Ten ways to test your catalogues and direct mail

'Test, test, test' should be the mantra of marketers everywhere. It’s only through testing that you’ll learn how to improve your results in the future.

Tuesday Porter, head of business development at multichannel clothing  retailer Charles Tyrwhitt, recommends carrying out a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of your situation to identify areas for improvement and testing.

"Prioritise your test ideas as there are always many options. For example, you might rank them according to their potential impact to business or high vs. low risk," says Porter.

Test results must be readable, she advises. "Otherwise do not bother testing as you would be making assumptions. Compare your tests to a control cell, which should be the core proposition which you measure against, and use separate checkout codes for control and tests."

Lastly, you should always analyse your tests once the campaign has finished.
"Critique both winners and losers. Sometimes you can learn more when a test does not work than when it does," she adds.

Click below to download ten suggestions for testing your catalogues and direct mail campaigns: