Since the bottom line of marketing is, well, the bottom line, we decided to see how this applies to custom printed postcard magnets.

Now its worth noting that it can be very difficult to measure profitability using most ad media. TV, radio, billboards — you may see a bump in your business, buts its a challenge to pinpoint exact numbers.

With direct mail postcard magnets its much easier to check your results.  Just take your original mailing list, and cross-reference it with your inquiries and sales lists.

Now for the nitty gritty.

Its always good to know how good your postcard magnet promotion needs to be.  We suggest you figure your ‘breakeven cost’ before developing your mailing campaign.   Here’s how:

Estimate what your average sale is, and calculate the typical gross profit (“TGP”) on this sale .

Then, estimate the total costs of your planned direct mail campaign, and divide this amount by the TGP number.  This is the number of sales you need your mailers to make before your campaign becomes profitable.

For example, if your TGP is $40 and you’re mailing 1000 postcards magnets for $1000, then your breakeven is 25 sales (that’s $1000 divided by $40).  This means you need to get a 2.5% response rate for your postcard magnets to start making a profit.

No two marketers are alike, but we’ve found most would be satisfied if their campaign simply made break even.  That is, the mailing paid for itself, and profits would ultimately be realized on subsequent orders with those new customers.

And then there are Realtors, dentists, lawyers and other professionals with a high TGP.  These marketers can find that the mailing can breakeven with just 1 response.  More than 1 response is pure profit.

Just another tip from magnetbyMail.com