This industry is fiercely competitive. With more than 1.3 million realtors in the country (according to recent data published by the National Association of Realtors – NAR), the competition is heating up even more and getting leads is getting more difficult than ever.

In this article, let’s discuss the following:

• What are the Best Real Estate Agents Marketing Tools
• Unique Real Estate Marketing Ideas
• Effective Real Estate Agent Advertising
• How to do Marketing for New Real Estate Agents

 

To set yourself apart from the pack you’ll have to be an expert in both online and offline marketing strategies for real estate agents. While agents are still key in this industry, more and more buyers are increasingly looking online before talking to the experts.

A study by the NAR showed that 92 percent of buyers do their house hunting online before contacting an agent. So, if you are not online, active and engaging, you are missing out on a lot of new business.

What are the Best Real Estate Agents Marketing Tools

Real estate marketing tools provide agents everything to help them generate more leads, get more exposure and manage their clients.

Here are some of the best tools every realtor should use:

Zillow Premier Agent – Zillow has more than 160 million monthly visitors – this makes Zillow Premier Agent one of the most powerful lead generation tools in the industry. The tool allows you to submit new listings on the platform, add your contact information and other recommendations. With Zillow Premier Agent, your name will appear exclusively on your listing, so you’ll have a better chance of getting the full commission. For an additional fee, you can advertise on the listings of other agents.

BoxBrownie.com – Great photos or videos are everything in this industry. BoxBrownie.com works with some of the best real estate agent marketing companies in the industry and offers multiple tools to help realtors. The app has powerful image editing and enhancement features, and with more than 40 designers on staff, has very quick turnaround times.

CityBlast – Social media is an amazingly powerful tool for connecting to your potential clients and finding new prospects. CityBlasts connects to your major social media profiles and helps you find content, create content and interact with your fans.

Real Geeks – A good CRM tool is ideal to track, organize and manage existing or new leads. With Real Geeks, you can optimize every call or email, engage with your clients, track their journey through your sales process and get notifications according to a preset schedule.

Unique Real Estate Marketing Ideas

The more competitive your local market, the more creative you’ll have to be with your marketing strategies for real estate agents.

Here are some ideas to help you out:

• Create a video tour (or series) of your neighborhood – Explore everyday life in your neighborhood for your potential clients. Architecture, culture, cuisine, events or unique attractions – you can include anything you find interesting in the area. Add comments from local residents, their opinions, small bits of information and sprinkle it all with a little humor.
• Use drone photos or videos – Don’t be afraid to use new technology for your listings, especially if the property allows it. Drone photos or videos can better highlight the depth of the space, the outdoor area, and the landscape, so your clients will get more from your presentation.
• Be personable – If you have the personality, show it! Be fun, approachable and friendly – your customers will notice you and will see you as more than a business partner. Try to create an introductory video, a house tour or a video testimonial where customers can “meet you” for the first time.

 

You can find more in-depth creative marketing ideas for real estate agents here.

Effective Real Estate Agent Advertising

Getting your listing in front of the right people can be tough. There are heaps of listings out there and your offer has to stand out, regardless of the price, features or location.

Here’s a short list of ideas to help you advertise your listing:

• Social media live tour – Facebook live videos are amazingly popular nowadays. Why? Because they work, people love them and want more of them. They are a great sales tool because they create a sense of urgency. Start by taking a short tour of the neighborhood and then focus on the house.
  
• Messenger advertising – this strategy works great if you know how to target your ads in front of a large audience.
• Open house events – Event response ads, such as open house events, are fabulous ways to attract a new potential client to your listings. Make sure you schedule them at least 2 weeks ahead, so customers have enough time to answer to your request.
• Use influencers – Influencers are seen as opinion leaders. These people have a huge, loyal following and are seen as a trustworthy resource. If they share your ads or contact information, you’ll get a massive boost in your visibility.
• Host a contest – Set up a contest that gives your followers something of value for their homes, gift cards, memberships or guides.
  
