Have your response rates lost their luster? Try PURLs!
By
Mike Norbut
Published in the September Edition of Association Forum magazine
As I sorted through my mail recently, an interesting promotion caught my eye. It was a folded brochure from a suburban Chicago university, promoting its graduate programs and upcoming open house. The marketing message was not only addressed to me personally, but it also invited me to visit a web site with “MNorbut” in the URL.
Intrigued, I visited this site, where I found a page that again offered me a personal greeting. Amazed, I dutifully answered the school’s request for my e-mail address and other contact information, and another entry into the university’s “Prime Target” database was born.
What the university used to distinguish its piece from other clutter was not marketing magic, but a personalized URL, or PURL. It’s a 1-to-1 marketing strategy that connects a traditional marketing source, such as direct mail or e-mail, with the Internet to create a collection of personal messages for each individual recipient.
There are many advantages to using a PURL over a standard direct mail campaign, including the ability to:
- Obtain immediate feedback from recipients, both in real time as the PURLs are accessed and in summary after the campaign is completed
- Attract younger prospects by answering their demand to respond to offers online
- Hone your prospect list based on more in-depth demographic and psychographic data
- Gather new information to further build your database, such as e-mail addresses, special interests and other data
- Develop a new list of potential customers
The result of a PURL campaign, marketers hope, is a greater response rate overall, which can lead to more members, a stronger list of targeted prospects and a more complete database.
“PURLs allow you to send specific messages to specific groups in a very flexible format,” said Mark Sterne, president of Express Printing & Promotions, Inc., a Northbrook, Ill.-based printing and marketing solutions provider for associations. “Ideally, you can find out what your prospects are interested in. What is their niche?”
Finding the elusive prospect
As most associations can attest, prospects can be an elusive group. You can blanket them with collateral, only to receive no response.
The challenge you face in trying to engage prospects is no aberration; marketing industry experts say a direct mail campaign generally has a success rate of about 1 percent.
With a well-constructed PURL campaign, however, studies have shown that it’s realistic to expect a response rate increase of at least 25% and even as high as 300% over a traditional direct mail strategy, Sterne said. Even more importantly, PURL strategies tend to have a higher conversion rate per response, since the message is more relevant and personalized.
Another significant advantage to PURLs is the data they produce. While e-mails or direct mail pieces float off into the distance without a true tracking device, PURLs lead customers to a web site that allows you to view the responses. That makes it much easier to not only calculate your ROI for the campaign, but also to gauge your return on marketing objectives.
How PURLs Work
Thanks to modern technology, PURLs have become fairly cost effective as well. Using variable data printing (VDP) technology, direct mail pieces are automatically created with an individual URL aimed at one specific recipient (for example, MikeNorbut.associationabc.org). The direct mail piece invites the recipient to visit his or her own personal web site, which again offers a greeting that coincides with the direct mail piece.
The landing page then can ask the target to supply whatever personal information you seek – contact information, demographic data, etc. – as part of a questionnaire, survey, or some other response form. The information collected allows you to send another personalized follow-up message, usually through e-mail, to drive home your promotion to the prospect or customer.
Developing a New List
The keys to your success – besides your message, of course – are the list you’re working from and the offer you extend to entice participation. But what happens when you don’t want to keep sending materials to the same list? A PURL strategy will help you build a new one, as the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) hopes to find with its current campaign.
Over the past twenty years, the field of ceramics has changed from a distinct engineering discipline to a sub-discipline of material science. That change has had a profound impact on ACerS, as the society’s traditional members – including engineers, scientists, researchers, manufacturers, and others – can now find value in broader organizations which don’t specialize in ceramics exclusively.
However, there are emerging opportunities as ceramics applications in industry expand in other sectors.These changes, and other market pressures, made it increasingly important for ACerS to implement a recruitment plan that would effectively reach a broader audience and successfully communicate the unique value of joining the organization.
The challenge was identifying out of this larger pool those individuals with a high likelihood of joining the organization or an interest in membership. To meet this challenge, ACerS worked with McKinley Marketing to develop a marketing strategy that employed PURLs and VDP as the first step in the process.
First, ACerS purchased some direct mail lists consisting of general scientific community professionals. Then, a post card was developed with a PURL and personalized message inviting prospects to answer a few questions about their interest in ceramics. Those who participated were entered into a drawing to win a $500 American Express Gift card – an incentive that motivates individuals because the reward goes directly to them and not the employer.
The idea was not only to collect names and contact information of respondents – professionals who immediately become membership targets – but also to narrow down the demographic data of professionals most interested in ceramics, which would help the association to identify future lists for member recruitment. The results of this campaign, which was still underway during the writing of this column, will be available after September 1. But one thing is certain right now: thanks to one PURL campaign, ACerS will have a new list of membership targets and complete information at their disposal, which will enhance its growth prospects and its long-term viability.
Mike Norbut is a consultant with McKinley Marketing, Inc. Check in with Mike after September 1 to learn more about the results of the campaign referenced in this article. He may be reached at mnorbut@mckinleymarketing.com.