Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Evaluating Your Efforts

Armchair quarterbacking is a popular and pointless after-the-ad-runs activity. Instead, set objectives and plan your evaluation methods early on — not after the play has taken place.

The quickest way to monitor ad effectiveness is to test a couple of great headlines online and measure the clicks they generate (flip to Chapter 10 for tips). The next-easiest way to monitor ad effectiveness is to produce ads that generate responses and then track how well they do, following this advice:

Give your target audience a time-sensitive invitation to take action, a reason to respond, and clear, easy instructions to follow. For example, if you’re measuring phone calls, make your phone number large in your ad and be ready for call volume; if you’re measuring website visits, present an easy-to-enter site address that leads to a landing page tied to your ad message (see Chapter 10).

Measure media effectiveness by assessing the volume of responses that each media channel generates compared to the investment you made in that channel. Also measure ad effectiveness by tracking the volume of responses to various ad headlines.

Produce your ads to make tracking possible by including ...