Have you ever hung up the phone after talking to a prospective client and thought “I wonder how they found out about us…”?
When we were a cleaning company, we tried lots of different marketing tactics — even things like putting ads on pizza boxes. Because who doesn’t love pizza?!?
But when it came time to re-invest in that tactic, we knew to say “No way, Jose” to those pizza box ads, because they just weren’t working.
How did we know this?
We used a combination of two affordable tools to track where our phone calls are coming from to better understand what marketing activities drive your customers to call.
Here’s our COO (who has 10+ years of experience in digital marketing) talking about why it’s important to track your phone calls.
For many businesses, the phone is still a very important aspect of your customer’s buying process.
This is very true for the janitorial industry.
A great deal of customers still pick up the phone to ask for a quote or proposal.
When this happens, wouldn’t it be great to know where these calls are coming from? Yellow pages? Your website? Maybe your business card?
It’s as important to know what is working as is it what’s not working.
Margins in cleaning industry are thin enough, you don’t need to be spending your limited resources on tactics that don’t work!
The good news is that it’s very simple to get started.
Step 1: Sign up for Twilio
Twilio is a service designed to let you leverage software (like Ring.Ninja) that uses the internet to make phone calls and send texts.
It’s pay as you go, so setting up a test will cost only a few dollars a month.
Companies like Uber, Nordstroms and Coca Cola use Twilio every day to connect with their customers.
Simply buy a number (local numbers are $1/month,) and pick a source you want to track. Let’s say for example you’re interested in knowing if people are finding your phone number from visiting your website.
The number you purchased will become your “website number” meaning you shouldn’t use it on any other marketing materials.
That way you know for certain that anytime someone calls that number it’s a result of them finding it on your website.
Step 2: Sign up for ring.ninja
Next, you’re going to use Ring.Ninja to actually set up that trackable phone number and forward it to your existing company phone number.
Ring Ninja lets you create private URLs that you’ll use with your Twilio account.
On the Ring.Ninja website you’ll need to enter the number for the phone you want to ring when someone calls (ie. your current business phone number) and set your preferences.
You can record the call, turn on email notifications, or even SMS (text message) notifications within your preferences. Simply check the boxes provided, and click save.
Your first Ring.Ninja URL is now ready!
Copy the private link provided and you’re ready to setup Twilio.
Step 3: Set up twilio
Take the URL from Ring.Ninja (ex: ring.ninja/627292hdskj) and copy and paste it into your new Twilio phone number and click “Save.”
That’s it, you’re ready to test your first number!
Simply call the trackable number to that you’ve set everything up correctly. Your existing business phone should ring, and any preferences you’ve set in Ring.Ninja (ie. email or SMS notifications) should be triggered.
Step 4: Market Your Trackable Number
Place your new Twilio number on your website (or whichever marketing material you’ve chosen) and wait for calls.
Remember that you’ll need to replicate these steps for each marketing channel you’d like to track so that each one has a unique trackable phone number.
This tracking technique helped us make marketing decisions for our janitorial business, and we hope it can do the same for you!
