DEADLY HOME BUSINESS MARKETING MISTAKES -PART 2
by: Cary Christian

Last week I gave you five deadly small business marketing mistakes. This week I want to give you only ONE! But it's the biggest single marketing mistake you can make. Drum roll please!

The single biggest marketing mistake you can make is:

NOT TRACKING YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS!

Let's assume for a moment that you are making most of the marketing mistakes that you can possibly make, including the five deadly ones I gave you last week. There is one infallible way to make sure that you don't make them for very long, and that is by tracking your marketing efforts.

For example, if you aren't prequalifying your pay-per-click visitors, you'll find you're getting lots and lots of hits and no sales. If you're using a slow-loading flash presentation on the webpage you're sending visitors to, you'll notice that few visitors venture beyond that page. If you're purchasing guaranteed hits from a site that sends you lotto-validation
visitors, you'll find you're making no sales from the visits you get.

The knowledge you gain from tracking will allow you to cease using advertising that doesn't work and shift your efforts to those activities that produce the best results. I'm not going to belabor the point: you must track your advertising. Tracking will save you thousands of dollars over the long term. There is simply no excuse not to do it.

You can track most of your advertising using your website logs.  For example, if you advertise http://www.mydomain.com/test.htm on Overture, list the URL as:

http://www.mydomain.com/test.htm?source=overture

It will be easy to find the Overture hits in your logs. You should then be able to track this visitor through your website, including to your shopping cart.

There is, of course, a lot of software available to make this process of tracking easier for you. If you have web statistics software that produces reports that allow you to track visitors through your site, your task will be easier. You can also sign up with programs like AdMinder and ROIBot that charge a small monthly fee for tracking services but provide you with all the tools you need for complete analysis without much work on your part. If you only sell through affiliate programs, you'll need to use this type of option unless you use your own website to presell your affiliate programs.

Regardless of how you choose to do it, it is critical that you implement some method of tracking. You work hard to produce profit. Don't throw it away on wasted marketing efforts.

Copyright (c) 2002