  

How to do Marketing for New Real Estate Agents

Having a killer online presence is the #1 thing you’ll have to do as a new real estate agent. Here are the basics:

• Your website – This is a way to start real estate branding awareness online. This is the first thing you need to get right. A website is your main online real estate property in your portfolio, and it has to showcase your business professionally. Use WordPress, find a good theme and include a short bio, about us page, contact information and focus on creating content.
• Social media – Learn about the most popular social media platforms and make sure you are there: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter. Facebook is ideal for friends, acquaintances and interacting with clients, Linkedin is business-oriented and Twitter is ideal for microblogging.
• Get on most important real estate platforms – Zillow, Trulia, Homesnap, Redfin and many others should be your first options.

• Create an advertising budget – As soon as you get everything set, you can think about your advertising budget. To help you with this, you can contact any of the real estate agent marketing companies in your area, which can help you with the best marketing packages for real estate agents.

 

With more than 1.3 million real estate agents in the country, the market is getting more competitive than ever. This is especially true in the most sought after areas, where the market is growing every year.

This article will help you to learn the following:

• How to Find Clients as a Real Estate Agent?
• Useful  Marketing Websites for Real Estate Agents
• Best Real Estate Agent Ads
• How much do Real Estate Agents spend on Marketing?

In this highly lucrative market, every realtor tries to gain the upper hand and grow their business. Focusing on creative marketing, as the experts like to call it, will make your business stand out in this highly competitive industry. This article will guide you through the basics of creative marketing ideas for real estate agents.

How to Find Clients as a Real Estate Agent?

Getting clients is the lifeblood of every business, and real estate is no exception. Generating enough leads for your business will guarantee success, increase your reputation and help grow your business in the future.

So what do you have to do in order to get more clients? Let’s have a look at some tips:

• Build your online presence – virtually all clients use the internet to hunt for properties, so you have to be present on virtually every platform. Real estate branding is your first focus by establishing your website – make sure it is up to date, has your contact information and looks professional. Next, focus on your social media presence. Are you easy to find on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin? Make sure you update these profiles frequently and interact with your potential clients. If you maintain an active and professional online presence, your customers will find you.
  
• Use webinars – webinars act like an open house for your business. It’s like having a live appointment with your clients and prospects, where you can answer questions in real time. If you are using a specialized webinar app, you can run multiple webinars at the same time, so your reach will be larger.
  
• Create attractive photos and videos – this industry is a visual business – your clients want to see what a property looks like before visiting it. Working with a photographer or a videographer is an excellent idea.
  
• Get involved in the local community – this is a great idea if you work locally. Join community groups, charitable causes, conferences, events, and local meetings. Interact with people, join debates and get yourself known. In time, people will notice you and, hopefully, become your clients.

Useful Marketing Websites for Real Estate Agents

Zillow Premier Agent 

https://premieragent.zillow.com/products/advertising/

Zillow Premier Agent is the top lead generator website for agents in the country. With more than 160 million visitors every month, Zillow is the place to be if you are a realtor.

Joining Zillow Premier Agent is simple and will let you submit exclusive listings. This increases the chance of getting the full commission of a sale, regardless of your location or experience.

While Zillow is free for homebuyers, sellers and offers free basic services for realtors, Zillow Premier Agent is priced at $20 to $60 per lead, depending on the average home price in your ZIP code, the competition, and other factors.

Placester

https://placester.com/

Placester is an IDX website builder and integrator tailored for agents. If you find WordPress to difficult or complex for your needs, Placester is designed to help you create and manage your website.

It provides a sleek website solution, complete with IDX integration, a built-in CRM, drip email functions, advanced property search, excellent customer support and agent management tools. The service is priced at $99 per month.

Freshchat

https://support.freshchat.com/support/home

Freshchat uses modern artificial intelligence to gain leads for your business via live chat. It combines human interaction with AI to collect information from your website’s visitors.

It determines which leads are more likely to buy based on several factors. Freshchat starts at $15 per month.

Best Real Estate Agent Ads

You probably noticed that ads in this industry often sound cheesy or awkward – it’s no wonder they are rarely effective! To stand out, your ads must use a beautiful image, a catchy tagline, a short intro and a brief call to action. As in all marketing, brevity is king.

It shows you are professional and it’s attractive for the viewer. Here are a few real estate agent ads examples:

Coldwell Banker Schmidt

In these examples, the realtor, Coldwell Banker Schmidt, went directly to the core of what people want when they are looking for a new home. They want a place to grow and prosper.

