How to tell whether any of it is working

Ask most owners which of their marketing works and you get a theory. The reason is not carelessness — it is that nothing in the ordinary running of a business connects an effort to a result.

The one question

Ask every new customer how they found you. Write down the answer. Do it for three months without changing anything else. It is unscientific, it undercounts, and it is still better than everything most businesses have.

• It costs nothing and needs no software.
• It catches the channels analytics cannot see — word of mouth, a van, a sign.
• It surfaces the mismatch between where you spend and where customers come from.

What to do with the answer

Usually the finding is that one or two things produce almost everything, and several things you have been paying for produce nothing you can name. Stop those before adding anything new.

Before spending on more marketing, find out which of the marketing you already do is responsible for the customers you already have.

Three months is enough to act on. Waiting for certainty means never deciding.