Call Tracking 101

Everest Direct Mail serves small, medium and large businesses with direct mail marketing, postcard printing and mailing as well as thousands of other services such as producing handwritten yellow letters for real estate investors, transactional mail, unique postcards and amazing mailing li

So ... you sent out an introductory postcard to a mailing list that you have been developing for months. Then, three weeks later, you send out another postcard that you have changed up a bit from the original and you send it to the same mailing list. Three weeks after that, you send out a brochure to the same mailing list with a little more information about the subject in it than the first two postcards. And, four weeks after that, you send an oversized postcard announcing a large sale, again to the same mailing list. You are in full swing with a well timed Direct Mail campaign and the phone calls should be coming in! Direct mail campaigns are a powerful marketing tactic and have been one for nearly a century. It is a low cost way of getting a response from potential customers.

But, just like your campaign, how do companies measure whether their direct mail marketing efforts are successful? How do you know which of those postcards or that flyer or the brochure got the most responses? Was it the artwork? The message? The mailing list? The sale? What element made people pick up the phone and give your company a call? It used to be a hit or miss proposition on guessing which part of a direct mail campaign worked. It was impossible to know for certain which leads resulted from which efforts. But, finally, with the dawning of the internet and websites and social media, and modern technology, companies started setting up campaign specific URLs or included promotional codes on the mailing piece to track conversions on direct mailing processes. The latest method of tracking, Call Tracking, now makes it easier to follow how the mailing endeavors actually influence income and it is done over the phone. It is called Call Tracking and Conversation Analytics and it should be a part of the overall process. The following is a list of how you can use Call Tracking to measure your Direct Mail returns!

First, use a unique phone number for each mailing piece in a campaign so you know how many calls come in from that one particular piece. There are tools available to develop these phone numbers such as CNET, NationBuilder and iTunes and RingDNA. The number will be associated with that particular direct mailing campaign. Use this call tracking number on all of the printed pieces you send out. When people start calling in on that number, you will know exactly how and why they are responding. When you start looking at the call in numbers and compare the totals to the totals of the next mailing, you will see which ones get the best response. You can also compare these numbers from one entire direct mail campaign to the next. With call tracking, you can find out success rates by simply assigning different phone numbers for each piece of mail you want to track. Call tracking can help your marketing strategies deliver the most effective messages and invest in these particular messages again and again.

Many of these phone number systems allows the call to auto route to phone representatives that are trained to sell the products or services featured in your direct mailing campaign. If you are sending out a catalog, this can be a very useful feature. Depending on the amount of products or services that you are using in a campaign, you can assign separate call tracking numbers for each type of these products or services so your representatives can instantly see the type of products and services that a customer is interested in purchasing and have all of the right answers essentially becoming specialists on those products or services.

A call tracking method allows you to understand your business sales cycle and the slow down points your customers may experience at every phase. The phone calls that come in during a campaign should be scored for such things as customer service, customer negatives, compliments, and number of competitor mentions. This helps you manage your customer service and raises the brand loyalty. Having the ability to respond to dissatisfied customers quickly can prevent a customer going to the competition and will show the customer that you care and value their business. You will be proactive in reaching out to customers and increase your chances of getting more sales.  

Response data that you are able to accumulate by phone call tracking can give you details on what geographical areas and demographics responded the best to your campaign. The reports should be viewed at the same time as other sales and website related data. This gives you the opportunity to develop customer profiles and pinpoint which personal details produce the most profitable type of customer. Once you identify a few characteristics, you can then use this knowledge to create effective messaging. You can figure out which details such as certain types of images and art, what colors, certain kinds of ad text and fonts, and which calls to actions that are better suited for each particular audience. These details, put together correctly, should increase the likelihood of your brand getting noticed. This also allows you to stop marketing to an audience that will not respond, therefore, wasting your money. You only want to get to the type of prospect that will purchase your offer and spend money with your business over and over again.

At Everest Direct Mail Marketing, we value your time and business, and we’re here to ensure your mail campaigns with us are a victory as reflected in your growing client base and bank account. Not only do we produce and send out your mail, but our dedicated account managers also help you track your success. We do this by modifying your lists and updating them based on call tracking, which in turn helps you track the return on your investment. We’ll help you clean your lists for people who have already called and you’ve done business with or those who have requested to not be contacted again. We can also help you track how many people called based on which campaign you do, helping you determine what works best for your direct mail marketing method and where you made the most money. Let us help you succeed by carefully and meticulously monitoring your return!


Everest DMM

1 وبلاگ نوشته ها

نظرات