The ads are perfect for the Midwestern market and they are easy for anyone to identify with. They show what real estate agent services should be about.

Compass

Named “Guiding you home”, the ad from Compass acts as a disruptive force in the sea of boring ads. Its sleek design, minimalist details and layout, gorgeous photography and brief copy sets it apart and attracts the viewer.

How much do Real Estate Agents spend on Marketing?

Real estate is more than simply advertising your clients’ properties and hoping to get a call from a prospective client. In order to grow your business and expand your reach, you will have to work out a complete marketing plan.

You should be focusing on building awareness, creating and maintaining an online presence, establishing your reputation and generating leads.

Once you establish your goals, you should look at your marketing budget. Let’s take a look at what you can expect for each type of budget:

• up to $2,000 per year – this won’t get you much, but you’ll at least be able to afford a photographer, a copywriter and a small website
  
• up to $5,000 per year – this will get you all the above, plus several videos, a few hours of a digital marketer’s time for your strategy and a social media course to get the basics
  
• up to $10,000 per year – all the above, plus a professionally built website, complete with support, a paid advertising campaign, a real estate agent marketing plan template to work with, social media ads and campaigns
  
• up to $20,000 per year – all the above, plus a videographer to work with, copywriters, sponsored content on social media, email marketing, and digital marketing consulting
  
• up to $80,000 per year – with this budget, you can outsource all your marketing to a professional digital marketing agency. Usually, these companies are focused on providing effective marketing strategies for real estate agents and will create a complete bespoke marketing plan. Plus, they will keep you updated according to a specific schedule agreed by both parties.
  
  

Consumers today know what they want, know how to look for information and want to feel a genuine human connection when deciding on their next purchase. In short, the new consumer is market-savvy. The customer wants to buy from businesses or people they know, understand, like and trust. They want the full P2P (person to person) experience.

In this article, we will cover the following:

• How to build a real estate brand
• What are real estate branding ideas that work
• How to choose real estate brand names
• Best real estate branding examples

 

Buyers value brands and here is where real estate branding comes into the picture. They value quality, integrity, knowledge and strong, efficient communication. In this industry, this means that you, as a realtor, must demonstrate integrity and knowledge, put effective communication practices in place, provide consistent quality services and have a unified, coherent public image.

How to build a real estate brand?

Building a powerful brand is about being forward-thinking. Real estate branding is long-term, it evolves continuously and it adapts to industry trends, but its main focus is consistency.

However, as the number and variety of mediums to manage have grown, planning your branding strategy has become increasingly difficult.

Start building your brand by putting some of these ideas into practice:

• Create a complete online presence – this includes creating your own website, your social media profiles on the major platforms (including a profile on a video platform), your personal account on real estate platforms. Work on creating content for these online platforms, as this is the main way you will interact with prospects and clients.
  
• Create a real estate branding design – think about the colors, the logo, your email signature, the layout for your photos, your outdoor signs and anything that may make you stand out.
• Create marketing materials – focus on both online and offline marketing materials, how your adds will look, how your copy will read and so on.
• Be consistent – branding is an on-going process. It never stops and you have to be focused on being consistent every day. Your website and social media profiles must always be updated, pay attention to how your listings look, how you interact with people and how you answer to their queries.

What are real estate branding ideas that work?

Commercial real estate branding is all about bringing value, being informative and provide inspiration to your future prospects and existing clients.

 

Publishing photos and videos are very important, but may not be enough if you want to really boost your brand and dominate your industry. Here are some ideas that will help you reach your branding goals:

• Tell a story – photos are amazing ways to showcase a property, but what if you can actually help your clients see themselves living there? What if you tell a story about the neighborhood, the unique amenities and features of the community? Or if you talk about the lifestyle or business opportunities this area can provide? Try to paint the complete picture: ask the residents, conduct interviews, produce a feature on restaurants, stores or schools. Help your prospects truly understand the community and see what makes them tick.
  
