Overture or now called Yahoo because of Yahoo’s takeover, was the original inventor of the use of the P4P or Pay for Performance. Overture saw that the net was fast becoming the easiest and most convenient way to shop, and advertising was going to hit at all time high because of the several businesses in the arena.

To get a person to go to a web site than others, it requires to be very visible. Providing ads that could direct potential consumers and costumers to their web site would allow them to have an increase in hits as well as sales. Yahoo provides a service that may put a web site or company’s ad in their web site* that may be shown when certain keywords are inputted.

Yahoo provides an opportunity for any company to increase their traffic by using their services. With many people being aware of your web site, there would be more hits and visitors to your web site given the chance to view your pages as well as your products. With even a small percentage of successful sales, with a high hits volume this could still be a substantial figure for your company.

Getting a consistent substantial flow of site visitors is every company’s goal. Several techniques are devised and utilized to ensure that there wishful more people to boost the sales and to be aware of the existence of such a product or service. Site visitors are potentially the life blood of your online based business.

Yahoo/Overture utilizes the same principle as Google’s Adwords. In fact, they’re very similar to each other that they use keyword and keyword phrase searches and to determine which ads to show per search. When a person types in a keyword or keyword phrase to search for anything, the search engines gives out the results in a page. Then at the right side of the page, you’ll see selected ads that have paid for their ads to be viewed with certain keywords and keyword phrases searched.

E.g., Lets say you run a auto part* retail/wholesale web site. You select keywords that may prompt or trigger your ads to be shown in the page when a keyword is searched. When a search engine user types in Honda Accord, your ad may come up if you’ve designated that as one of your keywords. You don’t need to fully optimize your web site with Search Engine Optimization processes and techniques.

Although a few labor so hard to make their web site one of the high ranking web site* per keyword search, you get the opportunity to be on the top of the list or at least in the first page of a search result increasing your chance to be clicked on. With that, you drive traffic and site visitors to your web site a lot faster.

You’ll have to pony up a few cash when using this service though. There are another ways Yahoo/Overture will charge you. It possibly in the number of Keywords or Keyword phrases your ad uses or in the many times your ad is clicked on. Others propose several other services like having your ad show up not only in the search engine pages but also with some third party web site*.

Third party web site* support ads that have the same theme or niche as them. With more areas your ad is shown, you increase the chances of people knowing about your web site or product. With more site visitors you increase the sales of your web site which makes your investment with your ads a wise one.

With so many competitions in the online based businesses, it’s necessary to take a big leap forward from the pack by advertising. Yahoo/Overture will be a great place to begin. Several have utilized their services and have reaped the rewards of this decision. It’s a marketing scheme that will increase your internet site visitors as well as increase your sales resulting to earnings.

It takes money to make money, though there are a few techniques that are basically inexpensive or free, using a marketing service such as what Yahoo/Overture offers will provide results faster and on a larger scale. Many businesses have learned this the hard way, don’t be counted with them.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

More and more webmasters have the recurring quandary on how to increase the flow of hits in the sites. During the past few years many techniques that been developed to resolve this predicament. Though most of them would work there are those that wouldn’t make even a small impact.

One of the techniques that have spawned many achiever stories in driving hits into sites is viral marketing. Viral marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share something to get informative, entertaining or amazing.

Several companies bank on this conduct to spread their products and increase the fame of their company or their site. Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this behavior. It might be in the form of an interesting story, an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many others that may catch a person’s fancy.

This ingenious form of marketing is usually inexpensive and is a fantastic tool for any company to use. The profit greatly overshadows the price or efforts to format this marketing scheme. Any site would greatly profit that viral marketing.

Tell A Friend Script

One of the easiest techniques in viral marketing is using a tell a friend script. This is a simple programming script that you may attach to the programming of your site. Normally, tell a friends script are established in pages where a media is placed so that a person may easily send the media to any of his friends or his family members.

The basic concept of a tell a friend script is a script wherein a person may input his name, e-mail address, the receivers e-mail address and send the media to the intended receiver much like an e-mail with an attachment. As the receiver receives the e-mail he wouldn’t think of the mail a spam mail as he would see the sender’s name as somebody he or she knows and trust.

Tell a friend script eliminates greatly the opportunities of being blocked as they use the data inputted by the sender. This provides wider spreading of this marketing technique. It may be rather sneaky but it’s very effective.

