I received a call one day from a prospect that began, “My Website isn’t working. I’m not getting any calls from it.”

After talking with him for a few minutes, I learned that he really didn’t know if his Website was working or not because he wasn’t keeping track of how prospective clients found him.

Keeping track of inquiries is important for two reasons: One, it lets you see if your various marketing tactics are working and two, it eliminates guesswork.

For example, I learned long ago that writing articles for print publications didn’t get the results I wanted – newsletter subscribers. However, when I wrote an article for an online publication, I would see 10 – 50 new subscribers within 24 hours. I stopped writing for print publications.

Tracking how prospects find you isn’t difficult. Two of the most simple ways include:

1. Adding a “how did you find us?” field on all contact forms

I have used this field on my newsletter subscription form for nine years now. I can tell you how many subscribers come from blogs, referrals, other Websites, articles I’ve written, online search, e-books that other people sell, etc.

I use Constant Contact, so adding this field was pretty easy. If you use a different email service provider, ask if you can add the field to your subscription form. Most companies can handle this request. If you have an inquiry form on your Website, include this field on it as well.

For both your newsletter subscription form and the Website contact form, you’ll want to make the “how did you hear about us?” field “mandatory,” meaning the person has to fill out the field before submitting the form.

2. Asking all new callers how they found you

Whenever a potential client calls, I immediately pull out my Prospect Questionnaire Worksheet, which includes space for the person’s contact details as well as the most important question, “How did you hear about me?”

You can also have a piece of paper sitting by the phone with categories, such as “Web,” “Speaking,” Referral,” and “Articles,” typed on it and then make little hash marks next to each category. I recommend you start with a fresh clean form every month.

If you can, collect as much detail as possible from the prospect – i.e. who referred you? Which search phrase did you use when searching Google? Which article did you read?

The various ways people find you is sometimes amusing. I once had a prospect call and say, “I found you in the dictionary.” “What?!” I replied in disbelief. I mean, I’m good, but not that good!

After some questioning, I realized he had found me in an online dictionary that linked to a Visual Thesaurus article I had written.

The most important thing to keep in mind about tracking your prospects is to develop a system. Simply writing notes on scraps of paper or in your notebook won’t work.

Whether you use a sheet of paper or a form the way I do, file the information in a safe place and then every six months go through your forms and analyze the information.

Armed with this info, you’ll then know exactly what’s working and what’s not with regard to your marketing – allowing you to make changes based on data, not guesswork.