Get real: tracking the results of a direct mail campaign.

• Author: Turner, Jim
• Position: Direct Mail Essentials

Bankers often say about their direct mail efforts, "We seemed to be busier during the promotion, but we're not sure exactly where the response came from." In the rush to get a mailing out, followed by the push to handle response, marketers often overlook tracking.

This doesn't need to happen. With proper retaking, direst mail is highly accountable.

Tracking results of your campaign not only reveals your return on investment, but also yields information that can help with future promotions: Which lists perform best? Which offers? Which mailing formats? And more.

Tracking can take different forms. In some ways, large promotions in the largest banks can be relatively straightforward. That's because their highly automated front-end processes of ordering lists, coordinating test cells and coding the responses are done by computers, perhaps also with more staff devoted to capturing results. The front-end setup ensures better analysis later.

But there are still ways to track smaller-scale promotions.

First, for most promotions, it's important to try to capture "front-end" data. For example, in a loan promotion, how many inquired about the offer compared to the back-end response (people who ended up taking a loan)? In between are the number of people who did or did not apply, and the number who were or were not approved.

In this example, the conversion ratio, that is the number of inquiries to the number of booked loans, can reveal significant weaknesses in either the bank's sales or approval process. If 400 people inquired about the loan offer but only 200 applied and only 100 were approved, we would want to identify the cause for the gap. Was there adequate and timely follow-up with them? Was the application confusing?

And, if only half of the applicants were approved, why? Was the underwriting too stringent, or were...