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I used to work for a company that did the majority of its advertising through direct mail. We extensively tracked our direct mail campaigns to determine their success. We repeated the ones that were successful and dropped the ones that were not. I learned a lot about how to measure the impact of direct mail campaigns from that experience.

The most important thing to do when running a direct mail campaign is to include a tracking mechanism by which you can determine which piece of mail elicited a response. When running a direct mail campaign, it is common to mail materials to the same people or businesses on several different occasions. It is important to know which particular brochure or packet of information motivated the customer to act. The most common way that businesses do this is to include a coupon or a discount code.

Customers obviously like discounts, and sometimes will not try a new product or service without this incentive. These coupons are just as valuable to the organization that is advertising. When the customer presents the coupon or gives the discount code over the phone, this information can be traced back to the mailing that contained that code. For this reason, it is important that each coupon or discount code be unique to that mailing.

The company I used to work for tried several types of discounts. Sometimes they would offer dollars off discounts. Other times, they would offer two or three months free service when someone signed up for a year's worth. They occasionally included a free gift with purchase. The marketing department tracked the effectiveness of each campaign to determine which types of discounts yielded the highest sales. The accounting department also tracked the marketing costs, which included the costs of printing and mailing the advertising materials, to determine if big sales translated to big profits. After all, high revenues are no good if they are eaten up by advertising and discounts. We sometimes found that an inexpensive postcard was just as effective as an expensive multi-page advertising booklet.

Another way to determine the effectiveness of a direct mail campaign is to simply ask the customers. When ordering something over the phone, a common question from the customer service representative or salesperson is, "How did you hear about us?" This question also frequently appears in on-line order forms. The answer may help determine whether direct mail is a good form of advertising for the company, or if marketing dollars are better spent on other marketing efforts.

It is a good idea to space out mailings over several weeks or months. That way, the company can monitor any spike in sales that may occur immediately after a mailing. This is especially important if the difference between the mailings is purely cosmetic, such as using a different catalog cover, or sending a postcard vs. a brochure.

It is also important to consider the demographics of the people receiving the mailing so that they can better tailor their future mailing lists. If a company has more success in a certain zip code or with people of a certain age, then the company might want to focus its direct mail marketing efforts on that group. The advertiser can also use this demographic information to tailor direct mail campaigns to different groups of customers.

I am grateful for the knowledge of direct mail marketing campaigns that I have gained. It has made me a savvier businessperson and customer. With a few simple techniques, any organization can effectively measure the impact of its direct mail campaigns.

Learn more about this author, Chloe Jones.
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