When you invest in any marketing effort, you want to know if it’s working.
There are many approaches to results measurement, and the right choice for any marketing campaign will depend on your marketing goals. For numerous marketers, response rates are the first measurement they use. But there are other measures that are more telling.
Let’s look at three of them.
1. CPL (cost per lead). When you are developing a mail campaign, it’s easy to focus on the price per piece. It’s hard for personalized mailers to compete with high-volume static mail on a cost basis, but everything changes when you look at what your program costs per lead.
If you mail 100,000 postcards at $.25 each (including postage), that’s a project cost of $25,000. If that campaign achieves a 1% response rate, that’s 250 leads at the cost of $100 per lead. On the other hand, if you mail 25,000 personalized mailers at $1.00 each, that is still a project cost of $25,000. However, if you achieve a 12% response rate, that’s 3,000 leads. Now your cost per lead drops to $8.33!
2. CPS (cost per sale). Not all leads translate into sales. To find out what it costs you to actually close a sale, divide the number of people who make a purchase into your total costs. If only 33% of respondents to the above campaign make a purchase, for example, your cost per sale is $300 for the static campaign, while for the personalized campaign, it is $25.00.
3. LCV (lifetime customer value). The value of the sale often goes beyond the initial purchase. If personalized communications woo the buyer of one automaker to another, and if that customer becomes loyal to that brand, the return on investment from that mailing piece includes the value of every car purchased by that customer over his or her lifetime. This is an important metric for marketers of long-term purchases, such as automobiles, financial products, and insurance.
The bottom line? Before you measure your results in any print campaign, make sure you understand all of the available measuring sticks, then use the one(s) that are the most meaningful to you.
About BFC
BFC is a single source provider of variable data and offset printing, complex fulfillment, pick and pack services, and technology solutions to automate and create efficiencies relating to print and electronic communications. With more than 40 years of industry experience, we’ve built a reputation as experts in our industry and a valued resource for our clients. We have created long-lasting relationships and mutually rewarding partnerships.
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