How do you measure return?..I think the best measure of return is not the percentage of redemption’s but rather how how much you spent on them…I have no idea if a return of 5% to 10% is any good at all because you have not said whether or not the 5% to 10% was profitable…I suspect it is, however, it is just a guess on my part…
In my area it costs approximately 11 cents to send something by “Unadressed Admail”…(Canada Post’s bulk mail service that goes to each house in the area picked)…The local newspaper will go as low as 4 cents each…So the return from the newspaper can be much lower and still work out equal in cost to the bulk mail…
I will try to illustrate this in chart form…
Cost per 1,000 menus mailed out…
1,000 x 0.05 for printing - 50.00
1,000 x 0.11 for mailing - 110.00
So you have 160.00 invested…And for this example you get 75 orders per 1,000 (7.5%)…cost per order 2.133 each…
Cost per 1,000 menus in newspaper…
1,000 x 0.05 for printing - 50.00
1,000 x 0.04 for insert - 40.00
So you have 90.00 invested…And if you get just 42 orders per 1,000 (4.2%) your costs per order are close to the same…2.143 each…
Say your average order was 15.00 each and they cost you 2.14 each…Your cost in both examples is about 14% of sales…In the short run this is very high, however, by the time you factor in futures this number goes down…Now I have no idea whether or not you business can sustain this on an ongoing basis…