Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Take These Three Steps Before Executing a Direct Mail Campaign


Direct mail campaigns can be costly for businesses, especially if companies fail to create a strategy for executing their direct mail campaigns. Fortunately, there are several things Twin Cities companies can do to decrease costs and increase the effectiveness of their direct mail campaigns.

First Step: Manage Your List

A company’s list of advertising recipients is essential to the success of a direct mail campaign. A well-maintained list will include only recipients who are interested in the company’s product and are able to convert from potential to paying customers. Recipients who may have moved and are no longer at the address listed on a company’s list, or a recipient may have requested to not receive mail from the company should be removed from the list.

To weed out recipients who do not meet these criteria, companies should delete the following types of people from their lists:

· People for whom companies receive “return to sender” mail

· People for whom companies receive “not at this address” mail

· People for whom companies receive stop mail requests

Second Step: Test the Direct Mail Campaign

Testing a direct mail campaign allows companies to tweak their messages so the mail pieces target recipients more effectively. There are several ways to test a direct mail campaign. The simplest is to show mock-ups of a direct mail piece to current and potential customers and ask them to evaluate the message and calls-to-action. Positive responses can give companies the confidence they need to go to press with the campaign.

Other ways to test a direct mail campaign is to send pieces to a small, pre-selected target market and tract responses, or send multiple versions of a campaign to recipients and see which one has the most positive outcome. Companies can use this data to tweak its message and roll out the campaign on a larger scale.

Third Step: Print Direct Mail Digitally

Whether companies are implementing a full direct mail campaign or are testing a campaign on a small audience, digital printing with Matreks is an economical way to print high-quality mail pieces. In digital printing, each piece is an original copy of a digital file. This means companies can change the lay-out or message of their direct mail piece mid-run or print several different versions of a direct mail piece in one run. Digital printing is cost-effective for short and long-run projects alike.

To learn more about how digital printing can lower costs of your company’s direct mail campaign, contact Matreks today at 952-746-4010.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Is It Possible to Track ROI with Print Marketing? Yes!

One of the challenges Twin Cities companies face when developing print marketing campaigns is how to track their return-on-investment, or ROI. While online marketing campaigns are easily tracked with Google tools such as AdWords and Google Analytics, evaluating ROI for print marketing campaigns can seem tricky.

However, there are few simple steps companies can take to help them determine whether or not their print marketing campaigns are paying off or need to be modified to increase sales conversions.

Four Easy Ways to Track ROI in Print Mail Campaigns

1. Include a mail-in feedback form. Feedback forms are easy additions to print marketing projects. They can be included in the envelopes of prospecting letters or attached with a perforated edge to a single-page mailing like a postcard. Feedback forms should be effortless for recipients to complete and easy to send back to companies.

2. Include a QR code on print marketing materials. Companies that wish to integrate their print marketing with their online marketing campaigns should seriously consider adding QR codes to their print marketing pieces. A QR code is a small, square graphic that looks like a barcode. Smartphone users can scan the code, which opens a website in their phone’s browser. Companies can have the QR code lead to a promotion, a list of services, or other part of their website and track how much traffic is coming to these pages from the QR code scans.

3. Use mailings to promote a specific product or offer. Companies can also evaluate ROI by creating a marketing campaign that targets a specific product or promotes a unique special offer. Companies can use this information to track how many recipients become customers.

4. Track print marketing recipients online. It is increasingly common for companies to integrate their print and online marketing campaigns. Including special offer codes or URLs on print marketing pieces allows companies to use web analytics tools to track print marketing success. For example, companies may include a discount code such as PRINT10 on a print marketing piece. When customers enter this code during a purchase, the company is able to track how many sales are produced by their print marketing campaign.

Digital printing with Matreks is a great tool for companies who want to track their ROI on print marketing campaigns. The digital printing process allows companies to change the content of their print marketing pieces quickly and effortlessly, even in the middle of a print run. Companies may also use digital printing to test a print campaign, since digital printing is a cost-effective choice for short-run print projects.

To learn more about how to track the ROI on print marketing campaigns, contact Matreks today at 952-746-4010.