With the e-mail sent and opened the sent media will either be read, viewed or played. Also along with the mail wishful a brief description of the company or web site that sponsors the media sent. This provides the introduction of either the web site, company name or its products. The along with it is another tell a friend script.

Then the process starts again. As more people use the tell a friend script, increasingly people will know of the existence of the sponsoring company or web site. People who read the advertisements inside the mail who liked what they see would go and click on the link and visit the web site. This drives traffic into the web site resulting to great number of potential clients.

Tell A Friend Script Availability

A tell a friend script is very simple and doesn’t need a complex process of programming. In fact, you may copy paste a script and simply put it on an intended page. Finding one is even simpler. All you’ve to do is go to a search engine and type in the search box “tell a friend script” then press enter or click go.

In the search results page you’ll see several links that will direct you to a web site where you may get a tell a friend script. It would just be a simple topic of looking and searching for the script and copying it to your intended online page.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you may drive hits into your web site which could potentially spell profits. This is a simple harmless script that provides great benefits for inexpensive paired with great creativity and foresight.

It’s imperative that you’ve patience in using a tell a friend script. If your chosen media doesn’t get the mileage that’s expected of it, it may take some time before it gets spread or shared. But surely many people will see your advertisements and there’s great chance that they’ll visit your web site increasing your hits flow.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

Establishing your own E-commerce web site isn’t like what it used to be. There are thousands of competition that’s all too willing to get a bigger share of the pie. Every scheme and process you may find to augment your sales would be very beneficial.

We have got to admit to ourselves. Most of us are into it for the profit. We’re not going to waste our time and effort just for the fun of it. Many web site* wouldn’t wait until hell freezes over just to see their profits. While there are a few who takes things lightly there are always those who’d rather see profit any given day.

It’s common knowledge that without traffic we have no business. Like any business, with no purchasers you don’t get sales. Traffic represents all the people that gets a chance to see what you’ve to offer. The more people who see your products the more people there would be to purchase them.

Nobody puts up an E-commerce web site that doesn’t expect profit. We have a startup capital that requires to be regained. With a consistent traffic, we at least have a fighting chance to achieve that chance. Monetizing your traffic would optimize your chances of making the best out of it.

Making Money out of your Traffic

The best and most proven process of making a profit out of your traffic is using advertising. The online generates hundreds of thousands upon hundred of thousands of traffic everyday. Most of them are searching for something. Though a few are just searching information there’s also a good percentage that’s searching something that they require.

The net has proven to be a very reliable source in finding what was deemed to be a very unsearchable product. The net has made the world a smaller place; you may advertise a product from the depths of Istanbul and still find a purchaser from the center of Philadelphia.

Generating traffic isn’t an easy task. You’ve to contend with a great number of web site* to generate a good number of traffic flow. But if done with success this could open up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities. Among the profits is monetising your hits flow.

So, to get to the core of it the more traffic you generate the more likely you’re considered as a desirable, desirable, in a sense that a good hits flowing web site is easily adaptable to earnings. Basically traffic equals profit. Advertising is the name of the game; with the good advertising scheme you may use your traffic flow to your advantage.

When you’ve good traffic you’ve a good number of potential clients, customers that are willing to pour money into your coffers. Other that these are also traffic that can be redirected to sponsored links that are willing to pay you for a sizeable portion of the traffic that you’ve generated.

This scheme is called “pay-per-click”. With every click a visitor of your web site makes on an advertised link you’ll be paid. The more traffic you generate and the more clicks that happens would spell to more profits.

Affiliate Programs

Another process of monetising your traffic are associate programs. You may link up with other tried and tested web site* and internet companies and monetise your traffic by having a percentage of sales generated by traffic coming from your web site.

The basic idea is, traffic generated from your web site will go to other web site that may propose a product that you don’t carry. Many programs may keep track and make records of transactions that was made possible because of web site linkage.

When buys are made by purchasers that was led by your web site to their web site you get a percentage of that sale. Affiliate programs would give you the benefit of monetising your hits without the actual need of carrying or promoting a certain product.

There are so many ways and processes to monetize your traffic. All it takes is a little of hard work and the desire to successfully launch a profit-earning web site. The internet is a veritable source of information, many hints and guides are proposed everywhere in how to monetize your hits and make your web site a good profit earner.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

Online. Business. Profit. To fully incorporate all of these words into a successful merging you’ll require another word. Traffic. Every article you’ll find about making your web site or company successful would always include the grandness of generating traffic.

