How to Track Your Direct Mail Results

Every marketing dollar that a company spends should not be spent without careful planning and analysis. Before, during and after the run of a direct mail campaign, you should take the time to analyze how well it has performed. If you do not calculate the mailings results, you won’t know if your money was well spent. Marketing analysis will also give you more information about how and where to spend your precious futuremarketing dollars.

If you are consulting with a direct mail company, some of the work may be done for you. Many companies offer analytic services to help you determine the ROI for your campaign. Even if they don’t they can give you the primary data you will need like the number of households that were reached with your direct mail advertising.

When running your analytics, remember that sales figures may be critical but they do not tell the entire story. Exposure and awareness can be just as important and there are few ways to measure these aspects of a campaign. In fact, some very successful campaigns are built solely around awareness.

Break-Even Point

As part of your initial planning, you should establish you break-even point. This is where the amount of money you have spent on the campaign is balanced by the sales it generated. Don’t forget to include the cost of creation, production, postage and any labor incurred by yourself or your staff.

Consider your Goals

Decide what the goal of your campaign should be and what you will consider a success. Response rates for different industries will vary. Don’t hang your hopes on an unrealistic number and expect an unlikely sales boom.

Depending on what field your company is in and the response you are expecting, you can anticipate a response rate between 2% and 5% or a bit more, according to www.directmag.com. It may not sound like much on the surface, but it is a significant increase in business for a fairly budget-friendly cost.

Your goal may be a response, not a sale. Your marketing flyers may include a call to action that isn’t a purchase. You might want them to “like” your company on Facebook, visit your website or call your office. All of these would count towards a successful rate of response.

Track Responses

If you are mailing multiple direct mail pieces, set up a spreadsheet to monitor the response to each one. You might consider putting a different call to action on each one so you can easily tell what customer came from which mailer. Keep track of critical information like what list was used on the mailing, where the flyers were sent, how long they took to be delivered and so forth.

Be diligent in tracking your ROI. The success of your future direct mail advertising may depend on the information you mine from your current campaign.