforts on those, rather than wasting valuable resources on campaigns that aren’t producing the desired results. Monitoring the impact of online marketing is relatively straightforward with simple analytics tools that provide valuable insights, but it is also possible to measure your offline marketing using digital technology. Online and offline marketing is becoming intertwined, and one often has an influence on the other. For example a particular TV ad or magazine advert can spark a conversation on a social media network which will engage your audience and drive visitors to your website.

1. How to Measure the Success of
Offline Marketing Online

3. As a start-up business, the ability to measure
the effectiveness of your marketing efforts is
crucial.
By understanding which marketing channels
are providing a return on your investment, you
can focus your efforts on those, rather than
wasting valuable resources on campaigns that
aren’t producing the desired results.

5. Monitoring the impact of online marketing is relatively
straightforward with simple analytics tools that provide
valuable insights, but it is also possible to measure your
offline marketing using digital technology.
Online and offline marketing is becoming intertwined, and
one often has an influence on the other.
For example a particular TV ad or magazine advert can
spark a conversation on a social media network which will
engage your audience and drive visitors to your website.

7. Landing pages. Whether you’re distributing leaflets, advertising in a
magazine, or displaying a billboard, most adverts now include a URL
that potential customers can visit to find out more information.
Rather than using the same URL on all forms of advertising include a
unique one on each advert so that you can determine how your
visitor found you by the URL that they type in.
This has the added advantage that they can be directed to a landing
page that is tailored to the advert they have seen. Of course some
visitors will search for your company name rather than typing in the
URL, but this method should still show you which adverts are your
highest performers.

9. Discount codes. Everyone loves a bargain, so
special offers or discount codes are a great way to
track offline marketing.
Include a unique discount code on each type of
advertising, and if possible link the code to the
name of the publication, TV channel, radio
station, or location of your advert.
By analysing the discount codes that have been
redeemed you will see which marketing channels
have been the most effective.

11. Traffic comparison. Using online analytics you can monitor the
traffic to your website before and after launching a particular advert
to determine how many visitors to allocate to that campaign.
The amount of time you monitor will depend on the type of advert.
The impact of TV ads is immediate so you can compare visitor
traffic ten minutes before the ad and ten minutes afterwards, as
people access your site on a second screen such as a laptop or
tablet.
For newspaper ads compare traffic 24 hours before and after
publication. You can also compare conversions such as
sales, sign-ups, and contacts to determine the quality of the traffic
generated.

13. Hashtags. Once the domain of Twitter, hashtags are
now used by Facebook and look to be spreading across
social media channels.
Including a hashtag in your offline advert, whether it’s a
printed ad or a broadcast ad, can generate social media
conversations which are relatively simple to monitor.
Make sure you have unique hashtags for each advert so
you can gauge the response to different forms of
marketing.

15. Site surveys. Asking your website visitors where they found out
about your business may seem like an old fashioned idea, but it can
still help you to discover which of your marketing channels are worth
investing in.
You could use a site intercept survey, or you could add a question to
your registration form, contact form, or checkout.
Make it a multiple choice question including all your marketing
channels both online and offline, and keep it optional to avoid
irritating customers.
Only a sample of your visitors will answer your question but it will
still help you to see where they first heard about you.

17. The distinction between online and offline marketing is
blurring, and it is clear that one impacts the
other, meaning that they can often be measured side by
side.
An offline campaign is often the driver for increased
activity online which is simple to track and quantify. By
measuring your offline marketing performance online you
can determine which of your marketing campaigns are
driving the most conversions and are therefore worth
maintaining and expanding.

18. For more free tips on starting and
growing a small business, go to …
www.startupsuccess.co.uk