Detailed Response Rate Information
April 27, 2015   Dave Lewis

Just kidding.  No one shares – or even really knows – their response rates. We recently attended a webinar held by the Direct Marketing Association – DMA Response Rate Report 2015. It was, not surprisingly, their best attended webinar of the year. We’re all suckers for any promise of concrete response rate data. Of course we all know what we want:  “Based on incontrovertible analysis of statistically unimpeachable data, the average response rate for organizations doing direct marketing offers just like yours is 1.527%. If your response rate exceeds this, you are successful. Otherwise, well …not.” Of course, this was not provided. The primary conclusion of the webinar was that – spoiler alert! – I could buy a report from the DMA for $299, and get 10% off for attending the webinar. That was the most concrete percentage I got during the webinar. The truth of the matter is that response rates are very personal. Two offers from two very similar organizations may get, respectively, response rates of 0.3% and 3.0% and both may be successful – or crummy. The only response rate that matters is yours. Everyone else’s is interesting but secondary. One interesting observation had to do with how many marketers measured their response rates – they pretty much didn’t.  Across the channels from email to social media to online display advertising, a significant percentage admitted to not knowing exactly what their response rates were. We get this at SnailWorks – it’s hard to measure all of the channels on a multi-channel campaign. That’s why our clients are so excited about the SnailWorks dashboard – we put all of those channels on a single screen.  Believe it - it was hard, and expensive, to do this. For us, that is – it’s easy and affordable for you. Another observation was that “only” 35% of direct marketers use just a single channel. Seriously?!  More than a third of direct marketers only use one channel? If you’re in that 35%, boy do we have a great way for you to boost your response!  If you serve that 35%, you have a tremendous opportunity. Our response? Care about the only response rate that matters across all of the channels – yours. Once you put SnailWorks at the heart of your campaigns you will know your response rates whether you like it or not. Our guess is you will like it. Of course you can get your own copy of the response rate report from the DMA at www.thedma.org/bookstore. We just think you’ll be better served by creating your own response rate report using SnailWorks.

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