So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most important matter to a successful Net based business company. Aside from ensuring that you’ve a great product to sell, and you’ve your company’s internal organization well taken core of, it wishful time to get to the core of things, generating traffic.

If you already have a web site and you will think that you are not getting the traffic that you’re supposed to be getting, then its time to reconsider. If you’re contending in these very competitive business, you should always be a step ahead of your competition, increasing your traffic flow should have been done beginning yesterday.

Timing is essential, that’s an old adage known to everybody. But with generating traffic, you should always get on your toes and be a day ahead of everybody. Never think of today and tomorrow as a beginning point for making your web site traffic burdened, it should always have been yesterday.

To aid you out in generating more traffic for your web site, here are a few seven successful ways to increase your traffic beginning from yesterday.

1) Invest in good advertising with search engines

Google’s Adwords and Yahoo’s Overture allow great advertising schemes that are very really popular and assures great traffic. Though with this successful way to increase your hits would price a few profit. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it is imperative in this case to do so as Adwords and Overture is the top successful way to increase your traffic.

You could see for yourself the success this search engine advertising techniques have drew rewards for so many companies. Lots of web site feature these advertising system and a lot of have signed up to reap the profits. Don’t be left behind. Every penny is worth it with using Google and Yahoo’s advertising.

2) Exchange or Trade Links with other sites

With exchanging links with other web site*, both of you’ll profit from the efforts both of you do to enhance your web site* traffic. When one web site features another sites link, they could provide one another with the traffic one web site generates. The efforts are twice beneficial as it would appear like both of you’re working to generate more traffic. The more links traded with a lot of web site* the more traffic could be expected.

3) Use Viral Marketing

Viral marketing allows you to spread the word about your company and product with no prices or if ever low prices only. This is a marketing process that may be rather sneaky; you may attach your company’s name, product or link to a certain media such as a funny video, entertaining game, an concerning article or a gossip or buzz. With this process, people get infected with the creativity and amusement of the medium that they’ll pass it on to many people.

4) Search and use proper keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content

Search engines search certain keywords that they’d show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requisite in ranking in high in search engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

5) Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site

Submit articles to web site* that would contain the same subject that your web site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and auto part*. Attach your web site* description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

6) Join forums and form online communities

Capture a market and show your expertness and credibility. When you found a good foundation for your web site, people will trust you and your web site and will pass on to many people their trust. Traffic will certainly increase as they know that you may provide what they need.

7) Lastly, Offer newsletters.

If many people know what you’re about and your existence is shared with many other people, you’ll find a loyal traffic that may provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your purchasers they’d be pushed to aid you with your traffic.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

First, go to the Yahoo site and select Search Marketing under Yahoo Advertising Solutions. Scroll down to and click on Sponsored Search. You’ll see a section that says “How many searches may your business get?” where you’ll type in the main keyword of your decided niche. This will bring up a list a of words that have your niche subject in them and tell you how many people looked for that particular word the previous month.

To get an idea of what the competition is like, take each word that had a substantial amount of searches and input it into the Yahoo search engine using parenthesis. This will give you a good idea of how many people search for a particular keyword and how many sites you’ll be in competition with for the top spots on the first two pages.

This will naturally take many more time than a paid software program and it may not give you all of the great ideas that a program might. On the other hand, it will be free and give you extra funds for other parts of your site.

If you may do this for free on your own, search engine optimise your web site on your own, and write your own content, then the only thing you’ll have to spend money on is a site URL and web hosting. This is a great idea for those who have little to no start up cash, many time on their hands, are quick learners, and can wait for the profits to start coming in (which will pretty much be pure profit).

However, if you would like to go the easy path and utilize a keyword generating software program, you may find many online. A few are more popular than others and have been a proven way for people to dig up valuable keywords for their niche sites.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword is a word that’s going to be placed in your article many times, not just once as that would create every word a keyword. When a spider sees that you’ve a word placed many times in an article, it will determine that your page possibly useful to users that search for such a keyword.

