Whether you’re using a digital or traditional advertising strategy — or a strategy that combines both — tracking the success of your campaign can be tricky. It’s not enough to see an uptick in sales or foot traffic and assume it’s based on your most recent ad campaign. The increase you’re seeing may have less to do with your advertising and more to do with your competitors. It’s possible that a recent construction project, for example, has made it difficult for customers to get to a competitor’s store. Or it could be based on a change in the economy or consumer buying habits or even the weather.
That’s why setting goals and identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) before you design and launch your campaign is vital to being able to accurately track your success, whether it’s a digital or traditional marketing strategy.
Set Your Goals
If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your ad campaign, it will be difficult to measure how effective your campaign is. Is your goal to build brand awareness, increase sales, or boost customer loyalty? Maybe you have a different type of goal, such as making customers aware that your business has a new location or you’re looking to clear inventory ahead of a new season. No matter what your marketing goal is, start by assessing your current baseline, then set realistic objectives and determine how you will measure your success.
Identifying and Measuring KPIs
Decide how you will measure success before you design your campaign. Tracking visits to your website is a good way to assess the effectiveness of a brand awareness campaign. Determine your response rate by dividing the number of visits to a unique landing page or URL by the number of direct mail pieces you sent out. If your goal is to increase sales or grow your customer base, use your response rate to calculate your conversion rate (number of conversions divided by the number of responses). To track your overall return on investment (ROI), subtract the cost of the campaign from the revenue that can be attributed to it, then divide by the cost of the campaign.
4 Ways to Track the Success of Direct Mail
Once you’ve determined what your KPIs are, you can then decide on the best way for tracking the success of your direct mail campaign.
- Phone number: Set up a dedicated number linked to your direct mail campaign. This makes it easy to track which calls can be attributed to your campaign and precisely measure your response rate.
- Coupons: For a simple way to track conversion, ask customers to bring in your ad when they come to your store in order to receive a discount. You can also provide a unique coupon code that customers can use online.
- URL: Use a unique URL for your campaign. This will make it easy to measure how many visits to your website were triggered by your direct mail ad. If you’ve collected customer data, you can even provide each recipient with their own personalized URL – or PURL — that will take them to a landing page where they will find content tailored specifically for them.
- QR code: Another way to track response and conversion is by using a QR code that customers can scan with their smartphone to easily visit a landing page.
Launching a direct mail campaign requires a significant commitment of time and resources, so make sure you have a plan to track your success. Be clear on what you want to accomplish with your campaign and design your mailing around specific KPIs.