What is Call Tracking? How Can it Help Your Business?
Quote of the day: “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary, is that little extra!” – Jimmy Johnson
What is it?
Call tracking is a way to use software to track the phone calls that come in. Sometimes this software can also record the calls that come in (if it’s legal and available in your area). For example, it’s useful when you want to get an excellent grasp on how many calls and potential patients that you’re generating from your postcards or other specific marketing efforts.
How do you use it?
You create a call tracking number through whichever service you choose, and you assign it to the campaign. You put the number on the postcard and each time someone calls that number, it’s forwarded to your main line. You can have a whisper tone before the caller is on the line that notifies you of the lead. You can then record exactly how many calls you get from these specific numbers. If you do this over time, you’ll be able to understand exactly how much revenue you got from the campaign and compare that to how much you spent on it.
You can also use call tracking for online methods of tracking. For example, you can use it for email marketing campaigns, SEO services, and more! Whenever someone visits your website through one of those avenues, they’ll see a unique phone number.
What are the benefits?
One of the best ways to implement this is by using Dynamic Call Tracking (DNI) . The phone number on your website is the same that you usually use, but when someone visits your site from a Google Adwords click or a regular search in Google, they’ll see a different number based on how they got to your site. This is recommended because we know that Google thinks it’s important that businesses have a consistent name, address and phone number (NAP). If you have a bunch of different numbers on your site, then Google can’t trust the information on your site. Dynamic Number Insertion eliminates all of those issues, which is why it’s highly recommended. You can also record form submissions to get a better picture of where your potential clients are coming from.
Call tracking is useful instead of just putting out $2000 a month for marketing and not understanding if specific marketing expenditures are achieving an actual return on your investment. You want to ensure you’re maximizing every single dollar when you’re spending on marketing, and understanding how effective your campaigns are is a huge part of that.
This effort can also help you in identifying holes in your marketing campaigns by showing which methods are most effective and which methods aren’t. It offers you insight that you otherwise wouldn’t get.
Check out WhatConverts, CallRail, and CallFire for call tracking solutions that you can implement on your own.
Let us know what you thought and if you learned anything new.