Automotive Direct Mailers – Start Measuring Date Metrics

by | Nov 16, 2011

People travel during the holidays, so if you’re going to be sending out automotive direct mailers, you have to think about peak times. Automotive marketing companies tend to lose out on their peak audiences because they don’t always think about the best times to send automotive direct mailers. It’s really worth it to keep track of how your mailers perform on different dates around the holidays, and gear your marketing campaigns to release mailers around those dates.

Production Schedules

Printing and mailer production schedules don’t always run as perfectly as we’d like. You’ll end up facing situations where adjustments may push the release of your mailers back a few days – but how do you know whether or not those few days are going to hurt you?

The best way to keep track of how effective your mailers are involves producing surveys. Some clients may not respond to formal surveys, so you may want to have your dealers ask what brings clients in, and keep some answers tabulated.

If you find that your mailers are effective, you can gauge when they are most useful – and from here, you’ll be able to plot out the best dates and times to produce and send out your mailers. Having a production schedule for advertising is something that can only benefit you.

Testing

If you find that mailers aren’t bringing in the bulk of your clients, take a look not just at the design, but on what day you’re sending them out. Remember, the economy has changed fairly drastically in the last few years. The result is that days that may have been highly productive for bringing clients in with mailers have seriously changed. How will you know that the “best days” for sending out mailers and running promotions are still the best if you’re not doing the appropriate testing?

Try different dates around different holidays and promotions. If you can’t afford to send out more than one mailer at a time, seriously consider doing long-term testing.

When it comes to sending out automotive direct mailers, don’t skip out on the testing or measuring metrics. Data is the most important thing you can collect when it comes to tracking the effectiveness of your mailers.