You’ve launched an awesome direct mail campaign, and now you’re getting responses. That’s great news! However, do you know how well your direct mail campaign is actually doing? The only way to know for sure is by measuring the campaign’s return-on-investment, AKA the direct mail ROI. Without evaluating the success of the campaign, you won’t really know how well your marketing investment did. Also, by keeping track of the direct mail campaign ROI, you can mimic successful campaigns in future direct mail campaigns or modify them to increase ROI.

It may seem confusing at first if you have never measured direct mail ROI, but it’s not as difficult as it may seem. Some of the things you might want to measure are:

– Gross response – The overall response rate
– Conversion rate – Campaign receivers who become customers
– Lead generation cost – The campaign cost divided by the number of inquiries you get
– Acquisition cost – Either measure the direct mail campaign cost divided by the number of customers you get or the number sales you make.

However, to follow through with any of these measurements, you need a way to collect data – data about how well each direct mail campaign is doing. Here are a couple of different ways you can measure and track direct mail ROI.

Coupon Codes

Create coupon codes to use for specific direct mail campaigns. If you sent out a campaign using a code to help track the results, you divide the number of sales made using the code by the total number of mailers to determine the rate. For example, if you sent out 1,000 mailers that generated 88 sales that used the coupon code, your direct mail ROI would be 8.8%. This is the same way you would calculate for the next three tracking strategies.

Personalized Landing Pages

Use a unique personalized URL, or PURL for short, to only promote to the audience receiving your direct mail campaign. This URL will redirect the audience to a specific landing page of your choice. PURLs can be designed so that every time someone goes on to the URL, you can track them. Tracking programs like Google Analytics enable you to see how customers are interacting with the personalized landing page. Or, you can create a PURL for each individual receiving the direct mail and track them specifically.

QR Codes

Marketers love QR codes, and direct mail is a great way to use them. All you have to do is create your own QR code using aQR code generator and then print the code on your direct mail pieces. QR codes work in a similar way as PURLs. However, they may be more convenient for the recipient since all they have to do is scan the code on their phones with their QR code reader app and they will be taken immediately to a designated page.

Phone Numbers

Phone call tracking is a great way to track inbound response rates. This technique is one of the most popular ways organizations measure their marketing efforts. You assign a specific phone number to a specific direct mail campaign, that way you can identify which leads are coming from which campaign (if you have multiple). Then you can compare how many calls come in against how many mailers went out.

It’s crucial to know how your direct mail ROI is doing. This way, you can modify marketing strategies to improve them for the future. With so many different marketing mediums that are available today, it is important to know how your various campaigns are performing and where you are finding the most success. There’s no point in utilizing different types of marketing like social media, email, and direct mail if you don’t know how they’re performing. Here’s a helpful tool by Brandwise to make calculating your direct mail ROI a bit easier.