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Consider Using Personalized URLs
April 25, 2008

What does it mean to bring your printing into the 21st century? To get it out of the mire of 1990s thinking? One of the ways marketers can do this is with personalized URLs.

These applications use the technological capabilities of digital printing to print a personalized URL on each mailer (www.janesfurniture/bobsmith). This URL takes recipients to a personalized landing page, where they are greeted by name and the information can be tailored to them.

Most of these mini-sites have a common structure. They include the personalized landing page, a survey page where respondents are generally asked to take a brief survey to provide more information for future marketing efforts, a main information page, and a thank you page. Once logged in, visitors’ movements can be tracked, so marketers can see which pages they view and where they spend the most time. This provides valuable feedback, while also building a more detailed and relevant data profile of each prospect for use in future marketing efforts.

Some programs have the added benefit of auto generating actionable leads (including in real time) in batch form. Some software gives the option of providing these leads by e-mail, PDA, or cell phone. This allows you or your salesforce to prioritize leads and respond to them immediately.

Let’s take a look at great example of a real-life PURL campaign from “1:1 (Personalized) Printing: Boosting Profits Through Relevance.” I love this case study because the marketer, a local theater, didn’t have any customer data at the outset. And yet, through the expertise of its printing company (notice I said printing company, not database specialist; see my post on printers and design—the same applies to databases, its PURL campaign was spectacularly successful.

In this campaign, the Zeiterion Theater, a regional theater in Massachusetts, wanted to move into 1:1 print marketing, but it had little data on its customers. Its print provider created a demographic profile of the “typical” patron of the Z, as the theater is called, purchased the appropriate mailing lists, and sent out personalized mailers with the prospect’s name spelled out across a set of theater seats, saying that a seat had been “reserved” for them. Recipients were invited to log into a PURL for an opportunity to win free theater tickets. Once they logged in, recipients were asked a series of additional qualifying questions about the types of performances they might like best and were given the option to provide an email address for future communications. “The Z” mailed out the piece to approximately 10,000 recipients. Twenty-one percent logged into the PURL. Of those, 14% provided their email addresses.

As a result of the campaign, the Z gained valuable data for future targeted marketing, and by gathering email addresses, it was able to reduce its marketing costs by integrating email for some contacts rather than print.

Are you looking to generate actionable leads? If so, keep PURLs top of mind. But keep in mind that PURLs, in themselves, don’t generate responses. Next time, we’ll look at some reasons these campaigns fail and what you can do about it.

Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at htollvr@aol.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, and Web-to-print technologies, visit www.digitalprintingreports.com.

Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on April 25, 2008 | Comments (0)