• Be knowledgeable – this will give you a head-start when talking with a potential client. It helps build trust and makes you look professional. If you have the answers to all the possible questions, you can better understand what your clients are looking for. Plus, you will be able to steer away from the “too salesy” approach that so many realtors focus on. You will be seen as someone who provides real value and answers, as opposed to someone who only wants to make the sale and get the commission.
• Build the dream team – your agents should be part of your branding efforts and you should have them contribute to your brand. Engage with them and try to come up with new ideas, have brainstorming sessions and include them in the content creation process. Create presentation videos with your team, discussions, Q&As or live videos.
• Invest in video – video is huge in marketing and branding, and you should use it for its amazing benefits. Use video to make yourself look more professional, but also agreeable and friendly. Live videos, series and behind the scene videos are great ways to create a more personable, but professional brand.

 

To add the ideas above, you may want to check our other post about creative marketing ideas for real estate agents to come up with a wide-range plan for your brand.

How to choose real estate brand names?

Choosing the right name for your business is one of the most important elements in your real estate branding strategy. It’s the forefront of your business, the first thing your prospects come into contact with. It should represent you as a brand, be professional and easily marketable.

 

Here’s a quick guide on how to choose the best name for your business:

• your name or not your name? – for most realtors, using a variation of their name for their business works fine. For example, “John Adams Realtors” or “Brian Johnson Team” is excellent if you work with a small team and your business is working locally. There are some drawbacks, however. If you choose this type of name, you are the business, so if you decide on selling it, or hiring someone else to run it, you may encounter challenges. An alternative is naming your business neutrally, such as “Success Team” or “The Inspired Realtors”, which can overcome these potential issues.
• Avoid string of numbers and letters – don’t choose names like “123Realtors” or “999ABCRealtors”. It will just show you are unprofessional and superficial.
• Local names – only use local names if you want to work in a specific geographical area. If you want to expand in the future, this might be a challenge, so pay attention to this detail.
• Keywords – including related keywords is a good idea, but it may look unprofessional if you go overboard. Try to use only one keyword (e.g. The Boutique, The Experts and so on)

 

After choosing your brand name, you need to come up with marketing strategies for your business.

Best real estate branding examples

Raj Qsar – The Boutique Group

Raj Qsar is one of the leaders of video marketing in the industry. Often dubbed as the King of Real Estate Video, their videos have become a trademark of their agency and are consistently ranked high in Southern California.

Hawaii Life

Matt Beall’s agency is a branding success mainly thanks to the aptly named video series “Hawaii Life”, where he frequently presents the lifestyle, attractions and features of the area.

The Jills

Miami-based Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber have capitalized immensely on their similar first names and built an excellent brand for their company. Working in one of the hottest real estate markets in the country, the dynamic duo is instantly recognizable as a professional, yet friendly team of agents.  

 

 

 

How to Use Email Marketing to Boost Sales

Let’s face it – most digital marketers simply overlook the power of email marketing. They prefer to focus instead on other digital marketing strategies, which seem much more exciting, like social media, SEO or video marketing.

But what about email marketing? It’s here since the early days of the internet, back in the mid-1990s, when video marketing was unheard of. And email marketing still is an amazingly powerful way to increase conversions and attract more customers for your business. But people tend to avoid email marketing because they simply think it won’t work in their industry or for their product. However, every experienced digital marketer will tell you that email marketing works across a huge variety of industries. You just have to learn how to implement it.

Do you need help with your E-mail marketing strategy and overall marketing tacticts?

Email marketing is best described as the perfect link to both current and future customers. You can use emails to connect with your existing customers, but also to attract new ones.

Email marketing is also incredibly cost-effective. A recent study done by VB Insights has shown that you can expect to earn almost $38 for every $1 spent, which is, quite literally, an impressive ROI.

Let’s take a look at why email marketing can be the best strategy to boost sales and get new customers for your business:

1.Transaction Emails

These are the emails you receive after making a purchase or paying for a subscription. They are essentially thank you emails, order confirmations or notice emails. These emails almost always have a high open rate because customers want to read them (after all, they already made a purchase). Because people tend to always open these emails, you should try to attract them into making further purchases. You can do this by:

– featuring related items that your customer may find interesting; offer a discount on these products or services

– listing items that your customer will need together with the item that they purchased (for instance, accessories, tools or a special warranty)

– including a list of special discounts and offers for future purchases on various items or services

Any of these strategies can work very well because people tend to act on impulse when making additional purchases. Simply put, there are a lot of people who won’t think twice before buying a new, related product which they feel they might need. Sales slogans like “buy now and save 30%” or “limited offer only today” can really boost your sales in no time.

