Marketing Effectiveness for Bail Professionals

• October 02, 2009
• by Collateral Staff
• Marketing

What is Marketing Effectiveness?

There are a number of ways to market your bail bond business. Options include phone books, outdoor advertising (billboards, etc.), and of course, the Internet. As you spend more and more on marketing your business, it is of utmost importance to know which advertising initiatives are having positive results and which are not. Tracking the results of your marketing efforts is known as "Marketing Effectiveness".

Outlined below are a number of marketing effectiveness components for bail professionals.

Don't Miss a Call

A bail bond professional's lifeline to new customers is the telephone. A missed call is a missed opportunity. Regardless of how much you market your company, if you don't answer your calls it is unlikely the full value of your advertising will be realized.

Missing a phone call can mean missing out on a large bond, or losing a potential client. In many cases, people don't have time to wait for you to call them back. If you don't pick up your phone it is likely that they will not leave a message and will contact another bail agent.

Most bail agencies are small businesses, making it impossible to be in the office to answer phones at all times. While you may not be in the office, you should have calls forwarded to your cell phone and get call waiting.

"It always surprises me when I call bail bond agents and get a busy signal," said Terrence Joyce of AboutBail.com. "Not having call waiting can mean missed business opportunities."

When answering the phone, remember to be professional and courteous. Most bail agents answer their phones "Bail Bonds!" The person on the other end of the phone often is nervous and scared, which means politeness will go a long way.

Track your Calls

The bail industry is highly competitive. You have to spend a lot of marketing dollars to promote your business, which means you want to know where your money can be best spent. Tracking where your customers find you is vital to your marketing effectiveness. The calls come in, but where are they coming from? Tracking your calls determines what is working and what is not and the only way to get this information is by asking.

This sounds easy, but getting accurate information can be much more difficult than it sounds.
With traditional marketing such as the phone book, tracking the response is easy. When a customer is staring at your ad on paper they know where they found it. Online, it isn't as simple.

The nature of the Internet can make it difficult to track your online marketing. Customers do not always remember the path they took to find your phone number. They may have visited five or six sites before actually finding your contact information. When you ask, they may say, "I found you on Google" or, "I found your website." Does that mean they did a search for "maricopa bail bond agents" and found your website in the search results? Or, did they find a site where you advertise?

You may not even have a website, which means they found your information elsewhere, but where exactly?

"If you can accurately assess where your customers are finding you 50 percent of the time or more, we feel you are doing a good job," states Joyce.

Asking the Question "How did you find me?"

A customer calling for a bail agent may be in a frantic state of mind; they may not know where they found you. Therefore, some are hesitant to ask.

However, it can be fairly easy to present this topic in a way that won't annoy or put off your client. For example:

"Thank you for your business. We are marketing our business in a number of ways. Would you mind telling me how you found us today?"

Some people will know exactly how they found you and will be quick to respond. If they are not exactly sure where they found you, it's probably best not to probe too much. Asking them for more details could be frustrating.

Training your Staff

Many of you are fortunate to have hard-working and dedicated front office staff that is the lifeline of your business. They are the people answering your phones and interacting with your clients. As you spend more to generate new business, you must educate them on the importance of tracking your marketing results.

Having a place where they can aggregate this data, such as a spreadsheet or call sheet, is a good way to achieve this. In addition, having a sheet in front of you will serve as a reminder to ask your customers where they found you.