Tracking ROI on offline advertisements

[Domainant]

How do you determine the ROI on your offline advertisements. I've been targeting newspapers with ads and posting fliers which eats up time and cuts into the budget. How can I determine which of these efforts are paying off the most so I can focus on that area? Tacking on, "tell me how you found this business" with the options listed, hasn't been successful as it usually gets ignored.

 

[Foroux]

What about creating a discount code for each medium you're advertising in. Make it a one time discount per address or credit card and put a short end date on it. People love discounts, so they're likely to enter it which would tell you where they found your service. Unfortunately, this isn't 100% reliable because discounts wind up on sites like Retailmenot. I don't think you're large enough to attract that sort of attention though. People in your community might share the code with their friends and family in the area, so you might not want to make the discount too large.

 

[marsh]

I don't really focus on how much offline adverts rake in but if they are eating up into your budget, I agree that it is time you re-looked each of these. @Foroux's idea looks tenable but I'm not sure if everyone would be willing to divulge that kind of information.

 

[Foroux]

@marsh the customers wouldn't be divulging anything unique other than the actual coupon code. Their name, address, credit card number, email, and more would come out when they ordered a service or product. It isn't fool proof, but I don't know many buyers who won't use a discount code when they have one. Of course, this is only an option if the OP wants his customers to pay or set up appointments with him online.

Another option for tracking ROI on offline advertisements is to use a unique domain in each one. NameCheap wrote about that strategy here. It would be a good way to determine where the advertisement was found that drove the person to the site without expecting the person to do anything else. After all, it takes some buyers a while to make a decision and it would work on content only sites as well.

 

[marsh]

The article raises really important points because tracking the ROI on offline advertisements isn't easy. The suggestion to use unique domain names seems like one that'd prove effective.