2.Introductory or Welcome Emails

Almost all big brands and large companies send out this type of emails to their customers. They are the emails you are most likely to receive when you subscribe to their list, sign up to their website or join a group. Usually, the company will offer you a future discount on your next purchase or ask you to visit their stores.

Typically, the offer is visible in the email’s title, which is why these emails have a very high open rate. On the other hand, the click-through rate is only moderately good, because most people are not in a buying mood (they didn’t already make a purchase). Obviously, you can use these emails to ask them to join separate lists, or make a different purchase or subscription. The possibilities are truly endless.

For instance, let’s say you just moved into a new home and you just realized you don’t like the kitchen cabinets, and you need new ones. You obviously go online and look for furniture stores which have several types of kitchen cabinets available. You do your research, you selected a few cabinets you like, but you don’t feel like making the decision right now. This is where the vendor will try to lure you by sending you an email to showcase their products. You will most likely get a voucher or a coupon to convince you to make the final purchase. Here, the email worked spectacularly: it reminded you that you must select a cabinet to buy, it offered a special discount and helped you choose the right item.

3.Cart Abandonment Emails

There are a lot of customers who browse an online store’s website, add items to the shopping cart and then… nothing. They abandon ship and forget all about their desired items. This is where cart abandonment emails come into action. They help distracted or unsure clients make the purchase and they work spectacularly.

Sending a cart abandonment email makes your customer remember about their items, makes them reconsider their options and helps them make the right choice. It’s an elegant way to nudge people to move forward and make the purchase. And this means extra sales for your company.

4.Follow-up Emails and Re-order Emails

Repeat customers are your best customers – any sales person will tell you that. Emailing past customers is one of the surefire ways to get new leads and increase sales. These are the customers who are familiar with your brand, your products or your services. And usually, they will be delighted to buy more from you.

These emails work great for products that require frequent purchases: pet food, beauty products, dietary supplements, memberships and so on. You just have to personalize your email and include items that your customer may be interested in, based on their past purchases. These types of emails are also very effective for professionals, like dentists, attorneys or hair stylists.

5.Limited Offer Emails

These emails are based on the scarcity effect – you create a sense of scarcity for your product or service. If people don’t immediately make the purchase, there will be no deal whatsoever. They work because people hate to lose something – even if they don’t necessarily want it. These emails heighten the sense of urgency in us, makes us take rash decisions and take action quickly. And this means a lot more sales for your company.

While limited offer emails do work, don’t try to overuse them, as some people may become desensitized to them in the long run.

Do you need help with your marketing campaigns? Schedule a call with our team or contact us on: florida@smdigitalpartners.com

How much should you spend on google adwords?

Google AdWords is the tool to use for your marketing campaigns if you are a small business owner. Our clients use Google’s powerful paid advertising tool all the time and have excellent results and ROIs.

Yes, Google AdWords works great for your campaigns and it’s definitely a thing you should include in your strategy. And one of the most important questions about AdWords we often get is: how much money should I spend on it?

The question often comes from business owners who want to start their paid advertising campaigns and want to know how much this strategy will set them back. There are two answers for this question. Let’s start with the first one:

1. The Test Budget

Before going ahead with Google AdWords, you should try to contain your costs and test what works and what doesn’t. Now, you are in testing mode, so it’s very important to do an extensive marketing research. There are no shortcuts at this stage. You should know everything about your market, your potential customers, your audience and how they can relate to you offer.

During the testing phase, your budget will go towards testing what ads work, how people react to them and what you should avoid in your main campaign. Now it’s the time to test your landing page, your sales letter and how people see your brand.

Your Test Budget – How Much Should It Be?

Generally, your test budget depends on the size of your future campaign. Calculate your budget by multiplying the number of keywords you want to target with the cost per click. Try to focus on getting at least 100 to 200 clicks to better understand how your visitors interact with your offer or products. Track your Marketing Campaign.

