How to Optimize and Measure Your Direct Response Channels
November 30, 2015   Karen Bartram

How Many Ways Can You Say “Yes”?

Well, we can think of at least four – and track them for you

OK, now that we’ve talked about responsive design, let’s just talk about response.  Not how we can make it better – we’re always talking about THAT – but, rather, how people respond and how you can measure it, so you can KNOW how great your response is. When someone gets a piece for direct mail, or an email, for that matter, there are a few actions they can take to respond (thus a “call to action”):
  • Go to a web landing page using a PURL or GURL;
  • Make a phone call;
  • Send a text;
  • Mail in a reply;
  • Visit a location;
  • Visit your home page.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it covers the vast majority of direct responses.  And SnailWorks can provide a variety of solutions to help you measure almost all of these response channels:
  • If your prospect goes to your landing page, of course we will capture their visit as well as whether they converted. Of course if they type in the GURL (the General URL) we may not know who they are, but we can still determine a response rate for that channel;
  • If you have a call center, we can provide a trackable 800 number. The calls get forwarded to your call center, tracking data gets sent to us so you can track it on your SnailWorks dashboard;
  • If you want a text option, we can set up for your prospects to text a key word (say “BIG DEAL”) to a short code (12334). You can send them a link to a landing page, video, coupon, and we’ll post response rates on your SnailWorks dashboard;
  • If your prospect mails you a check or reply form, we can track your reply mail on the way in using Intelligent Mail tracing – again, add it to your SnailWorks dashboard;
  • If the prospect visits a location, hopefully they do so armed with a personalized coupon – upload a file from your POS system and, you guessed it, it’s on the dashboard;
  • If they visit your web page directly – this happens a lot for donations – you should redirect to a donation/landing page. We can identify those redirects and add them to your SnailWorks dashboard mix.
Of course the common theme is the dashboard – the more channels we can display on your dashboard, the better you can be at determining what response channels your prospects prefer.  So when we talk about multi-channel we’re not just about your outbound channels – we can help you measure and optimize your direct response channels, too.  So if you’ve ever thought of trying a text reply channel, or maybe providing an 800 number, we make it very easy to test these channels.  There will  be no mystery as to whether it works – you’ll see the results right on your SnailWorks dashboard!  Contact us to learn more.

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