How To Measure Marketing Effectiveness Using Google Voice

One of the best ways to measure marketing effectiveness is to identify ways to track how people are finding your business.   Here are a few cools ways that Google Voice can help you track marketing effectiveness.

1. Use a Google Voice number for your social media accounts. If you have a business presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, use a Google Voice number for all of your social media accounts.  Route the number to your existing phone number, but review your Google Voice records to track how many and what calls are the result of your social media accounts.  If you perform extensive social media marketing, use a different Google Voice number for each account to track the amount of calls, leads, etc. resulting from each network.
2. Use Google Voice to track the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. Planning on purchasing ad space online, in print or on television?  Use a different Google Voice number for each campaign.  For instance, if you are paying $2500 to advertise with Media Company A and $5000 to advertise with Media Company B, use two different Google Voice numbers for your otherwise identical ads.  You can route both numbers to your main line, but will still have the ability to track how many calls resulted from each company.  If, in the end, you find that advertising with Company A resulted in $8000 in sales while advertising with Company B resulted in $14000 in sales, you may decide, when cutting back, to continue running ads with Company A, which gave you the better ROI (return on investment) and was therefore, the most effective marketing option.
3. Create a referral system using Google Voice accounts. Do you network in multiple arenas or belong to different networking circles?  Create business cards with different Google Voice numbers, routed to your main line.  This will enable you to track, over time, what networking circles and/or associations are producing the best results.

I do want to take a moment to point out that Google Voice is currently a free service.   As such, there is no contract guaranteeing free service months or years down the line.  Please keep this in mind should you decide to incorporate this service into your business.