Over optimising Your Articles

It’s important to note that there’s also such a thing as over optimising your articles for particular words, this is called “keyword stuffing”. When you stuff keywords in an article a spider will detect that you’re trying to trick it into placing your article high in the search engine results for that word, and will alternatively penalize your web site and your page for doing such. This may even affect the rankings of your other pages or get your web site blacklisted from a particular search engine if you’re found keyword stuffing too many times.

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is how many times your keyword is placed in your article. Most use a percentage to determine how many times they’ll put a keyword in an article. For example, if you’ve a 500 word article and wish to achieve a keyword density of 5%, then you’ll require to have the keyword in your article exactly 25 times. You may find hundreds of resources and guides recommending one keyword density over another and the reasons behind the logic, however, in the end you’ll have to determine which density is more fruitful for your articles. Each webmaster as their own density that they like to achieve based on past results. As long as you don’t over optimise and you’re making enough profit from your rankings, then you may choose whatever keyword density you like.

The Right Density

Regardless what exact density you select, it’s important to place keywords so that there are more at the beginning and end to create an hour glass effect. Having the right keyword density in your article makes it more likely that you’ll make money off of that article as it will rise in the search engine results and be seen by more people.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

What Banner Ads Can Do For You?

Banner advertisements may aid bring visitors from others web site* to your own. Though every month fees may be costly to advertise on high traffic web site*, in the end it possibly cheaper and/or a faster way to begin seeing significant revenue from your site efforts, instead of waiting for SEO methods to bring your own web site to the top of search engine results. Aside from paying to advertise on someone else’s web site, there are also free banner exchanges to select from. We’ll look at the pros and cons of each banner advertising method below.

Free Banner Exchanges

Free banner exchanges are when you and other web site* exchange each others banners. Their banner will go on your web site and your banner will go one their web site. Though this alternative is free, there are two main troubles with it. First, if you require your banner on a significant number of web site*, it will mean cluttering your own web site up with these banners. This could even shot you in the foot if you run an associate site as, rather than clicking on your associate links, your visitors mayhap clicking on your banner exchange links. Secondly, you’ve to be actually careful about the types of web site* that you exchange banners with. A few web site* like to gather several banners so that they may be a directory or portal site and not have to have any real content. These “banner farms” or “link farms” will do nothing positive for your web site and, in the meantime, you’ll be bringing them potential traffic.

Paid Banner advertisements

As we saw above, paid banner advertisements price money, but they’ll eventually pay off if you select the right ones. You require to ensure that the web site produces the amount of traffic that they say and that they’ve your advertisement placed in a way that invites visitors to click without being too pushy. You also want to select a web site that doesn’t house too many other banners on the same page as yours or that there are no competitor links on the same page.

All in all, banner advertisements may end up being fruitful for you web site if you go about it the right way. If you do decide to check out banner advertisement as a marketing avenue, be sure to keep the above tips in mind.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

For many businesses, the holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year. For others, the holidays are a bit slower. Regardless of which category your business fits into, you should be looking ahead to 2008.

Why now? Year end is ideal for reflecting on what you’ve accomplished during the year. What new products, services or programs did you implement? What customer service strategies did you employ that increased business? Which marketing strategies successfully put your business in front of your target customer, and what didn’t work and why?

Armed with this information, take a look at your goals for next year. What do you want your business to accomplish next year? Do you want to increase revenue? Grow your client base? Venture into a new niche market? Now think about how you’re going to get there. This is where your marketing planning for 2008 comes in. Spend some time thinking about what marketing tools you can implement next year that will help you to reach your goals.

Although some marketing planning techniques are complex and require weeks to fine-tune, I’ve found that a simpler method works for my clients. To develop a marketing plan that will work for your business, try the following.

First, identify the types of marketing you want to do next year such as advertising (print and online), events, promotions, referral programs, newsletters, press releases, coupons, online marketing, direct mail, e-mail marketing, etc. Choose methods that have worked well for you in the past as well as ideas you’d like to try.

Next, decide how often you will do each type of marketing. Some methods like advertising, newsletters, and online marketing will require consistent use and implementation to be successful. Others (press releases, events and promotions) can be done less frequently or can be implemented when you’re expecting a cyclical slowdown in activity.

Third, pull out your calendar and start penciling in marketing ideas. As you tentatively post items to your calendar, consider what marketing methods are going to yield the best results. Most of my business, for example, comes from my website and client referrals, so I want to focus my efforts on posting new content to my website, networking with potential business partners and clients, and regularly communicating with my existing client base (newsletters, postcards, referral program, etc.)

