Holiday Marketing: ROI vs. Response Rates

Many businesses are turning up the heat on their direct marketing for the holidays or are at least busy planning and crafting marketing strategy for the New Year. Unfortunately many are still focusing on the wrong metrics.

Among other misleading metrics, many are stuck on increasing response rates. Are higher response rates really what you want or is it higher ROI and net profit? Any professional marketer will tell you high response rates are relatively simple to produce, but that doesn’t always result in more closed transactions, revenues, or improved ROI.

Want higher response rates? Broadening your appeal or making your copy catchier can drive an insane amount of inbound contacts from print, direct mail, bulk SMS and “Press 1” campaigns. In fact, you can often increase response rates to current marketing simply by adding a toll free number.

However, higher lead volume doesn’t always directly relate to higher ROI. Toll free numbers can be great for those who want to conduct split testing for improving results, and a good 800 or vanity phone number can directly increase conversion rates by themselves.

Yet, while higher conversion ratios certainly help ROI there are still factors many fail to include in their ROI calculations. Accurate net ROI calculations need to go beyond per lead figures to account for every part of the process through closing, including chargebacks and perhaps even factor in repeat business.

This is where toll free numbers really make all the difference. They help increase response rates, conversions, add value to brands and products, improve the likelihood of sharing and repeat business, plus lower operational expenses, and streamline customer service and order taking.

So whether marketing for the holidays or developing direct marketing strategy for the next year, perhaps it is time to start incorporating toll free numbers and looking for more ways to capitalize on their benefits to increase net income and ROI.