The article by Guy Masono I’ve referred to in the past describes the last two of the 4Ts as Transact and Track. I’m going to discuss in more detail what I believe these two mean for your marketing campaign.
Transact, Masono writes, “refers to opening a two-way communication with customers and prospects based on the nature of an inquiry.” For example, your website has a lead-generating form that visitors may fill out in order to receive more information about a product or service.
The “communication” results when you or one of your employees replies to that inquiry. How quickly do you respond? Do you respond with an automated e-mail reply? With a phone call? If you don’t hear back from the customer, do you respond again? If so, how? With another phone call? With more information sent via e-mail.
Follow-up is key. It really is more than key – it is critical. Do your salespeople know what your marketing department is doing so that they may respond appropriately when a marketing campaign begins? Does your fulfillment manager have the tools, systems and processes ready to get your customers the products they order when they order it. Have a link missing in this communication/sales/fulfillment chain and just watch the chaos – and lost sales – that result.
Which brings me to the final T of Masono’s article, Track. I’ve seen it too many times – a business owner or marketing department spends oodles of dough in marketing, but keeps track of nothing. Did the direct mail piece bring in the $1 million in sales over six months, or was that the pay-per-click campaign on Google? Or a combination? Or neither? There are a number of tools out there to help you do this – some are free and some are available for a nominal cost. If you don’t know how to set these up properly, I recommend hiring someone to help you with this as the costs of setting this up will far outweigh the benefits of saved marketing dollars that are being wasted on inefficient efforts.
Track your results today and you’ll know where best to spend your marketing dollars tomorrow.
Hartland Ross is the Founder and President of eBridge Marketing Solutions. He has over 20 years experience in marketing and business development, focusing for the last 15 years on the technology sector. Prior to starting up eBridge, Hartland operated a successful franchise, worked with two different online advertising startups, and was the VP of Sales and Marketing for a national development and training company.
Posted May 12, 2008
Categories: Advertising and Marketing General
Tags: b2b marketing, Online Tracking, PPC