In my books and my appearances, I emphasize how important it is to identify your Web conversions—just what are you trying to persuade your customers to do? You also need to measure them. It sounds easy to measure when it’s a shopping cart on an e-Commerce site, but when you sell offline its not so easy.
Different companies take different approaches. Auto manufacturers use elaborate mechanisms that allow you to “build your own car,” selecting the colors, options, and equipment and seeing the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. The consumer prints out the result and brings it to the dealer and asks, “How much for one of these?” The dealer notes that this customer came from the Web and the car company can attribute the sale to the Web if one results.
This technique works because people will do almost anything to spend less time with a car salesman. If your customers actually like your salespeople, then you might need to offer a discount for anyone who prints a coupon and redeems it at your store. Or you might provide a special phone number shown only on your Web site—you know anyone calling that number came from your Web site.
I’ve just finished reading Outside-in Software Development
So how are you measuring your offline conversions? If you’re not tracking them at all, then you have no basis for identifying which marketing expenditures are working and which ones aren’t. Without that kind of feedback, you can’t continuously improve your marketing because you don’t know how to keep score of the winners and losers.
