Flyer Advertising: How to Track Your Return on Investment (ROI)

If you’ve invested your time and money into a direct mail project, it’s no surprise that you want to see the fruits of your labour and quantify it however possible. That is where the concept of ‘Return on Investment’ — or ‘ROI’ — comes into play. 

ROI is a measure of performance. It evaluates the efficiency of an investment. This metric is calculated by subtracting the amount you invested from whatever value you get back out. Tracking your ROI can help you verify whether your direct mail flyers were a success or what you could do to improve them for the next campaign you create. 

To measure your ROI, you need to have clear and direct responses to your printed flyers. You want to calculate your response rate—this the percentage of potential customers in your advertising campaign who respond to your advertisement. 

Here are seven ways to track your return on investment:

Coupons and Vouchers

Coupons and vouchers incorporated into flyers can be very appealing. Regardless of income, everyone enjoys being able to save money and get a good deal. These redemption components a great way of tracking the return on your marketing investment.

Your coupon or voucher can include a discount code, a free item, or any other type of promotional offer. Be sure to analyze what your competitors are offering so you can create an offer that will interest your customers competitively. 

Coupons and vouchers are also great to include in flyers because they can be easily tracked. Different codes or colours can be used for coupons sent to different regions to track which areas yielded the best responses and how many vouchers were redeemed. 

That information can help you create a valuable customer database to make your future advertising campaigns more effective.

Ask Your Customers 

When you finally get to meet your customers, either over the phone, through online purchases, or in person, sometimes the best way to understand why they chose to shop with you is simply by asking. There is no harm in asking your customers how they heard about you, or even asking them to fill out a simple survey. 

You can ask your customers these questions verbally or by asking them to complete a voluntary survey at the end of their in-person or online transaction. Many customers are willing to provide this information, especially if there is an incentive or discount involved. 

Don’t hesitate to talk directly to your customers and ask them how they learned about you so that you can determine whether your customers positively responded to your flyers. It also helps to form better relationships with your customers.

Promotional Codes

Promotional codes are important to include on direct mail flyers, especially when they are short and easy to remember. Promotional codes work similarly to coupons and vouchers and encourage customers to quickly take action and make a purchase before the offer expires. 

You can also measure response rates and return on investment with the help of promotional codes. When customers apply the code on your website while making an online purchase or place an order with it over the phone, you should record this information. Later, you can determine which areas are more responsive to your messaging, adding to your customer database for future advertising.

Phone Calls

If you want customers to call you to learn more about your business, including a bold and obvious campaign-specific phone number on your flyer is a great way to achieve that. Phone calls to a unique phone number are a great way to help track responses to your flyer. 

Create different numbers for versions of your flyers going to different areas. Then, record the number of phone calls you receive to see where they came across your number and determine your flyers’ effectiveness.  

You can also get extensions added to your website that identify which search terms people used — or online adverts they saw — before finding your website and calling your number.

Landing Pages and Sub-Domains

Subdomains are methods of creating unique web addresses for different sections of a website. A landing page — also known as a lead page — is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, an online advertisement, or a marketing email or promotion. 

Rather than including your website URL on your flyer, include the URL for a landing page or sub-domain. Landing pages and sub-domains are an economical way to track the response rate and traffic to the site, alongside different analytics solutions. 

Landing pages and sub-domains can be used to determine which target groups have the best response rates. Future advertising can be directed towards those specific groups to improve ROI.

Mail-Order Forms

Another great way to track your responses is by creating a direct mail flyer with a form that customers mail in to place an order or request further information. This is a highly effective method, especially for target populations that do not prefer to or are unfamiliar with online ordering. 

QR Codes

QR codes, short for Quick Response codes, are a type of matrix barcode that can be read quickly and easily by a cell phone. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it into your cell phone. 

QR codes can do many things, such as open up a website or a social media site, send an email, or dial a number for a phone call. The task you assign your QR code will vary depending on the type of response you are trying to elicit from your target audience. You can measure the response rate to your QR code by using a unique URL, UTM code, extension number, or email address.

If you’ve put in the effort to create the perfect flyer with a unique, eye-catching design and a valuable offer, you deserve to quantify the rewards of your effort. Tracking your direct mail flyer campaign’s response rate and calculating your return on investment is the best way to understand whether you broke even and turned a profit. 

Direct mail campaigns usually tend to have a higher ROI than other forms of paid advertisements because they are very targeted and allow customers to access special physical offers with ease. 

To learn more about how to track the return on investment from your direct mail advertising, call Troi Mailing Services in Canada at 1(866) 486-9350 or contact us here.