If I had a dime for every small business owner I’ve seen try direct mail, only to quickly throw up their hands and declare that it didn’t work, I’d have a mountain of dimes. I’m guessing that you would, too.
The worst part? For some of those folks, their direct mail marketing actually did bring more leads (even revenue) into their business! They just didn’t know it.
Why, you may ask? Because they didn’t systematically track their campaign. When marketers track their results, they can see it working. Seeing is believing!
Tracking turns direct mail doubters into direct mail devotees — in other words, it turns them into reordering and referring customers!
Now the question is: How can you help your clients track their results?
From super low-tech tools to fully automated systems, let’s talk about some of the tracking options that will help your clients see for themselves how effective we know direct mail can be!
Provide unique marketing codes for each campaign
Promo or discount codes are an easy, time-tested way for businesses to monitor their marketing efforts. It’s as simple as adding a code to the design — but they’re not perfect.
Your clients need to remember to ask their customers for the code, and their customers have to remember to share it. This leaves a lot of room for human error, the result of which can be inaccurate data. As we all know, bad data can do more harm than good.
If your client thinks their mail piece isn’t pulling (when it actually is) and they stop their campaign, they lose customers — and potentially, so do you.
Create coordinating landing pages for every mailing
Custom landing pages not only help your clients track leads and web traffic generated by their direct mail, they also can help them convert more of them into sales!
A landing page designed to follow a specific mail piece tells visitors they’re in the right place and gives them more information about the topic they’re interested in.
We always recommend businesses include the URL for a dedicated landing page on their marketing materials. By sending prospects to the homepage, they force them to dig around for what they’re looking for — a major roadblock to sales.
Once a landing page is set up, your clients can see how many people are being driven there using the free web analytics service Google Analytics.
The downside? Depending on how many different campaigns your clients run, they could potentially be building dozens of separate landing pages.
Add Google follow-up ads to their direct mail piece
Google follow-up ads (also called remarketing or retargeting) offer two benefits — tracking and enhanced lead generation.
More than 95% of prospects interested in your clients’ products and services will visit their website before calling or visiting. If those visitors leave without taking your client’s desired action (buying, filling out a form, etc.), your client’s banner ad FOLLOWS them around the internet, across millions of sites in the Google network.
These online ads remind your client’s prospects of their interest and direct them to go back to the website — and, according to cmo.com, they can boost response by up to 400%!
Not only will your client get more leads (an obvious sign their marketing is working!), but Google will show them exactly how many people went to their website and are now seeing their online ads.
Include a call tracking number on every piece
Call tracking shows your clients a number of things:
· How many calls a campaign generates
· What number is calling them
· What time of day they receive the most calls
· The duration of those calls
· How their receptionist and salespeople handle those calls
Your client’s call tracking number can be local or toll-free, and it rings directly into their business — but it gets tracked and recorded!
One of our clients started offering call tracking and Google follow-up ads to their customers and they saw a 70% uptick in reorders within the first 12 months!
Joy Gendusa is the Founder and CEO of DirectMail2.0, a fully integrated marketing solution for the clients of printers/mailers that combines the proven success of direct mail with in-demand features like online advertising and automated campaign tracking. You can schedule a free demo to see how a partnership with DirectMail2.0 can boost revenue and improve your clients’ response and ROI. Visit www.directmail2point0.com or call 800.956.4129 today!
