Ways Of Tracking Success With Postcard Marketing Campaigns

Every business finds one or more methods to track its success. Most businesses do it using a 'macro' approach i.e. using a single number such as total revenue or net profits. Others look at the success of individual departments or lines of business and they look at increases or decreases in revenue, units, starts or however they choose to measure success.

There is one drawback to any of these approaches which is that just looking at numbers may not reveal one the most important things: Why?

Why are sales increasing in the company's western division but not in the South? Why are sales of videos increasing but DVDs decreasing? Why are store sales increasing in their clothing lines but decreasing in shoes?

And so understanding the answers to the Why Question is critical in tackling problems which threaten the business system-wide and also in introducing improvements which will enhance the business system-wide.

How do you get the answer to the Why Question? One answer is the lowly, humble post card. It's been around literally for centuries. Its demise has often been predicted but never actually witnessed. The post card is great for a number of uses:

The regular survey and the modern twist. You can create a customer satisfaction survey consisting of six questions and send it on a post card. Leave enough space for a comments section. This survey should be "event-driven" - meaning that you send it out with every sale or with every near-sale that doesn't go through. You can word your questions however you think best, but the bottom line goal is to find out the basis of customer behavior: why Choice A was made over Choice B.

The modern twist on this is to use a personalized URL in order to send the customer to your website, where a survey has been tailored just for her based on her experience.

There are two advantages to this latter approach. For one thing, you can increase the number of questions in your survey: not six questions, but sixteen. The second thing is that by bringing people to your website you give yourself an opportunity to introduce them to new products, services and pricing plans.

A second vital use of post cards is by the implementation of variability in your materials. Let's say you want to see which products people respond to best.

You can send out six thousand post cards

one thousand post cards emphasizing Product A at Price Point 1
one thousand post cards emphasizing Product B at Price Point 2
one thousand post cards emphasizing Product C at Price Point 3
one thousand post cards emphasizing Product A at Price Point 4
one thousand post cards emphasizing Product B at Price Point 5
one thousand post cards emphasizing Product C at Price Point 6

The response you get back will tell you interesting things. You may find that Product C at Price Point 6 is going to outsell the same product at Price Point 5 by a factor of three to one, but that Product B at Price Point 2 outsells every other product on your shelf by a factor of ten to one.

Understanding how customers respond to various offers at various price points will give you a wealth of information about how you should be marketing your goods and services. And all from a humble post card. Who knew?

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The author, who is associated with Conquest Graphics, is a nationally recognized expert on all aspects of printing, print marketing, the internet and social media. Contact Conquest today for a discussion on putting together a post card program which will help you track your success. http://www.conquestgraphics.com/Products/Postcard-Printing-And-Mailing-Printing-Services

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