Friday, October 31, 2014

Can Boosting Response Rates Be This Simple?

When marketers think about successful 1:1 campaigns, they think about factors such as the creative, the offer, the mailing list, and the selection of 1:1 variables. But there is another, even simpler step that you can take to boost response rates.
Provide multiple response mechanisms. Yes, it’s that simple. Give people options. Not everyone wants to respond to your marketing campaign in the same way. One person might feel very comfortable responding by email. Another might prefer to respond by phone. Yet another might prefer to respond to a personalized URL.
Consider your audience. A twenty-something sipping coffee in Starbucks might not respond to a tear-out form, but she might be willing to pick up her phone (which is probably sitting right next to her coffee) and scan a QR Code, taking her to a mobile website. But if you’re marketing to retirees, you might want to include a tear-out form and an 800 number instead, even if you’re primarily hoping they’ll go to the Web.
Testing different response mechanisms is a great opportunity to learn about the different demographic groups in your database, too. One marketer got a surprise when it offered recipients the opportunity to respond to the survey using a personalized URL or by filling out a tear-out card. It thought tear-out cards had become outdated, but it found a surprisingly high percentage of the cards returned, many of them from older recipients who were not comfortable giving out certain information online.
So when you are planning your campaign, include detailed consideration of the response mechanisms you provide. Test different methods with different demographic groups. Once people respond, add this as a variable in your database and capitalize on this knowledge the next time around.

Need help? Give us a call!

Jeff Lampert
Director of Marketing & Business Development

Opportunities don't happen, you create them. 
~Chris Grosser

Friday, October 3, 2014

Using Google Analytics to Track Your Progress

If it was your New Year’s resolution to improve the effectiveness of your marketing, how do you determine if it’s working? Since one of the benefits of 1:1 print marketing is the ability to drive traffic to your website, one of the ways to determine success is to use Google Analytics and similar tools to monitor your Web activity.
Online analytics tools are about more than the number of visitors to your site. They can tell you where these visitors are coming from, how long they stay, which sites or search engines are driving the most traffic, and more.
In addition to basic site traffic, let’s look at some of the metrics Google Analytics offers.
  • Absolute unique visits. Number of individual visitors (as contrasted with people who might be visiting the site more than once).
  • Page views / average page views. When people come to your site, how many pages do they click on before they leave?
  • Time on site. Once people hit your site, how long do they stay? Are they taking the time to read the content? Or clicking out right away?
  • Traffic sources. Where are your visitors coming from? Are they typing in your URL directly? Coming from referring sites? Search engines? If the latter, which ones? What keywords are they using?
  • Page navigation. Did people land on each page directly? Or did they click through another page to get there? After viewing the content, did they click through to more pages? Or leave the site?
What can you learn from this type of information?
If you’re running a specific 1:1 printing campaign, for example, you can watch how effective it is for driving website traffic—how quickly traffic peaks and how high.
Once people land on your main URL, if they leave without clicking through to other pages, it might tell you that you need to improve the relevance of your index page or make the content more compelling.
If you know the keywords being used to drive the most traffic from search engines, you can use this information in your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts.
If you track which pages people are landing on or clicking through most often, you can add content or links to those pages to maximize your message.

You make a significant investment in 1:1 print marketing, so maximize every dollar you spend. Once you’ve driven people to your website, free metrics tools can help you sharpen your message and improve site relevance, navigation, and functionality. You will capture more site visitors, hold them, and ultimately drive more conversion to sales. 

Jeff Lampert
Director of Marketing & Business Development

Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game,
because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win.
Setting your own standards, and living up to them,
is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way
to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.
-Seth Godin