← Branded Bull Podcast
Branded Bull Podcast
You Can't Fix What You Can't Track: Understanding Lead Attribution Ep 102.
00:10:13
Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:02]
A
This is the Branded Bull Podcast, a show dedicated to helping take your business to the next level with winning marketing and branding tips and strategies built for today's competitive world, ready for your business to make its mark and stand out from the competition? Let's get into it.
- [00:25]
B
Welcome back to the Brandon Bull Podcast, guys. I'm your host, Adam Fullerton, and this is where we help lawn care and landscaping businesses stand out, get found, and win more work. Today I'm going to talk to you guys about something that isn't nearly as exciting as a new website, a new logo, or even new marketing campaigns that you might be running. But it might be one of the most important marketing topics we can discuss. And we've touched on this before, but I'm going to dig into it a little bit deeper this time around. And the topic is lead attribution. In simple terms, lead attribution is understanding where your leads are actually coming from. Now, that might sound obvious. You might be thinking, adam, I know where my leads are coming from, but I challenge that and ask you, do you really know where leads are coming from? And more importantly, do you know which marketing efforts are generating your best leads? Because there's a big difference between getting leads and understanding where they are coming from. From. And I can't tell you how many times I've talked with you guys and other business owners in the green industry who say things like, most of our leads come from referrals or I think Facebook is working, or we've gotten good results from Google. And the problem is when people start to use words like I think, right? I guess it's two words, but the expression I think or the sentence, whatever, you get the point. And when you're spending money on marketing, right, Guessing isn't enough. And there's no need to be guessing. You need data and you need to know. And you can know, because if you don't know where your leads are coming from, it's probably or almost impossible to make smart decisions about where your marketing dollars should actually go or be reinvested. So let's say you're spending money, money on Google Ads, you're posting on Facebook. You're. You've got your logo on your trucks, you have a yard, signs throughout neighborhoods, you sponsor a local baseball team, you're asking for reviews. I mean, you're doing a lot. And that's awesome. That's good. But which one of these is actually producing leads and which one is producing the most leads? Which one is producing the highest quality leads? Which one is producing the Most revenue for your business. Most companies that are small just have no idea. And that's a problem, and a problem that can be fixed. Because if you don't know what's working, you're just throwing money at different marketing channels and hoping for the best. So let's talk about a very simple first step. You can ask every lead how they heard about you, right? That's it. No fancy tools, no fancy anything. Just ask. And it's amazing how many companies don't even do that consistently. They never ask, where did you hear about us? And every single time I get on the phone with anybody, I always ask, hey, just out of curiosity, where did you hear about us? And I make a note in our own CRM on our side behind, you know, the brandable within the brandable fortress, so to speak. And whether someone calls you, if they fill out a form on your website, they send you a message on Facebook, they email you, there should be a process for capturing how they found your business, right? I mean, maybe they found you through Google. Maybe they saw your truck in a neighborhood, maybe a customer referred them, maybe you. They found you through Facebook, they scanned a QR code on a yard sign. The list goes on and on. The point is that you need to capture that information somewhere. Whether that's a Google spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel, a CRM, any other sort of lead tracker, it doesn't matter. Whatever works best for your business. The important thing is consistency. Now, here's where things get a little bit more interesting, right? Sometimes the answer isn't as simple as it seems. And let's say, you know, a homeowner sees your truck while you're working down the street. A few days later, they might Google your business, naturally. Then they might visit your website, Then they fill out a contact form. So where did that lead actually come from, right? Was it your truck? Was it Google? Was it your website? And the reality is, it's kind of all three. And this is where marketers talk about First Touch attribution and last Touch attribution. I may have talked about this on previous episodes before, but if not, it's really important to know the difference between these two. So first touch attribution focuses on the first interaction someone has with your business. Last Touch attribution focuses on the final action they took before becoming an actual lead. And both are absolutely valuable and both tell different stories, right? Your truck may have created awareness, your website may have built trust, and your contact form may have actually captured the lead. And without all three, you may not have even gotten that lead or that opportunity. And that's why lead attribution isn't always black and white. But even imperfect tracking is better than no tracking at all. Right? So let's talk about one of the biggest mistakes I see. And that's when business owners often focus on lead volume instead of lead quality. So imagine this. You get 30 leads from Facebook, 10 from Google, and, you know, five from your website. And most people immediately assume that Facebook is performing better because you get way better, way more leads. But what if only one of those leads comes from Facebook? Or I should say, one of those leads from Facebook actually becomes a customer? Right? 1 out of 30. And what if it's 4 leads become customers from Google, and what if it's 5 out of 5 from your website? Right. Suddenly, the picture looks very different when you talk about it from that perspective. And that's why lead attribution shouldn't stop at lead generation. You should also track how many leads came from each source, how many became customers, which services they signed up for, and how much revenue they generated, if possible. Because the goal isn't to generate more leads necessarily. The goal is to generate more profitable leads, actually profitable customers. Right? The goal is to generate better leads. Better, better customers. More profitable customers that help the business grow. And that's a huge difference. In fact, some of the most valuable marketing channels generate relatively few leads. So referrals are a great example. Right? You may only receive a handful of referrals each month. Each month. But those leads often close at a much higher rate, as you guys probably know, because trust has already been established. You don't necessarily need to sell as hard as before. And the same could be true for yard signs or wraps on your vehicle, customer views, you know, local chamber of commerce or networking groups you might be a part of. The volume might be lower, but the quality can be extremely high. And the conversion might be extremely high as well. And that's why tracking these things actually matters. And when you understand which channels generate the highest quality opportunities, you can invest more heavily in those channels. So instead of asking, should I spend more money on marketing? You can ask, where should I spend more money? And that's a much better question. Now, if you're listening to this and thinking, adam, that sounds like a lot of work. It's not. Don't worry. You don't need complicated software. You don't need a marketing degree. You don't need to, you know, perfect attribution. Just start simple. Just track the name of the lead, the date, the source, the services requested, whether they became a customer and the value of the job associated with that customer. That's it. Start with those five things. Maybe that's six. I think it's five. Date lead source service requested, whether they became a customer and the value of the job. That's five. That's five simple things to track, right? And over time, patterns will absolutely begin to emerge and you'll start to see which marketing channels are generating the leads, which channels are generating customers, and which channels are generating revenue. And that's when marketing decisions become much easier because you're no longer operating on assumptions or preconceived notions, right? You're operating on data. And that's where growth truly happens. And ultimately, the companies that scale most effectively aren't always the companies spending the most money on marketing. They're the companies that understand exactly what's working and doubling down on it. So if there's one thing I want you to take away from today's episode, it's that you can't fix what you don't track. The better you understand where your leads will come from, the easier it becomes to make smarter marketing decisions and spend your money more effectively, ultimately growing your business. So that's what I got for you guys today. Lead attribution, tracking your marketing channels and understanding where to spend more of your time, your money, your energy and so forth to grow your lawn care or landscaping business. So thank you. Hopefully this is valuable information every single week, new episodes every single Tuesday. I am again your host, Adam Fullerton. Thank you guys for tuning in. As always, consider subscribing wherever you're listening. Consider leaving that five star review if you found this valuable. And as always, guys, thank you. Listening. Thank you, I should say, for listening to another episode of the Brand of Podcast. And I'll catch you guys on next week's episode. Take care.
- [09:40]
A
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Branded Bull Podcast. The podcast dedicated to giving you expert advice and actionable ideas so that your business can make its mark and stand out from the competition, like what you heard in today's show. Visit brandedbull.com to see how we can help you achieve your marketing and branding goals. Also, please consider leaving a five star review. And again, thanks for listening.