Churchill once said “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”, but with direct mail we are often plagued with the problem of accurately tracking our results. Now don’t get me wrong, we have it much easier than the folks in advertising but it can still be difficult to determine the cumulative effect of a mailing.
That’s why, when designing a direct mail piece, one of the most important things to keep in mind is tracking. How do you know if you’re doing well without feedback? You design something beautiful, you target it to customers you think will be truly interested, and then you wonder, did they like it? Did they hate it? Just tell me something!
Luckily there are plenty of ways to get the feedback you need to help justify the cost and effort.
Consultation / Quote – This one is basic, encouraging the customer to contact you is always a great idea. It’s also important to give the customer options: some prefer to call, some prefer to email, and others prefer you to call them. Try to accommodate them all, within reason.
Direct Order / Donations – Clearly the easiest way to get direct and immediate results, and when combined with your average customer life time value (LTV) calculations, this can help you make a strong case for the value of your efforts.
Contests and Coupons – People love “free” stuff and discounts. Fortunately for you, this can be a great way to measure results from signups and coupon redemptions. This works particularly well for non-personalized direct mail where you may not have the customer’s full information and would like to collect it. That’s why “free” is in quotes, like that “free lunch”.
Online Signups / PURL (Personalized URL) – Driving customers online can be a great opportunity to offer detailed information that is specific to them. Utilizing a mix of direct mail and online can really let you communicate to customers in much more personalized ways, all the while gathering valuable tracking information.
Customer Matching – The basic idea here is that you match your recent customer purchases vs. customers targeted by your direct mail. Those customers that emerge may have been influenced by your direct mail. A bit vague I know, but you can still make a case using it (if you forget about correlation and causation). This can be used to support other results you have collected and can help to quantify awareness created from your mailings.
There are many other ways to track your mailings, but this should cover the basics. The next time you design a mailing keep tracking in mind from the start. Nothing feels better than the pat on the back you get from a strong response rate.
