Tracking Your Direct Marketing Campaign

Improving future campaigns depend on tracking this one

If you run really fast you’ll end up out of breath, but that’s all you’ll know. You won’t know how fast you ran. You certainly won’t know if you ran faster than you did the last time. You won’t know whether your new running shoes positively impacted your performance. To know those things you’d have to time or “track” yourself.

It’s the same with your direct marketing. You must track your response rate and sales against the cost of the mailing. Once you do that, you’ll begin to see what works best for you: what audience, what offer, what timeframe, and more. Then you can tweak future campaigns for even more success and profitability!

The method you choose for tracking is up to you—it doesn’t have to be complicated, but for the good of your marketing campaign it has to be done. Maybe business has been abnormally good for the last month. Yes, it could be because of your recent direct mail campaign but how can you be sure?  Having a concrete method of tracking your direct mail campaign’s success is key.  

Try some of these simple but certain techniques to track your next campaign’s success.

• Direct targets to a landing page – Directing your targets to a landing page rather than just your homepage will allow you to differentiate regular web traffic from your mail respondents.
• Provide self-addressed envelopes – Requiring a response through a self-addressed envelope is a definite way to track success.

• Create a toll-free telephone number – Creating a toll-free number or e-mail address will help you track your success.

• Bring in the mail piece – This is one of the most sure-fire ways to track your success. Requiring your recipients to bring the mail piece to your business location will certainly give you a concrete measure of success.

• Incorporate tracking codes – Linking a coupon or offer that requires the use of a tracking code will guarantee your ability to track your campaign’s success.