Tracking calls from a word number

One number for each campaign

The simplest tracking is a separate number for each campaign. If the firm's billboards show one word number and its radio spots another, every call to each one came from that campaign. The phone system's call log is the report.

A firm that runs several practice areas can give each area its own word: CRASH for an injury campaign, DUI for a defense campaign, WILLS for an estate planning seminar.

Words for each practice area

Ask where they heard it

Intake staff can ask every new caller how they found the firm and note the answer. Callers often remember the word even when they don't remember where they saw it, and the word points to the campaign.

Call tracking services

Call tracking services count calls by giving each ad its own forwarding number. If the firm uses one, the word number itself should be the one in the ad, ringing through the tracking service, so callers still see and remember the word.

Reading the results

Compare campaigns over the same stretch of time, and count calls that became clients as well as calls. A billboard may bring fewer calls than a radio spot but more of the cases the firm wants. Give a new number time to be learned before judging it: people often remember an ad weeks after they first see it.