Here’s a sample to get you started:

January: Send cards to clients thanking them for 2007 business and wishing them well in the New Year (2nd) Advertise in Sunday real estate section of local newspaper (weekly) Advertise in local Homes & Land publication (15th) Send out e-newsletter to existing clients and prospects (20th) Networking lunch (22nd) Post new content to website (25th)

February: Hold customer appreciation open house (5th) Advertise in Sunday real estate section of local newspaper (weekly) Advertise in local Homes & Land publication (15th) Send out e-newsletter to existing clients and prospects (20th) Networking lunch (22nd) Post new content to website (25th)

March: Distribute press release about latest award won or new product/service launched Advertise in Sunday real estate section of local newspaper (weekly) Advertise in local Homes & Land publication (15th) Send out e-newsletter to existing clients and prospects (20th) Networking lunch (22nd) Post new content to website (25th)

Now compare your ideas and your initial marketing schedule to your budget and staff. Can you afford to do all of the marketing you’d like to do? If not, scale back the list. Retain items that will most often put you in front of your target customer and that offer the best return on your investment. If you have a wildly successful year, it is much easier to add a marketing tool than to take one away, especially if your customers have gotten used to it.

Based on what’s left on your list, do you have the staff to implement your ideas? For example, who will write your monthly newsletter? Who will make sure postcards get mailed to prospects, and how will you get website content updated regularly? If you don’t have the staff or you are a one-man show, can you hire an intern to help out, exchange services with a colleague or hire an independent contractor to fill in the gaps?

Finally, review your 2008 marketing plan on a quarterly basis to see what’s working and what may need tweaking. The document can be adjusted as needed, depending on your changing needs. As you evaluate your plan, be sure to note which marketing methods worked well for your business and which ideas didn’t yield the expected results. Keep this in a folder marked “2008 Marketing Results.” Also, note the items that you would like to try and save them in a folder marked “Marketing Ideas.” This information will help you to plan for subsequent years.

For small businesses, this simple marketing planning formula is an easy way for you to look ahead to 2008 without distracting you from the holiday business at hand.

Here’s to an incredibly successful 2008!

Copyright © 2007 by Dana E. Blozis

Dana Blozis of Virtually Yourz is a freelance writer, editor and marketing professional based in the Seattle area. In addition to writing for publication, she offers writing, editing and marketing services to small businesses and nonprofits. For more marketing ideas, subscribe to Dana’s monthly marketing newsletter.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

Saving time is the most common reasons why internet marketers are searching for ways to outsource their projects. Many of them are so busy that it’s almost impossible to manage all their work. By outsourcing webmaster can concentrate on marketing their websites and enjoy their free time. Saving time is very important for any internet marketer. Being able to spend more time on getting links to their website or perfecting their pay per click campaigns is an important factor of success. Internet marketers also want to start new websites and move on to more profitable industries while monetizing their previous projects. By outsourcing their work they become more productive which results in success.

Ability to work on more than one project at a time is another factor why outsourcing proves itself as very effective method in internet marketing. By letting a highly qualified professional do webmaster’s work, he or she can concentrate on coming up with new ideas and projects. This way of marketing is very successful, but can be very expensive. If a marketer has the budget to outsource his work, he should definitely do it. The costs can range anywhere from $20 to $1000s per project. It’s something worth looking into, if you are looking for ability to do more than one project at a time.

Making more money by outsourcing internet marketer’s work is also one of the benefits of using this effective method. If a webmaster is able to save time and concentrate on other projects, he will have more income potential. If a webmaster is capable of doing more than one project at a time, it results in more income streams. As you can see outsourcing your internet work is very profitable if you know how to use it effectively.

Overall I highly recommend using outsourcing method to explode your online marketing business. There are many websites online like rentacoder.com or guru.com where you can hire a person to do your work for a fee. You can hire a programmer to write your software idea for you to sell. You could hire an article writer to constantly provide you with high quality content for your web pages. There are many other reasons to hire someone to outsource your work, but main thing is that this method is highly effective and produces results. By being able to save time, do more than one project at a time, and making more money, marketers accepted outsourcing as one of the major factors of internet marketing success.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.

