In a world oversaturated with digital screens, print marketing is an appealingly tactile alternative. A 2023 report from the Direct Marketing Association found that targeted direct mail campaigns have an average response rate of 4.4%, surpassing many forms of digital advertising.
While the value of print is too huge to ignore, the effectiveness of a print campaign may seem tough to measure. Too many businesses either stick to antiquated methods or, worse still, measure nothing at all. Without data-informed insights into your audience, you just can’t know how to optimize future campaigns. This article will help discover how to measure the impact of your print marketing campaigns and integrate them it into a multichannel marketing strategy.
Why Measuring Print Marketing Matters
Print advertising is not all about creating and mailing pretty designs. It’s about speaking to the audience and driving real, tangible results for your organization. Whether it’s postcards, brochures, or magazine, a print campaign leaves a long-lasting impression, which is often absent in digital ads.
However, print marketing metrics are usually not as self-evident as digital alternatives. Without print marketing analytics in place, a business can waste money on things that aren’t working. It’s only by tracking and analyzing results that one can come to understand what does resonate with an audience.
Plus, measurement helps you bridge the gap between print and digital channels. Incorporating print into your marketing strategy allows you to provide seamless customer experiences, improving both engagement and return on investment.
Establish Your Print Marketing Metrics
The first step in figuring out how to measure the impact of your print marketing is to define clear and specific goals. Ask yourself, what is it that you want to achieve? Whether it be lead generation, sales, or brand awareness, your goals need to be in line with the following measurable KPIs for print marketing:
- Response Rates – How many people replied to your advert
- Impressions – The number of potential clients who could have viewed your print material?
- Conversion Rates – Percentage of the total responses converted into sales or desired action?
Using modern tools can make keeping tabs on every one of those KPIs easier. QR codes, customized URLs, and even coupon codes help link print materials to online interactions. Services like IQ Mail take this even a step further, bringing personalized mail and analytics together to provide real-time insights into campaign performance.
Use Advanced Tracking Techniques
Tracking the success of print campaigns has moved well past the early-stage use of QR codes. New tools such as NFC tags let customers tap their phones on a printed material and gain access to digital content and offer your business seamless, user-friendly tracking.
Call tracking, which in this case entails the assignment of unique numbers to various print ads, can help you identify leads generated from a particular print campaign. Combining call tracking with online geofencing technology can further improve data collection of customer responses in targeted areas.
Such pioneering concepts not only make print campaigns more interactive, they also provide detailed insight into your audience that you can use when planning future campaigns.
Create Targeted Direct Mail Campaigns
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, the cornerstone of any successful print advertisement, such as a targeted direct mail campaign, is in personalization and segmentation. A plain flyer falls flat compared to the personal touch of a postcard addressing customer pain points.
Start with segmenting your mailing lists by demographic, past interactions with your organization, or behavior; then, create content targeted for each of those segments. You may use their name, custom offers, or a local detail to make your mail stand out. Then, utilize an advanced tracking mechanism like special discount codes, questionnaires, or QR codes to gather data about your campaign’s success. With this feedback gathered over time, you can hone your commercial printing solutions for better ROI performance.
For more about leveraging data for greater print marketing success, read out blog: Strategic Planning with Past Data for Non-profit Direct Mail Fundraising
Using Print in Donor Engagement Plans
For each nonprofits and higher education alike, an intelligent donor engagement plan can make or break fundraising efforts. Print marketing brings a personal touch that digital campaigns often can’t. A heartfelt, handwritten letter or thank-you card infuses emotions into a relationship, forging trust and loyalty.
To have maximum impact, make every piece of mail personalized. Stories, photos, or metrics about how donations made a difference go a long way in encouraging more giving. Make them feel valued by reminding them of previous contributions.
Track donations or inquiries associated with specific print campaigns to measure engagement in a material way. Use analytics tools to gauge which materials generate the best results. When done well, print marketing is irreplaceable within any outreach strategy to donors.
Summary
While it may seem overwhelming to measure print marketing, it certainly isn’t impossible with the right tools and techniques. From tracking analytics across print marketing campaigns down to integrating digital direct-mail campaigns, businesses have a number of options for measuring the impact of print.
Don’t gamble with your print campaigns. Elevate the game with deep data-driven insight and quality commercial printing solutions. Whether it be donors, customers, or prospects, print is a reliable and very measurable marketing tool within your arsenal.
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