Marketing Effectiveness for Bail Professionals
Identify your most effective marketing and advertising initiatives
What is Marketing Effectiveness?
There are a number of ways to market your Bail Bond company. Options include the phone book, outdoor advertising, direct mail, radio/TV and of course, the Internet. As you spend more and more on marketing your business, it is of utmost importance to know which advertising initiatives are having positive results and which are not. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is known as "Marketing Effectiveness".
Outlined below are a number of marketing effectiveness components in which bail agents and investigators should engage.
Answer the Phone
A bail agent’s, lifeline to new customers is the telephone. Regardless of how much you market your company, if you don’t answer your calls it is unlikely the full value of your advertising will be realized.
Missing a phone call can mean missing a large bond, investigative case and in some cases losing out on a potential long-term client. When it comes to bail calls, people are scared, anxious or they don’t have time to wait for you to call them back. If you don’t pick up your phone it is very likely that they will not leave a message and will contact another bail agent.
Many bail and investigative agencies are small businesses, making it impossible to be in the office to answer phones during the day.
"When I first started my company I had an answering machine to take calls while I was away from the office. I would come home and see numerous missed calls, but no messages,” says Keith Hollen of Eagle Eye Detective Agency in Charlotte North Carolina. “Now we make sure that when we leave the office the phone calls are forwarded to our cell phones so we can answer any time. This has improved our business very much."
Track your Calls
Tracking where your customers find you is vital to your marketing effectiveness. The calls come in, but where are they coming from? Tracking your calls determines what is working and what is not and the only way to get this information is by asking.
This sounds easy, but getting accurate information can be much more difficult than it sounds.
With traditional marketing, such as the phone book, tracking the response is easy. When a customer is staring at your ad on paper they know where they found it. Online, it isn’t as simple.
The nature of the Internet (a "web" of sites) can make it difficult to track your online marketing. Customers do not always remember the path they took to find your phone number. They may have visited five or six sites before actually finding your contact information. When you ask, they may say, "I found you on Google" or "I found your web site." Does that mean they did a search for "dallas bail bond agent" and found your web site in the search results? Or, did they find a site where you advertise?
You may not even have a web site, which means they found your information elsewhere – but where exactly?
"If you can accurately assess where your customers are finding you 50% of the time or more, we feel you are doing a good job," states AboutBail.com co-founder, Adam Camras.
Asking the Question – How did you find me?
When a client calls they are potentially stressed out or scared – they may not know where they found you. Therefore, some bail agents are hesitant to ask.
It can be fairly easy, however, to present this topic in a way that won’t annoy or put off your client. For example:
"Thank you for your business. We are marketing our company in a number of ways. Would you mind telling me how you found us today?"
Some people will know exactly how they found you and will be quick to respond. If they are not exactly sure where they found you, its probably best not probe too much. Asking them for more details could be frustrating.
Training your Staff
Many of you are fortunate to have hard-working and dedicated front office staff that are the lifeline of your business. They are the people answering your phones and interacting with your clients. As you spend more to generate new business, you must educate them on the importance of tracking your marketing results.
Having a place where they can aggregate this data, such as a spreadsheet or call sheet, is a good way to achieve this. In addition, having a sheet in front of you will serve as a reminder to ask your customers where they found you.
Here is an example of a call sheet you can download and print:
Download: Call Tracking Spreadsheet (PDF)
If you would like more information on Marketing Effectiveness, or if you are interested in listing your bail agency, investigative firm or criminal law practice on AboutBail.com, please contact us via email at info@aboutbail.com or toll free at (866) 411-2245.
Contact:
Mike MacDonald
12335 Santa Monica Blvd. #300
Los Angeles, CA 90025
T - 866.411.BAIL (2245)
F - 888.824.2482
E - mmacdonald@aboutbail.com
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