While a strong marketing campaign plays a significant part in boosting leads and sales, increasing brand awareness, and growing your customer base, how can you really know when it’s successful? Put simply, you have to measure its effectiveness. While digital marketing tactics such as email marketing and social media advertising come with easily tracked metrics, you can use to measure performance. However, the same is not always true for print marketing campaigns. So what can you do?
Today, Davant Indy will be discussing how you can measure print marketing effectiveness in order to increase your print marketing ROI. As with any form of marketing, you don’t want to invest money in a large print advertising campaign without expecting an adequate return for your efforts. In this article, we’ll walk you through how to measure print marketing campaign effectiveness so that you’re getting the most for your money and time.
Tips for Measuring Effectiveness
Setting Your Marketing Goals
Here is something you need to know upfront: you can’t possibly track the effectiveness of your print marketing campaign if you don’t have some idea of what “success” looks like. To measure effectiveness, you need to set a measurable goal for each print marketing campaign. What that goal is can vary widely, depending on the intention of your campaign.
For businesses who are just starting out, for example, a measurable goal for a print marketing campaign may be to boost brand awareness above all else. At the same time, a business that has been operating for longer may set a goal to maximize the retention of its current customers. Each of these goals will require a different strategy and overall approach when designing and sending out print marketing material. Set your marketing goals and use them to inform your decisions as you create, send, and measure the effectiveness of your print marketing efforts.
Identify the Marketing Tactics Most Likely to Be Successful
Once you’ve determined a measurable goal you’d like to meet with your print marketing campaign, you need to choose the type of print marketing most likely to achieve that result. If you choose print marketing strategies optimized to meet the individual goal you have set, you’re likely to see a greater print marketing ROI.
As an example, postcards tend to be a highly effective method of print marketing when it comes to increasing brand awareness. Promotional materials such as magnets, on the other hand, increase customer loyalty and maximize retention. Finally, brochures tend to be the best choice for businesses that want to build credibility in their communities. While finding the right tactic for your specific goals doesn’t necessarily guarantee success, it does maximize the overall potential impact of your efforts.
Monitor Web Traffic Once a Campaign is Sent Out
While monitoring web analytics once a print marketing campaign has been disbursed isn’t an exact measure of that campaign’s success, a sudden spike in traffic could be indicative of its effectiveness. If you send out print marketing material that directs to the same landing page of your site that you’re using for digital marketing efforts, you will have less clear results, however.
The best way to use web traffic analytics to measure print marketing effectiveness is to direct traffic from the campaign to a specific page via a vanity URL. This URL doesn’t have to link to an entirely new site, just a landing page that directs users to your website. The URL can include your business name using an easy-to-remember phrase. When you set up this landing page with Google Analytics, a tag for a source like direct mail will track all traffic from your print marketing campaign so that you can measure effectiveness more easily.
Use a Unique Tracking Code
Unique tracking codes can be used in print marketing materials as a marker of how many leads or sales you received from that material. While this number won’t be indicative of how many offline impressions your advertisement received, unique tracking codes can be used in A/B testing your promotional offers over time, as well as allowing you to measure which customer segments most often respond to your offers.
Implement QR Codes
QR codes are effective in their ability to track print marketing reach. There are many unique ways of using QR codes in your print marketing materials, but the most impactful use is leading customers directly to the landing page of your website. These unique landing pages with UTM parameters that we discussed in our first tip can be even faster when using QR codes. It’s a convenient way of not only directing those who view your printed materials to your website easily but also giving you an edge in measuring performance.
Always Check With Customers to See How They Heard About Your Business
Finally, if any of the above strategies seem difficult for you to implement, you can use the oldest tool in the book: Ask your customers how they heard about your business. You can do this through a variety of methods, such as asking customers at checkout or sending out a survey. While the results may not necessarily be comprehensive, it does help in validating quantitative ROI results that you would receive from using the above suggestions.
Print Marketing Done Right at Davant Indy
Now that you know some of the best ways to measure print marketing effectiveness in order to improve your ROI, go a step further by trusting the print marketing experts at Davant Indy! Here at Davant Indy, we specialize in a variety of print marketing services in Greenfield and can help you give your business a boost with print marketing materials that wow your customers. We understand the value of high-quality print and strive to meet and exceed the expectations of every business we work with. Contact us today to get started!
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