As a pawn broker, you know better than anyone that time is money. You may have a dedicated budget for marketing. Or you may have a website that was created two or three years ago that hasn’t been updated since it was uploaded to the web. Perhaps your niece posts something to Facebook a few times a year for you. No matter how little or how much effort you put into marketing your shop, you probably would like to know how that effort is affecting your business.
In PawnMaster, there are a couple of reports you can use to measure your marketing success. But if you aren’t capturing the data, you can’t quantify it. It is imperative that you and everyone who works at the counter, ask the customers, “How did you learn about the shop?”
Now track every response. If several people say, “I drive by and see your sign every day” you will know your signage is working. If they say, “I googled pawn shops near me.” you will want to make sure your Google directory has the most current information. This is free to do. Here are some other ideas for marketing your business for free. Record every response on the customer screen in the additional info tab.
Add every response your customers provide as a referral type under Admin, Store Setup, Customer Characteristics. Once you add all the responses you are hearing and begin easily tracking those responses.
Some of the best marketing reports are all in the Customer category. If you want a list of every customer who said they saw your Facebook page, run Customer Report #3, Referred. If you want only those customers who mentioned Facebook this month, run Customer Report #8, Referral Report. The most exciting report is Customer Report #20, Summary Referral Report. With this report, we can see what types of transactions are being driven by each referral type.
When you are spending time, money, or both on marketing your business, you need to know that your efforts paying off and not being wasted. You will be able to determine where to spend more or less time/money as you gain more information.
Believe it or not, the US government wants to help you to be successful too. The link bellow is for the Small Business Administration’s training website. The courses provided here are paid for by your tax dollars. Why not take advantage of what you already paid for? There are even courses on Market Research and Understanding Your Customers.
https://www.sba.gov/tools/sba-learning-center/search/training
