It’s an accepted fact these days that a marketing message that’s personalised to the recipient will be far more effective than one that isn’t. Obviously, at the most basic level, just using named individuals rather than ‘Dear householder’ will give your results a boost.
With the leaps and bounds taking place in the digital print process, it’s easy now to produce and send fully personalised, full colour direct mail direct to your customers. Nowadays, you can go far beyond a simple overprinted name and address - the personalisation can be cleverly integrated into almost any element of the design or photography. What’s more, the variable data can be used to uniquely change the text and the graphical elements of each piece of mail.
As we said, it works. According to the Royal Mail 92% of print-based targeted mail is opened and 48% of UK adults have responded with an enquiry as a result of direct mail. What’s more, as it becomes increasingly sophisticated, personalisation works increasingly well. One company to receive praise recently for its personal approach to direct marketing was mail order clothing brand Boden, which clinched a coveted Marketing Week Engage Award in May 2011.
Their catalogue, individually personalised to each customer, drove an estimated 30 per cent uplift in response. The brochures were addressed to customers’ first names and every one came with a unique fold-out spread.
A quantum leap in personalisation
With the advent of the internet, social media and multiple channels of communication, personalisation has moved to a whole new level, and this trend is changing the way that companies engage with their prospects and customers.
These days, personalisation doesn’t just mean name, address and recent purchases. New channels and online technology now allow businesses to gather much more personal information and then create highly targeted, incredibly personalised communications that tap into this data.
An example of this is cross media marketing or multi-channel marketing. This usually consists of a personalised direct mail piece or an email containing a personalised URL (PURL) which sends the customer to a website specifically created and tailor-made for them. From this website, you can then ask the customer if they would like to supply more personal information, so that you can make their shopping experience even more personal and bespoke to them.
Armed with these increased amounts of data, businesses can then direct customers back to their PURL which is now even more tailored to their unique tastes and preferences. Exclusive offers can be included on all of their favourite brands and products – in the style, colour and size that they want. Other product ranges can be cross sold, along with special purchases and discounts for unique occasions and family celebrations. The personal web page can even be in their favourite colours and carry images that they like.
Personalisation has now gone from a simple salutation on a letter, to a whole website designed and created to suit the particular tastes and preferences of one individual customer. Now that’s what you call personalisation.
So what are these PURLs, how do they work and what can you do with them?
Receiving PURLs of wisdom
That is precisely what PURLs give you. Pearls of wisdom. Little nuggets of information about a customer or prospect that you can use to tailor your offering in future marketing activities.
A PURL is a unique personalised URL something like www.next.co.uk/johnsmith or www.tesco.com/fredbloggs. Click on this link and John Smith or Fred Bloggs will be taken to a web page built just for them. It’s an engaging, involving tactic that gets people clicking through out of sheer curiosity.
PURLs then bring direct mail, email and the internet together in a powerful online/offline marriage. Placing a PURL on a DM piece or email turbo charges the power of the internet from that medium.
Enhance the customer experience
PURL's are relevant to the recipient so are much more effective. As the content can be based on recent shopping or purchasing behaviour it’s totally relevant. You can also ask for more information which can then be fed back into the database for future interaction.
Statistics show that customers are more engaged with PURLs and for longer. This means that you can expect to see a significant uplift in response rates and a considerable reduction in cost per sale or acquisition.
You can receive alerts on every single PURL activation. Which means that you can monitor the responses to your direct mail and email campaigns in real time. You can also see when action is taken, the length of the visit, browsing history and behaviour, cost per lead or conversion, trends and use all this information to directly measure the return on investment of your campaign.
The calls to action on the PURL ensure that you can follow up and respond to all activations instantly. So a PURL can be an excellent lead generation and sales tool. All in all, this level of tracking and monitoring means that you are fully informed, helping you to build a better marketing strategy in the future.
The benefits of PURLs in a nutshell
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PURLs can be used to achieve any number of objectives but they are mostly used for lead generation, enrolment, membership renewals, direct sales and donations
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PURL's dramatically increase response rates many times over. Contact us and we’ll run through a few case studies with you.
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PURLs allow you to track, analyse and measure responses as and when they happen. You can see who has responded, when, how many times and what products or services they showed an interest in.
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PURLs make it easier for your customers and prospects to provide feedback. You already have their name and contact details so they don’t have to enter these again. This makes it much more likely that they will complete a feedback form.
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PURLs can generate and follow up leads. You can receive an instant email or text message when customers and prospects visit their landing page.
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PURLs actively prospect. You can add new prospects and instantly create their personalised landing page.