(By: Tim Clark)

You probably know which gas station near you has the lowest price per gallon. You know where you can buy materials for less. But one thing many contractors do not know is where all their leads are coming from.  It’s so important for any small business manager to understand what is working and what is not.

You can put an ad in the yellow pages, you can drop off flyers door-to-door, and you can pay for an ad on the radio.  But if you cannot measure the effectiveness of doing these things, how will you know which ones to invest in again?

When you know what works, you can continue it and you might even expand on it. But for this to happen, you need to track it. Is it easy to do? No. It will require more work but it will mean you’re spending your marketing budget the best way possible.

On all phone calls make sure you, or your customer service rep, greet every potential new client by asking how they heard about you. Write it down. Even if they are not sure. Make it easy by listing every possible advertising resource you use so all you need to do is check it off.

On your website, put in a free tracking service that tells you where your traffic is coming from. Sitemeter.com, Gostats.com and Google Analytics will have you place a code on your website where you can see where visitors are entering from and going to. Keep track of what is working and what is not.

On your TV, radio, or newspaper ads, you can request a new specific telephone number for each resource. It’s more expensive, but so are the ads you’ve place. To make sure you’re spending wisely, know which of your ads is working.

On your brochures, yard signs, truck signs, flyers and other printed materials, you can use those unique phone numbers or website addresses. For example, your site may be “joesplumbing.com” – but you could make one print item have the unique URL of “joesplumbing.com/coupon” and track that page for traffic.

Keep track when clients say they’ve come from referrals and find out who the referrer was. Contact them and thank them. Keep track of all the job generated through ConstructionDeal.com and ask for referrals from those clients as well. Keep track of links on your Facebook and Twitter pages by using “bit.ly” URLs.

There are many ways to track all these things but the key to your success is to use as many as you can. Knowing what works will save you time, money, and it will increase the effectiveness of your marketing budget.