Starts with a vision

Before we can begin any discussion about measuring success indicators we have to talk a bit about vision. See, you can set targets and goals without an ultimate or at least short term destination in mind. If you are going to start tracking what matters you have to, well, know what matters. By that I mean you need to have some picture of where you want your business to go in the next year, three years, five years. You must be able to see, quite clearly, what it’s like to run your business in the future. Before you can set action steps and tactics, you must have the vision and the strategy that will make it real nailed.

Where are you now?

In order to set some key success indicators it can be helpful to attempt some measurement of where you are now. I’m afraid I inserted the word attempt due to the fact that most small business owners don’t measure very much.

At the very least we need to try to see where you are in the things that may be found hidden inside your accounting software so that we can use them as benchmarks for growth. Things such as revenue, profit, number of clients and number of transactions are a good place to start.

What can you know?

The next step is to add (if you are not tracking these already) things that we can know for sure such as number of leads, percent of leads converted to clients, average revenue per client, number of transactions per client, cost to acquire a new client. Next add a success layer for the number of referrals, number of PR mentions, number of speaking engagements, number of client testimonials, number of compliments.

These hard data items are essential when it comes to setting goals and even setting budgets.

What can you feel?

To take your tracking and measurement system to a higher level I suggest adding some success items that are little harder to measure – in fact they may be hard to find and possess intangible qualities. Look to your core marketing message for clues to these indicators. Look to your people, to your clients, measure what they think matters.

Can you find a way to measure customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction? If so, track and measure those.

A remodeling contractor found that his clients valued the fact that his people cleaned up the job site every day. He might track the number of times a client mentions this fact. He might also find a way to create a clean job site measurement tool or checklist and reward his people for performing this task perfectly.

A law firm found that its clients valued more than anything that fact that the lawyers always got back to them quickly when they had a question or concern. This fact differentiated them from other law firms. This firm might measure response time and set up a simple way to track how many calls were returned within a certain success time frame.

Many times these little things that clients tell us matter can become part of the game if you find a way to measure and reward your people for playing and winning the game. Paying attention to these little things by focusing on them in this manner can pay big dividends.

Open Book Marketing

Once you create your series of tangible and intangible success indicators, it’s crucial to share these with everyone in your firm. Let everyone know that playing this game is non negotiable, that following these rules is required and there is a way to win this game. Most importantly, help them understand why you are tracking what you are tracking, where this tracking is leading (remember the vision) and update them on the results of tracking. Of course the best way to make this initiative fail is if you the owner choose not to play and turn the game into another exercise for your people.

Ways to track

Call tracking services such as Capture the Call allow you to insert tracking phone numbers in your ads that route the call to your main number but capture data on the call. You can view reports that indicate where the call came from and how long the call lasted.

Web tracking services such as ClickTracks can provide detailed ROI analysis and reports on web site visitor activity to help you determine how people found your web site, what ad drove them there and how they interacted with your site when they got there.

Good old fashion paper tracking – you can also employ the simplest system around with a pen and pad. By simply asking every caller or responder where they heard about your firm is a start. You can also code your ads with some key that signals one ad or one medium from another. For instance, in your direct mail ad in Small Business Today, have callers respond to your free information kit by telling them to ask for Betty (you don’t have a Betty, so that’s the key to tracking that ad – simply have the person answering offer to help.) Now, your Yellow Page advertisers are going to ask for Bobby (Again, nobody by that name works for you.) You could also assign phone extension or department names and numbers if you like.

You can test and track different mailing lists, headlines and media in this fashion.

When it comes to tracking things like referrals, testimonials, solutions and results, a traditional people capture system using a spreadsheet might be the best way to proceed. I think the key is to make your tracking system and reporting simple enough that making it work doesn’t get in the way of you using it.

The Great Game of Business

There is a fabulous book called The Great Game of Business written by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham that outlines some of these concepts in what is called Open Book Management (OBM). OBM focuses more on the accounting side of sharing information with employees and tying bonuses and incentives to key indicators of performance. I think every small business owner could benefit from a read.

Eyes on the dashboard

Visual dashboards such a MyBizHomepage – can help you set up simple tools to glance at your indicators and performance data in graphs and charts. Here’s a nice article from Microsoft on the power of dashboard reporting using Excel.

Copyright 2007 by My Personal CMO .com. All Rights Reserved.