Tracking the effectiveness of your marketing campaign is an essential part of maximizing your return-on-investment (ROI). It will also help you to modify the strategy and fine-tune the campaign whenever necessary. Take note that a lot of changes can occur over the duration of your marketing campaign. Tracking direct mail response is not a new concept. However, despite its popularity, its real importance is sometimes underestimated. Because the benefits of direct mail are multiple, it is important to capitalize on those benefits by accurately tracking your results. Using a 1-800 number makes analysis of your results easy.

Before spending good money to test advertising initiatives or strategies, it is crucial you do good research. The research process doesn't always have to be incredibly expensive or lengthy, but it should be the foundation for any business decision. A great product or service isn't going to be of much value if you don't have advertising skills or an idea of what is working in the current environment. It is always best to bounce your ideas off a marketing professional before testing advertising ideas. If you're on a tight budget, you can also analyze and research what is working for the competition or outsource the research for a few hundred dollars to a third party that can provide an outside point of view.

When running an ad campaign it's easy to grab any readily available number, but have you thought about the effect this may have on conversion rates?  In this economy conversion rates are becoming increasingly important. Conversion rates measure each campaign's effectiveness and more importantly the effectiveness of each marketing dollar spent.

New products, new competition, new mailing lists, new government regulations — there are always reasons why you should be updating your direct marketing materials.

One of the best ways to test and compare the effectiveness of new materials is by using toll-free numbers. That way you can tell immediately which offers are getting responses. Plus, response rates can be tabulated automatically through your phone system.

Direct response consultants will tell you that you need to be constantly testing and refining. Here are a few of the ways you can test your materials:

• Test your new campaign to your current customer base. Mail to existing lists, or advertise in the existing channels. See how the new campaign compares to previous ones to the same lists.
• Test current directing marketing campaigns to a new customer base. Try a new mailing list, put your ads in a new periodical or on a new radio station. See how the new customer lists responds.
• Try out preliminary versions of a new campaign, testing to sub-sections of your existing customer list. This will help you determine which version of the new campaign to roll out to your full list.

When you sign up for toll-free numbers with Custom Toll Free, you get access to an online management tool that assists you with direct response tracking. There’s even a free campaign analysis tool included; input advertising costs and see your return-on-investment expressed in terms of cost per call.

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