For instance, if you want to test 5 keywords (this is a bare minimum), at an average cost per click of $1, you should plan on a test budget of $500 to $1,000. The results from this test campaign will tell you a lot about your future main campaign. You’ll get data on which keywords work and which don’t, but also how your landing pages and ads work. This is where you get to do the “pruning” of your strategy – you should eliminate poor keywords, ineffective ads and bad landing pages. Obviously, keep only the winners for your main campaign.

As soon as your test campaign becomes profitable, ditch the budget – the sky’s the limit.

Successful campaigns and advertisers don’t stop their marketing campaigns. And the same goes with Google AdWords – a truly successful campaign doesn’t have a financial cap. This may sound ludicrous, but when you think about it, it’s a no-brainer: why would you stop a campaign that costs you $500 per day when you get $700 per day in return?

So, the answer to the question of how much should you spend on google adwords? would be something like: If you want to grow your business and see better results, more sales and more happy customers, you should never cap your AdWords budget.

2. Focus On ROI, Not Costs!

Excellent advertisers don’t focus on how much money they spend, they focus on results. Is this campaign making me money? How can I make it even more profitable? – these are the questions you have to focus on as an advertiser.

You’d be amazed, but successful advertisers actually focus on how to spend more money on their Google AdWords campaigns. As long as they are profitable, an advertiser shouldn’t worry about spending more than $100,000 every month on their campaign. In fact, these advertisers often want to spend even more to further grow their business.

So how can you get to the point where you have to scale up your Google AdWords campaign?

EPC vs. CPC

A lot of advertisers focus only on lowering the cost per click for their campaigns. Of course, paying as little as possible for your links is OK, but you should also focus on your earnings.

Simply put, you should focus on EPC (earnings per click) in order to dominate your market. This is where the most important players fight – and it’s where you can outbid your competitors. If your EPC is high, you’ll get more customers, more sales and more visitors to your offers – this is the way to really win the Google AdWords game.

Calculating your EPC

You can find out where your EPC stands by multiplying your conversion rate (how many people become paying customers) by your customer value (how much money you earn for each customer, minus fulfillment or operational costs).

For instance, if your average customer spends $200 on your products or services, and you have a 2 percent conversion rate, your EPC is $4.00. This is an excellent EPC, and it means you can advertise using keywords which have a CPC under $4.00, and still be profitable.

This will grow massively if you decide to expand your advertising campaign or Digital Strategies in the future, because these numbers act as multipliers. The traffic grows exponentially and you’ll essentially have a TON of potential customers seeing your offer. This is why focusing on EPC is the real secret of Google AdWords.

Looking for help with your Google AdWords campaign? Looking to find out how much should you spend on google adwords yourself?We are here to help you! Contact us at: info@smdigitalpartners.com

Having a powerful, well put-together marketing strategy is critical for your company – that’s no secret. However, monitoring and tracking your campaign’s success is equally important. Let’s see why:

Although not as exciting as the creative brainstorming or execution phases of your strategy, where you test out new techniques and tools, tracking is immensely important. It’s where you see what works and what doesn’t, and what should you focus on in order to increase effectiveness. You’ve heard the expression before, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”  And if you’re not measuring and monitoring your efforts, you’re likely wasting your dollars.

Why Do You Have To Track Your Marketing Campaigns?

As a Digital Agency, we consult with many CEOs from companies large and small. And not surprisingly, most of these leaders understand the power of digital marketing. They tend to spend a lot of money on it. But just throwing money at Google AdWords, social media marketing and SEO, only to hope something sticks, is a disaster waiting to happen. Many of these business owners only see their marketing budgets go to waste and unfortunately see little to no results.

Tracking lets you see exactly what works and what doesn’t. You will know how to re-plan your strategy and split your budget, without throwing your money out the window. You will only invest in what really works. Your marketing capital will only feed the strongest digital strategies and you’ll  get the maximum returns on your investment. And this is only possible if you track your digital marketing campaigns right from the start.

