November/December 2007
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What are PURLs and how can they help you?
A PURL (pronounced "pearl") is a personalized website address used to increase the effectiveness of your direct mail marketing. The name is based on "Personalized URL" where URL (pronounced "U-R-L") is a term for website address used by geeks when they want to sound smart.
This concept was discussed in more detail in my monthly print newsletter. For a free subscription, click here.
The specific application of PURLs will vary a little depending on your organization, industry, and situation. So I’m going start with some more detail about what PURLs do before getting into how they can be used to accomplish your objectives.
The benefits of PURLs relate to their IMPACT!: Integration, Measurement, Personalization, Action, Communication, and Tracking.
Identify Website Visitors
Essentially, a PURL is a way of identifying website visitors. This has many uses.
- Generate a list of prospects that accessed your website to use for follow-up marketing.
- Customize your website for individual (or categories) of users.
- Help your users save time when filling out forms because the PURL is linked to information already in your database.
- Be creative. The only limit to the use of this information is your imagination.
While identification is the most obvious and requested benefit of PURLs, there is more.
Personalization Results in Greater Response
Studies from the Direct Marketing Association and other groups have shown that personalized marketing gets up to three times more responses. Personalized websites linked to personalized mailers is the ultimate in personalization.
Monitoring Results in Long Term Success
When looking at aggregate data, PURLs also help you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing. You know how many marketing pieces are sent out. You also might know how many people go to your website. But PURLs help you determine how many times your website is accessed as a direct result your marketing.
When your marketing is not performing as you expected, PURLs prevent you from having to guess why. PURLs will help you determine if your marketing is failing to drive people to your website or if your website is failing to convert respondents into customers. With PURLs all of the data you need is at your fingertips.
To learn more about how you can use PURLs, call me at 1-866-847-8382 or request more information. Continue below for some generic examples of PURLs in action.
Specific Uses for PURLs
Non Profit Fundraising
When sending a fund raising letter, include a PURL to increase response. When donors donate using the PURL, their contact information will already be filled out, saving them time and increasing the likelihood that they will complete the donation.
Also use PURLs to see what percentage of your recipients access your website, what percentage of those respondents access your donation page, and what percentage of those result in an actual contribution. (Link this with our e-mail marketing tools to see what percentage of your e-mail recipients open your message).
Lead Generation
Link your marketing material to an online sales presentation that concludes with some qualifying questions to help you generate more qualified leads for your product or service.
Targeted Marketing
If you are marketing the same product or service to several vertical markets, use a PURL to give your prospects information that is specifically targeted to their market. For example, if I was marketing websites to attorneys and CPAs, I could use PURLs to customize the same website so either attorneys or CPAs see the benefits of my services in terms of their industry.
Political Campaigning
Include a PURL on voter contact mail that links to the campaign website. Use the list of people who accessed the website for additional mail so you know you are reaching people interested in the campaign. You can increase the effectiveness of this activity by including a survey so you can send issue-specific follow-ups.
These are just some of the ways that PURLs can be used. We can apply these strategies to almost any situation. Call me at 1-866-847-8382 for more information or send me an online request for info.
Visteva PURLBuilder
We are ready to help you take advantage of PURLs now. But our process will be streamlined in the first quarter of 2008 when we launch Visteva PURLBuilder which will automate the process of creating PURLs.
With Visteva PURLBuilder, you upload your list and the program takes care of everything else. Your website will be automatically configured for your users’ individual PURLs and you will be given a file to take to your printer to create custom marketing pieces. For a full service solution we can help with your print and mail.
Visteva PURLBuilder will also include a control center for real time monitoring of your marketing campaigns. If you want to stay up to date with new developments concerning Visteva PURLBuilder, just let us know.
