The internet has certainly changed many aspects of our lives. We turn to it for entertainment, for news, to research products and vacations, and to get directions of all types. But perhaps the biggest change is the impact it\u2019s had on marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The internet brought the age of digital marketing with highly focused audiences and immediate responses that can be measured in real-time. But along with this comes information overload. The American Marketing Association figures the average American sees up to 10,000 ads on any given day! (source: AMA<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leverage print to break through the clutter.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To measure direct mail marketing performance you can use call tracking phone numbers specific to your campaign or use digital call-to-actions that can be measured using Google Analytics. For more technical details on using Google Analytics read my Measure to Improve Your Marketing Performance<\/a> article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are ways to track the marketing performance of direct mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are six ways you can measure direct mail and other print campaigns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Avoid using a homepage for the call-to-action of any printed piece. Using a campaign-specific landing page allows you to determine the response rate for your campaign and determine how visitors interact with your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use a landing page with an URL like www.yoursite.com\/winter-sale<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since prospects reading a printed piece need to type in the URL in their browser, the URL should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tip<\/strong>: To use a landing page to measure the direct mail campaign you need to be sure all the visits to the landing page come from the direct mail. You need to ensure the page does not appear in search results by adding a <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex”> tag in the header of the page and ensure the page is not in the website XML sitemap. This should be easy to do with your SEO plugin in a WordPress website, or in the configuration settings of your landing page platform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Using a campaign-specific landing page can be the easiest way to measure direct mail campaigns, but you need to be sure it is configured correctly so it only gets web page visits from the campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To your prospect, this looks the same as using a specific landing page. The difference is the easy-to-type friendly URL redirects to a URL that leverages Google Analytics to measure campaign effectiveness. You can answer questions like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This technique requires:<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example is to use a URL like modernostrategies.com\/measure-marketing<\/a> that your website redirects a browser to: <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.modernostrategies.com\/blog\/measure-improve-marketing-performance\/?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=MeasureDirectMail<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this example, the UTM parameters tell Google Analytics that in the campaign MeasureDirectMail<\/strong>, the source is a blog, the medium is a website<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some sample parameters you can use for your print campaigns:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tip<\/strong>: Using the optional utm_content<\/strong> parameter allows you to capture additional useful information. The parameter can be used for many things, including. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Create a different URL for each combination of parameters, such as: <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can use the alternate versions for different audience segments. Variable data printing technology is used to print the different versions of the URLs on the direct mail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can implement URL redirection using a plugin on a WordPress website, and there are other techniques are available for websites built on other platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Implementing UTM parameters can be confusing at first but it becomes second nature once you use them effectively. You are likely already using them if you use an email marketing platform or digital advertising. They can also help measure social media effectiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Using Google’s campaign URL builder<\/a> is an easy way to learn about and create a link with the UTM parameters. But you need to be precise and consistent with the terms you use. Simple changes like a misspelled term, inconsistent use of capitalizations, or adding a space or mixing hyphens and underscores, all ruin your data and make it difficult or impossible to measure direct mail and other marketing campaigns. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMeasure Direct Mail Response<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Campaign Specific Landing Pages<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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2. Redirect with UTM Parameters<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Medium (Marketing Channel)<\/strong><\/th> Source<\/strong><\/th> Content (optional)<\/strong><\/th><\/tr><\/thead> direct-mail<\/td> house-list<\/td> version-a<\/td><\/tr> product-brochure<\/td> purchased-list<\/td> version-b<\/td><\/tr> company-brochure<\/td> reverse-ip<\/td> url<\/td><\/tr> retail-graphics<\/td> <\/td> qr-code<\/td><\/tr> ooh<\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr> magazine-ad<\/td> <\/td> <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n \n
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