Here are our 5 “Must Do’s” to effectively track the success of your digital marketing campaigns:

#1. Website Analytics

Let’s start with the most basic way to track your marketing campaigns.  Analytics can show you who is visiting your website, where they come from and how long they are staying on each page. You’ll know which tactics get the most clicks and how are they converting into web leads, phone calls, sales or new customers.

There are a lot of analytics tools around, but you should stick with the most common one: Google Analytics. This is what most website owners use and it’s amazingly free, amazingly easy to use and set-up, even for beginners. Google Analytics works by compiling data from your users and other sources and gives you a detailed report on your traffic, bounce rates, back-links, pay-per-click campaigns and many other aspects. A “Must-have” tool if you wish to measure digital marketing.

#2. Ad Network Conversion Tracking

All major ad networks or channels , like Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, Google AdWords or Instagram, provide a conversion tracking tool. These tools are incredibly important because they let you determine whether your paid campaigns are actually working. You’ll get information on new sales, sign-ups, phone calls, app downloads and more.  This is also a fairly quick process to implement and the insight you’ll gain by tracking these efforts will help you manage your budgets more effectively.

#3. Phone Tracking

Some businesses rely heavily on phone leads. At SMDigital Partners, we place a lot of emphasis to encourage phone calls over web leads.  And it’s great when prospects and customers keep calling back. But where are they coming from? How did they find your company? Knowing the answers to these questions will arms you with your future digital marketing efforts.

Our clients tell us that their best leads come from phone calls that are generated from our digital marketing campaigns. Seventy-three percent of our clients want a phone call compared to a web lead.  No surprise there. And, for any small, local business owner, 61 percent of local mobile searches turn into a phone call. But you have to know where the call originated from to be able to amplify those efforts. These are only a few of the reasons why you have to use phone call tracking technology in order to learn how to track marketing campaigns effectively and boost your sales.

So how does it work? Ideally, each campaign is assigned a unique local (or toll-free) number. These numbers are then dynamically inserted into your campaign landing page or website where the call activity is tracked. For example, someone who clicked on your Facebook ad, sees a different number, while someone who clicked a Google ad gets a different number.  Both these numbers point to your main number so the process is seamless to the Client. This allows you to understand where your callers (and sales) are coming from, and consequently, where your marketing money should go.

#4. CRM Tracking

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms are a more powerful tool primarily used to manage your prospecting activity or sales process. They allow you to create personalized profiles for your prospects and customers, listing their names, address, phone number, referral sources and many other snippets of marketing data to help you really understand your business.

But they can also be extremely powerful when it comes to how to track marketing campaigns.  In most cases, you can filter or sort your prospects by campaign ID, lead source, or referral program which gives you real time access to see how your marketing efforts are paying off.  Furthermore, many CRMs have a marketing and email automation component to them which means you can begin to craft customized, relevant email messages automatically based on the tracking source of the lead. 

For example, if a prospect came in looking for discounts on official New England Patriots Jerseys, you’d want to send them an email message, or maybe a coupon relating to the Patriots – not a generic email about apparel.

#5. KPI Dashboard Tracking

KPI (short for key performance indicator) tracking is about recording and tracking your campaigns by using the previous 4 methods mentioned above – but rolled up into one powerful report.  The prior four tracking tools are all essential to manage and review from time to time, but most business owners don;t always have the time to review each tool, individually, and analyze the results.  So, imagine being able to see ALL your campaign data in one KPI Dashboard Report and drilling down by campaign, or social channel, or phone number.  We refer to them as Executive Reports and these should be produced weekly so all stakeholders get a sense of what is happening overall.  It allows CEOs, business leaders, marketing managers and anyone responsible for digital marketing performance to see the most important business metrics in one easy to understand report.  It’s the lifeblood of our business and effectively becomes the scorecard for success.  Every business needs to have one.

Whether you’re a small business owner, newly-minted director of marketing or a seasoned CMO, these 5 Must-Haves on how to track marketing campaigns are essential to give you actionable intelligence to help you manage your marketing dollars more effectively…and grow your business responsibly.

Need help with your marketing campaign tracking? Want to talk tracking? Want to see a copy of our Weekly KPI Report to help you shape yours? Schedule a quick call with our team or give us a ring at 954-606-5980.  We’d be happy to help.