• Survey
  • Book Becky to speak
  • The book: Small Town Rules
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

How to track your daily marketing activity

By Becky McCray

When it’s just you in the business, or you’re the boss, no one makes you keep hammering away at what needs to be done except you. Marketing may be the most important activity in your business, but it’s also hard to be consistent, with everything else you have to do.

Stonecutter Here is one system you can use to keep yourself on track with marketing activity. Start with your revenue goal.

  • Divide the total dollar goal into pieces. If the goal is $1000 in the next month, that means ten ads at $100. Or two consulting jobs at $500. Or 100 sales of a $10 item. Figure out what you have to sell in your business to reach your total dollar goal.
  • Estimate how many contacts you need to make, on average, to make those sales. A common ratio I’ve heard is six contacts for one sale. So 60 contacts to sell ten ads. If you’ve blocked out five days to work on marketing this month, that’s 12 calls per day. When you get to this point, you may find that you need to adjust the dollar goals based on a realistic level of activity. Twelve sounds pretty do-able, but 120 means you need to go back and re-evaluate your goal.
  • Use the daily goal to make sure you follow through on the marketing. You can track this on your work calendar or a separate sheet or card. You need to make 12 calls, so count your calls until you reach 12.

Here’s an old telephone sales activity tracking system you can adapt to track your own activity.

  • Your goal for today is 12 calls.
  • Make 20 empty spaces: o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o.
  • Dial the first potential customer, and fill in the dot.
  • If you just leave a message, put an M.
  • When you speak to the actual person, draw a slash through your dot: /
  • When the customer commits to the next step (appointment, sale, further contact, etc.), circle the dot: O

When you have 12 slashes for 12 contacts, you are finished for today!

To make it easy to follow through consistently, I put the o’s on a mailing label template, and printed them out. Then I stuck one to each day on my paper datebook.

“When nothing seems to help, I look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps 100 times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the 101st blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” -Jacob A. Riis

How do you make sure you are consistent in your marketing activity? 

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
  • Zoom Towns: attracting and supporting remote workers in rural small towns - December 10, 2020
  • In an economic crisis, spend your brainpower before your dollars - November 25, 2020
  • Video: How to fill empty car dealership buildings for the holidays - November 6, 2020
  • How has 2020 changed the challenges rural small towns face? Tell us here - October 20, 2020
  • The Idea Friendly Method to surviving a business crisis - October 6, 2020
  • Join me for the Rural Renewal Symposium online Oct 13 - September 26, 2020
  • Cheap placemaking idea: instant murals - September 11, 2020
  • Refilling the rural business pipeline - July 7, 2020
  • Huge vacant buildings: grants to renovate? - June 9, 2020
  • Economic self defense for small towns  - June 7, 2020

March 1, 2010 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, Small Biz 100 Tagged With: service businesses

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Comments

  1. DowntownDan says

    March 2, 2010 at 12:15 am

    Love this. Everything you discuss here are methods I teach my reps. From breaking down larger goals into much smaller, manageable ones, to creating a tracking system.

    I’m a big fan of the “Countdown method”. If you know you need to make 12 contacts it’s great to cross off number as you go from 12, to 11, 10…and so on. Use momentum to carry you through the task!

  2. Becky McCray says

    March 2, 2010 at 4:44 am

    Thanks, Dan. The countdown is another useful approach.

  3. Erik Wesner/Amish America says

    March 2, 2010 at 4:41 pm

    Great tips. We need to quantify things and take them on in manageable chunks. Especially in sales.

    Another very basic idea when factoring in time is ‘goal periods’. Great for breaking down long days, and when thinking about all those calls and presentations starts to make your stomach turn at breakfast.

    x amount of calls per 2 hours, say. And the key bit–a reward at the end–food, a walk about, whatever. Relied on something similar to tackle 14 hour days for many years.

  4. Becky McCray says

    March 2, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    Erik, thanks! Rewards are key motivators.

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Shop Local

Buy local buttonReady to set up a shop local campaign in your small town? You'll need a guide who understands how we're different and what really works: Shop Local Campaigns for Small Towns.

Best of Small Biz Survival

What is holding us back? Why does every project take so long in small towns?

How any business can be part of downtown events by going mobile

Concert-goers talking and enjoying the evening in downtown Webster City, Iowa.

Why do people say there’s nothing to do here then not come to our concerts?

Retailers: Fill all empty space, floor to ceiling

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2021 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in