A PURL is a Personalized URL, or web address that includes the recipient’s name. For example:www.JohnDoe.MySDPostal.com

When a PURL is printed on a mail piece or inserted into an email or electronic newsletter, something truly amazing happens- response rates go up.

That’s because inserting a PURL into your mail piece gives the prospect another way to respond, and investigate your offer without having to proactively seek out a conversation with a sales rep. That comes later.

The PURL directs the prospect to a personalized web portal or “Landing Page” tailored to his or her specific needs interests or purchasing abilities. When the prospect arrives at the page, he or she is greeted by name, and can view the mailer’s message in multimedia. Blend text, graphics, audio, video or all four to get your pitch across. Cross-media marketing- in this case combining direct-mail with the Internet leverages the strengths of both mediums. Direct-mail is by far the better tool for targeted marketing campaigns, while the web can convey the message in a way that you just cannot do on paper.

For direct marketers, the creative components (the message, the graphics, etc.) of any campaign are just the beginning. How do you know you’ve got it right? In the past, you did your best, convinced yourself of your genius, spent the money on the list, the printing and the postage and hoped that the phone would ring. Considering the amount of money involved in a mailing of any consequence, using only the one metric of how many phone calls came in is a primitive way to measure whether you “got it right”. Maybe your copy was perfect, but you chose the wrong list? Maybe both the list and the copy were perfect, but your timing was off? How would you know where you went wrong?

Since most direct-marketers are accountable for return on investment, the ability to measure prospect response and behavior is critical. Using the right PURL application (they are not all created equal) will give you the ability to interact with the prospect, collect key information using a “Needs Analysis” survey, and track the prospect’s journey through the website. You may think your graphics and your copy deserve an award, but if you discover that a large number of prospects abandon the site after viewing your best work, you know that the approach may need some refinement. Downloadable reports tell you what you need to know, in real time.

Automated follow-up is built right in. Using rules-based logic allows the PURL application to send emails (prewritten by you) directly to prospect after he or she leaves the web portal. You preload different email messages into the system, and the right message goes out according to how the survey questions were answered. If your survey collects information indicating a willingness to buy, you can preload an email message letting the prospect know that a sales rep will be calling them shortly. The system also instantly emails or text messages the survey data directly to your sales rep’s cell phone for immediate follow-up. That’s effective marketing.

Learn more about Personalized URL technology at our Postal Knowledge Seminar

Back to Newsletter

© 2007 San Diego Postal & Shipping Equipment . All rights reserved.

(SDP Home)