Response rate from marketing by mail?

Non direct marketing: in direct marketing you can measure response rate as effectiveness of a campaign, what are some tools to determine the best strategy for your non direct marketing?

• Answer:

  Manufacturers of products who do not sell directly to their end customer typically utilize the following metrics and/or vendor tools (with core data being supplied by their distributors/retailers who do make the final sale to an end customer):  Brand awareness/lift by brand or category, spend per, competitor activity monitoring, sell thru by retailer, margin by retailer, coupon redemptions, promotional effectiveness, national and local advertising and promotional support, etc. etc etc.  Tools are:  brand awareness studies, IRI data, catalina marketing data, good old excel spreadsheets, lots of built in house stuff.