In our recent webinar, “Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: 3 Actionable Strategies to Improve Your Marketing Approach” we shared real strategies, implemented by real marketers, to obtain real results.
We were pretty impressed by the amount of engagement we received during the webinar (hats off to all of our great attendees!). The only downside being that we weren’t able to answer all of your questions live. No worries though – we’ve outlined all the answers below, and provide our slides here for your review.
And now, without further ado, your webinar questions answered.
How do you use call tracking in your marketing?
At CallRail, we are big believers in practicing what we preach when it comes to call analytics. We use our direct integration between CallRail and Marketo, our marketing automation software, that pushes caller information into our Marketo instance. This information includes lead source, which is really beneficial in alleviating any tension between marketing and sales since it clearly shows who owns an inbound lead from a phone call. This level of visibility and accessibility throughout our marketing technology stack enables everyone to be on the same page.
We also use CallRail’s Google Analytics integration to see if our content is driving phone calls, by viewing ‘First Time Callers’ as a goal. This, along with the added benefit of call recording, not only shows us if our content is driving conversions over the phone, but also gives us insight into how we should write our content.
How do you get fresh content and new topic ideas?
We’ve been writing about call analytics for three years now, so the task of coming up with new and engaging content can be pretty daunting. Keyword research is our best friend when it comes to content ideas. We look at what keywords we’d like to rank for, and create quality, keyword rich content. We also listen to feedback from our customers, if there’s a feature they need to know more about, we create more content about it.
Before customers call us they have visited several of [our] online properties. Have you been able to map the entire [customer] journey up to that point?
If you’re using Marketo, like we are, you can track every site visitor and capture that visitor as an anonymous lead. As soon as that visitor takes an action (makes a phone call for instance) they become a known lead. Integrating call analytics with marketing automation allows us to track that entire path to conversion, even if the lead is initially unknown.
You can also view multichannel attribution by using CallRail’s keyword level call tracking, which is what we use in our marketing campaigns.
Do you use different numbers for various campaigns for better call tracking?
We use session tracking numbers (keyword level call tracking) for calls that we push into Marketo, which gives us granular information on the actions a caller takes before they call. We also use session tracking numbers on our marketing website, which gives us insight into what content and landing pages a visitor was viewing when they called.
How do you maintain the cadence of your content?
Having personal KPIs are extremely valuable, and help you stay focused when creating content. When you have a number in your head (or even better, on paper) of the amount of blog post, leads, traffic, etc. you want to reach monthly you’re more likely to strive towards these goals, and obtain them. Even creating a simple content calendar with keyword rich content ideas can be beneficial for quickly coming up with quality content ideas and making sure you reach your content goals.
How often are you viewing and tracking how your programs are working?
The short answer? Everyday. This is especially true if we are testing a new marketing initiative that we want to keep a close eye on and might want to make some immediate adjustments to. In addition to that, we have KPIs on an individual and departmental level that we assess on a monthly bases. We also have very specific goals outlined for 2016 as a company, and that monthly check-in on metrics helps us evaluate where we are in relation to those overall goals and where we may need to make adjustments.
