Most Used Direct Marketing Metrics

 By Wanguba Muriuki

In the current world of business marketing metrics, measurements are important since you are required to display your results, provide value to the company and to justify your budget. Providentially, as a direct marketer you are always measurement oriented as you focus on metrics and returns on investment.
However, through all the complexities involved, there are some main methods that you may use to obtain direct marketing metrics. These metrics are simple and quick to analyze and the results are straight forward. Here below are the majorly used metrics in direct marketing that have been proven to give accurate results. 

Response Rate

The response rate is quite easy and simple for you to capture using a variety of media using a unique landing page or a key code developed specifically for the campaign. On the business-to-business side, it may get complicated since your sales personnel do not favor reporting the sales they make always to your marketing team. However, response rate does not inform you about your campaign’s effectiveness since there are too many variables involved.
The response rate cannot be used solely to determine the success of your marketing campaign since some values become ambiguous. Moreover, the use of different marketing methods is not well accounted for since the different methods return different response rates but you only measure the general rate. Nonetheless, it is an initial indicator of where your marketing campaign is headed to thus enable you to make the necessary changes. 

Cost per Lead

Cost per lead is obtained through the division of the entire campaign cost with the number of leads resulting from the marketing campaign. In the cases of multiple touches in the marketing campaigns, it is complex for you to determine and keep track of which method reached what number of people. Nonetheless, this cost determinant is considered to be fundamental among all marketing metrics in business communications.
The qualified leads rather than the inquiry leads are used in the calculation. These are the leads that will enhance your sales force productivity and reduce your involvement in cold calling. Furthermore, it increases the amount of time for your sales team to spend with actual prospects in the market.
However, if you wish to test your initial convincing power for prospects to express interest in your products and services, then you may use the inquiry leads to calculate your cost per lead. Thus, it is also advisable to keep track of both cost per inquiry and cost per qualified lead metrics. 

Inquiry-to-Lead Conversion Rate

The rate of the conversion of inquiries to leads is determined by the quality of the first inquiry and the accuracy of the qualification criteria. Qualification criteria are made consistent with experience. Therefore, make sure that your sales team has experienced members who can efficiently achieve this transition. The rate of the conversion is a majorly used form of direct marketing metrics that determines the level of success of your campaign.

Lead-to-Sales Conversion Rate

This is the point whereby your sales team should strive to close business by converting your leads into revenue. If for instance the lead-to-sales rate decline, it may either mean that your sales team is falling on the job or the marketing team delivered inferior leads. When selling through channel partners and retails, the sales figures are more often unavailable entirely. However, your sales and marketing teams should coordinate efficiently to make sure that a significant number of your leads are converted into qualified sales.
These are the most used metrics in direct marketing that enable you to determine the success or failure of your campaign.