Few small businesses have an endless pot of money to throw at marketing. To make the most of your budget, it’s important to know what works for you by measuring the success of each advertising stream.

You can spend time trawling your statistics online to get granular results on how your website made for 43.76% of your enquiries and Facebook brought in 23 enquiries, but only 4 of them weren’t time wasters. Or you can do the simplest thing of all – just ask.

Side note: We don’t doubt that online marketing works – we use it ourselves and there are tonnes of great marketing agencies doing great work in the digital space. But when measuring the success of print advertising, the lines can be blurred, and the effectiveness can be overlooked.

One of the most basic principles in marketing is ‘the 7 touchpoints.’ In a nutshell, it is claimed that it takes consumers seeing or hearing about your business 7 times, before they will initialise contact. This is why a combination of print and digital is vital to your business.

Many people will see a print advert, then do further research online before making contact (we knew those before and after photos would come in handy). This can make you think an enquiry came from your website or social media, when really the process started way before that, with that handy little advertising book!

It’s important to remember, no one is a customer until you’re actually working for them. When you arrive at a job, just ask ‘Where did you find out about me?’

Their answer will be the most accurate statistic you’ll ever receive. But don’t be afraid to dig deeper, ask them about specific streams; perhaps they’ve seen you in multiple places? Ensure you only measure the ones that actually use your services, after all, these are the high quality leads and the only ones making you any money!

We believe that a combination of print, digital and a physical local presence are the most effective way to strengthen your brand in your area and highly recommend that you advertise in more than one way and do so consistently!

Download our ‘How To Get The Best From Your Advertising’ Guide today to help get the most out of your marketing efforts!