How Did You Hear About Us?

Posted by on Oct 26, 2020 A large part––arguably the most important part––of evaluating your promotional activities is knowing what’s working amid all of your promotional efforts.  The most obvious and easiest way to know is by asking your prospects and new customers how they heard about you.  This is not complicated. Do not overthink this but be thorough. You’ll see what I mean as you keep reading.  5 Ways to Ask Here are some ways to aid your evaluation. Your IT person will be very familiar with many of these and can probably install them quickly.  An online pop-up form on your website. When a visitor logs on, a pop-up screen immediately (or after a few seconds) asks them how they knew to visit your site. This is totally optional, considered an opt-in technique. Ask on the intake on registration forms. Once they’ve decided to commit to your services, asking people to identify how they heard about you is a natural question and people are forthcoming in offering this information if they remember. Show of hands. If you invited people to attend an event of any kind, you take an impromptu poll to find out which of your efforts brought them to you. News story, social media post, ad, a friend, etc. This is not scientific, but it’s better than now knowing. Conduct a survey with an incentive. Sometimes people need motivation to give you any information. When encouraged to earn a small reward or free PDF download, they might give you many details including demographic data, opinions, and definitely how they heard about you. Pair the question with another opt-in. When people sign-up for your e-newsletter or rewards program, slip in a question about how they heard about you.  In addition, here are two ways to track the results without specifically asking.  Promo codes. Use a promo code that tells you what ad or promotion moved them to action. Create a simple suffix that the customer hardly notices but means a great deal to you. If you sell pizza, your buy one get one (BOGO) promo code might be listed as BOGO2020-N for News in the press release, BOGO2020-F for a Facebook post, etc. Even if they catch on to this very sophisticated encryption (LOL), they don’t care and are happy to supply the code for free food. Create unique emails for different activities. Many communications end with the statement “for more information, contact us at name@your.com/org.” Your IT professional...
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Evaluation – A Necessary Evil that I Make Easy

Posted by on Jul 25, 2020 Evaluation is an important part of your marketing strategy and yet it is a low priority for most small businesses and nonprofits. I know ‘Eval’ is close to ‘Evil,’ but you have to do it before you move on to the next thing on the to-do list and it’s forgotten. Mostly, I find that evaluation is ignored not just because of time, but because people do not know where to start. I have made evaluation as easy as completing a form. If you keep it up you will have great data to rely on year after year. Below is my FREE downloadable Communications Assessment Tool that will help you take inventory of your promotional activities as you move forward. If you have taken my classes at The Nonprofit Partnership then you likely already have this tool working in action. “Oh yeah!” I heard you say that! I offered this way back in 2016 also. It’s simple to use and very important. If you don’t keep track, how else will you know what’s working? McCormickLA_Comm_Assessment_Tool_2020. Leslie A.M. Smith founded McCormick L.A. in 1994 offering public relations and marketing consulting to nonprofits and businesses of all shapes and sizes. Sign-up on her website today to receive helpful insights like this one in your inbox.  See how easy your promotional efforts can be here.  ...
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