No More "Pay & Pray" Advertising!

Ok, boys and girls...quiz time!  If you went to Las Vegas and you kept throwing your money away playing craps or any other game, would you still keep playing?  Ok, so it is a ridiculously rhetorical question, but I'm going somewhere with this.

As a business owner, executive or entrepreneur how do you measure the effectiveness of your advertising?  Can you put an ROI on your advertising dollars?  If not, you are merely gambling!  You are involved in "pay & pray" advertising, where you pay and pray that people respond to your ad.

Loyalty programs are very popular and they offer companies the ability to track customers, eliminate "faceless customers" and understand the value each customer. Stop blowing your budget on untrackable campaigns and start mining the value of your existing customers.  

So, let me pose a question to all you business owners, execs & entrepreneurs - as recession fears loom, how will you use marketing & advertising to enhance your position in the marketplace???