Do you know where it is all coming from?  Your bussiness I mean; do you know?  Is it coming from referrals, your website, your mailers?  Are you sure?  Have you ever bothered to ASK new clients how it is that they found you?

Answering a couple of these questions could save you hundreds of dollars in advertising if you just ASK, or do a little research.  This post is also a follow up to, "If You Can't Toot Your Own Horn, Then You're Just Blowing It!".  When it comes to marketing, you need to know if you're hitting the right notes to play your tune.  Mailer marketing is a little harder to track it's effectiveness unless someone says, "I received your postcard / coupon" (or you ASK)  But I'm here to share a few things I've learned and I'm interested to see what is working for others. (this is a long read, but well worth t!)

Emails:  I routinely send out emails or newsletters to realtors and potential clients through an email database with a direct link to my website.  I know that this has worked because I ASKED, "If you don't mind, can I ask how you heard of Platinum Home Staging, Inc. so that I may thank the referral?"  Many times the response has been, "You've been sending me emails for months, you convinced me..." 

Mailers / Postcards:  I have also been sending out postcards on a regular basis (about every 6-8 weeks) to Realtors clouting successes, services, specials: mix it up.  This is another way to get your name out in front of the consumer, especially if they "scan" their emails and don't open them.  Again, I know that this marketing has worked as well because I have ASKED, and Relators have said, "I needed a Home Stager and another Agent in the office gave me your postcard" (Two for the price of one! Woo-hoo!)

Website & Internet marketing:  Most smart busniesses realize that internet and virtual marketing is the way of the future.  Our comapny is posted on (almost) every professional contact, professional and business database on the internet we could possibly find.  We have also found it to be the most cost effective. But to ensure we are not wasting our time (and it takes a LOT of time to update all these data-bases) we need to know WHERE all our business is coming from! 

If you don't have a website analytics program for your website, you need to get one, TODAY!  Although we already have one provided for through our website hosting company, special thanks goes out to  Annie Pinsker-Brown  for her blog on website traffic research as we found having a second website tool to be key.  We'll uncover our discoveries on that in a later blog - for now, go find out where your customers are coming from!

Platinum Home Staging,Inc.