Which small businesses is call tracking most important for?

While pretty much all elements of business today seem to be online dominated, there’s still something to be said for the humble phone call. Many customers still prefer a conversation over an online transaction when it comes to making a purchase, which in turn presents a valuable opportunity for businesses to understand the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

What’s call tracking, again?

Phone call tracking offers a complete analytics service that enables you to understand the source of your leads. You can use call tracking to identify where the call has originated from, be it your website, search or a paid campaign. From there, you can whittle down or refocus your marketing spend to the campaigns that are really making a difference to your brand.

This makes an awful lot of sense for small businesses where marketing spend is particularly limited, but which sectors in particular should it have the biggest impact?

Marketing agencies

Of course, who better to benefit from understanding campaign efficacy than marketers themselves? Agencies need to be able to prove the worth of their campaigns to their clients – a process which has been historically difficult to do. With call tracking in place, agencies can show their clients exactly what their campaigns are doing, not to mention use the analytics to hone their services.

It also provides another selling point to potential clients, who will see you believe in your ability to produce a genuinely effective campaign.

Legal

Legal firms traditionally have a tough time when it comes to establishing the value of their marketing spend. Keywords relating to legal services also stack up as some of the most expensive on search engines. Thus, it’s highly important that legal businesses justify their marketing spend.

Call tracking allows firms to fine tune their campaign efforts and see a better return on investment in a particular pricey part of the search market.

Property

No one buys a house online, but they may well start their journey there. Advertising online is a must to draw in the first call from the customer, so it makes sense that those in real estate want to see where the most phone calls are coming from.

In property, it’s all about turning a conversation into something more, so the more conversations you’re having; the better. A well-integrated call tracking service can help this along.

ROI is everything in business, and call tracking can help boost it. It’s fair to say the first conversation between business and client will never lose its value, so if small businesses value the worth of their marketing, installing call tracking analytics represents a sensible move.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.