fbpx Skip to main content

If you read our last blog on “Direct Mail vs Email – which method is better for marketing?”, you might remember us briefly touching on tracking your direct mail campaign results.

Well today we’re going to dive deeper on this and tell you some simple ways you can measure the effectiveness of any print campaign.

 

Running a magazine, we’ve heard “we don’t want to invest in print advertising because we can’t track it,” more times than we can count. Print cannot give you the precise analytics that Google or Facebook can deliver, but that doesn’t mean it’s a medium that should be dismissed. Did you know that nearly half the population are kinaesthetic and tactile learners? This means that they learn through touch, and printed media is the only marketing that caters to this type of person. Now, how exactly can you measure it? Well, firstly we need to be mindful that there are two types of advertising – call to action and branding.

Call to action is measurable.

Branding is very hard to measure.

Call to action ads make us action something immediately (think a 50% off sale, this Saturday only).

Branding ads keep your brand top of mind (think of a McDonalds ad, it can’t necessarily be measured but whenever you drive past one of their stores, your brain will get a nice little reminder about your favourite item – look out drive though!)

Here are some simple ways to measure your print advertising, but always remember that the design of your ad, the offer and urgency you present, and the words you use will always impact the effectiveness of any marketing you do.

1. Unique URLs

It can be hard to differentiate which advertising streams your customers are visiting you from if your ad is running across multiple digital and traditional channels. Use unique URLs for each so you can determine how many people are coming in and where they’re coming from. (Remember to try and keep these as short and punchy as possible, and for your reference we recommend adding the campaign or brand name at the end of your website to easily keep track of which channel you advertised what through e.g. www.marketing2families.com.au/pakmag)

Alternatively, you can add a different contact email or phone number which will give you the same results without having to go through the trouble of setting up different URLs (which can be a bit tricky if you’ve never done it before).

2. Monitoring Web Traffic

This isn’t always a direct link to effectiveness, but keep an eye on your website traffic during your print advertising campaign. If you see a spike during this time and/or a drop off after it’s run, it’s likely you can attribute at least some of this additional traffic to your print ad.

3. Codes and promotions

The use of a special discount code, reward dollars or a promotional offer in print will allow you to track the amount of sales you received as a result. Plus, it’s a great way to entice your customers or potential customers to buy. Make it a really great offer though. How many gift vouchers have you received, that you haven’t used? How many great deals have come your way that you want to use, but don’t? Conversion is all that is being measured here, but how many people saw the offer is not.

4. Just ask!

A simple yet effective tactic is to just ask your customers where they came from.

You might add a quick question box at your checkout asking customers what led them to your site, where you would list all your advertising parameters (i.e. did you see our ad on Chanel 7, a bus, flyers or a certain publication?). Be specific as there are likely many places they have seen your advertising. This will lessen your feelings of “my advertising on this platform isn’t working – everyone says they’ve been recommended by a friend so why should I bother with any other marketing?!”.

The key to successfully measuring your print ads is to have this all set up prior to hitting start.  Remember though, all of your marketing efforts will work together. Did you know consumers need to see your brand over 20 times on average before they will do business with you?

They may have seen your ad on a road sign, in a printed publication, a flyer and then again on social media, but usually the friend that gives that last nudge to do business gets all the credit.

The key to a successful print campaign is consistency, clear messaging, great design, the right product and an incredible call to action that gets immediate results, or branding that builds trust and rapport.

If you’d like help executing a print campaign we’d be happy to help!

Contact us on (07) 4053 3331 or on sales@m2f.com.au.

Author Bree James

More posts by Bree James