What I want to go over with you today is “The Three T’s” of direct mail campaign effectiveness. They are:
1.) Test
2.) Track
3.) Tweak
TEST. With any direct mail campaign, you need to test it out. You guessed it...this is the type of test where you never score 100%. A passing grade is one where you did better than the last time you scored your campaign. Wanna know if your direct mail is working? Don’t guess…test it. CONSTANTLY and CONSISTENTLY. You never stop testing. Every mail piece, every marketing angle you use should be tested all the time.
TRACK. You’re undoubtedly familiar with A/B testing. You know to have a unique number, email or website so you’re not polluting your results. If they’re all headed to the same bucket, you have no idea. BUT, did you know you should test and track different response mechanisms as well? Some people prefer print, but prefer to respond online. WHY? They don’t want to hassle with talking to someone live. Others prefer a phone number they can call. So, how do you know which method would pull better in your market? Yup…by tracking the different methods over time. Get listing here.
TWEAK. Once you’ve tested for a satisfactory length of time and you have concrete results, then make a tweak…fix your campaign or your data to be more like the one with the better results. THEN? Start all over again. You do this long enough and you’ll be pulling better than 90% of your competitors. Why? Because they never learned this technique. Most of my clients over 20 years have never, ever done this effectively. (You didn't hear this from me...I will deny I ever said it!)
Here's some quick homework for you. Develop 3 Hypotheses for your marketing…3 things you want to either confirm or deny. Then practice the "three T's" to suss out the validity of your theories. Here are a few examples:
2.) A simple response link will pull better than a request to call a live person.
3.) This “call to action” will do better than that.
Did I say, you’ll never score 100%? Well…master the above technique and you’re on your way to acing this test anyway! Read other post here.