Business owners often find it difficult to know whether their marketing tactics are working. This can be especially tricky when you use a combination of marketing activities simultaneously, or if using personal-contact tactics such as networking.

No matter what business you're in, your marketing should be accountable. So here's a few ways to evaluate how well you're doing.

1) Look at your sales (or fee income). They should be going up! But be careful about what you measure. Some firms have a longer sales cycle than others. To get an accurate picture you might need to also measure the number of new leads being generated, or the number of appointments, or the number of billable hours achieved. Remember discounts or variances in fees will affect total sales values.

2) Ask your clients. Check to find out where they heard of you. Most businesses never ask this question and miss out on gleaning valuable insights into how clients select a service provider.

3) Does your advertising and/or promotional activity produce direct responses?
It should. If your answer is "I don't know" then you've got some work to do. In addition to 2) above, there are some things you can do to improve response rates.

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