I’m giving a new marketing strategy a try.  I’m calling in the PURL Campaign-In-A-Box.  The campaign is targeted towards printers who have not jumped into the PURL game yet.  For a selected group of these printers, I’m going to offer a complete PURL Campaign for FREE.

Here is how it will work.

1. Purlem is going to provide  the creative and technology involved with running a PURL campaign.
2. Purlem will also provide in-store promotional items to increase awareness.
3. The printer ‘s only responsibility and cost is to print and mail postcards to their clients who can benefit from PURLs.

The goal of this campaign is two-fold.

One… to introduce PURLs to the printer’s customers and develop new business.

Two… to allow for printer’s to become comfortable using PURLs with virtually no risk.

Here are my initial ideas for campaigns:

(Click on image to view actual landing page)

Feedback is welcome!

Below is a collection of Personalized URL Case studies I have found through various sources on the internet over the past year.  Great for sparking new, creative ideas for your PURL campaigns.

Finland Fitness Club – See how a Fitness Club in Finland used Purlem to get a 22.3% response rate.

Variable Thinking’s PURL Cast Study Collection – 11 Different case studies from Variable Printing projects.

University of Alabama PURL Case Study (PDF) – A look at how the University of Alabama used Personalized URLs to increase Football season ticket renewals.

Gor-Tex – A case study of how Gor-Tex used PURLs to generate a 16% increase in sales.

VMI Foundation (PDF) - See how the VMI Foundation used PURLs along with both email and direct mail to increase the effectiveness of their fundraising campaigns.

Mindfire Case Studies (PDF) - The Response Rates of Personalized Cross-Media Marketing Campaigns

CEA Marketing Case Study (PDF) – A look at how the Golf Course waterfront resort used PURLs with both their direct mail and email campaings.

W.L. Gore PURL Case Study – More of a story on how W.L. Gore & Associates integrated PURLs into their marketing campaigns.

Rosemont College (PDF) - See how Rosemont College used Personalized URLs in a campaign to Alumni.

PODI Best Practices in Digital Print (PDF) – See how two companies successfully used PURLs with their Postcard campaigns.

Florida Country Club – A look at how a Private Country Club in Florida used Purlem to generate interests for prospective members.

It might come as a surprise, but according to a new study by U.K.-based e-mail service provider Pure360, the best time to send a commerical email is outside of office hours.

In a study of 660,000 messages sent by 34 companies, Pure360 reports that just 9% of e-mails were opened between noon and 2 p.m., and 62% of those messages were news or magazine alerts.

However, according to Pure360, almost half, or 48%, of marketing e-mails in the study were opened outside office hours.

When I think about my email habits this actually makes sense.  If I receive a commercial email during office hours that is not from a client, friend, or prospect I immediately delete it.  However, if I receive a commercial email and it sparks my interests outside of office hours, I’m much more likely to explore a little deeper.

You could actually test this theory yourself with PURLs.  Send a campaign during office hours and track the response rates in real time.  And then do the same thing during office hours.  Doing this one thing could drastically increase your email marketing response rates.

5 years ago everybody wanted their email marketing to use HTML. The obvious benefits of HTML emails are that they have additional text formatting capabilities, incorporate graphics,  and puts more creative options at the marketer’s disposal.

Take this email from Pottery Barn for example.  This is a great example of a strong HTML email.  It is visually appealing, the message is clear and it contributes nicely to the brand’s image. But what I think makes this email work, is that I am familiar with the brand.

I think HTML emails make perfect sense for any large business that has a developed brand and strong customer loyalty (not to mention a huge design budget).

I’m just talking from personal experience here…  If I get an html email from Pottery Barn, or Best Buy (for example), I’m interested in their promotion and how I might be able to benefit from a special.  If the special intrigues me enough then sure, I’ll click to visit their website and learn more. But, on the other hand, if I get an email from some small business that I never hear of, my ‘JUNK’ radar immediatly sounds.

Take this html email a client of mine was thinking about sending out. (Thanks Steve for allowing me to use this as an example).

The goal of this email was to send people to their Personal URL landing page, and ultimately sign up for their wine of the month club.

By the way this is a great deal for all you wine lovers out there.  Go to http://uswineassociation.com for more info.

Now this email, like Pottery Barn, is also able to carry the brand for U.S. Wine Association with their colors, logo and font choices.  It looks nice and everybody is happy….  But how will prospective customers react to the email?  If they are anything like me  my ‘JUNK’ radar immediately goes off. What about you?

My argument is this. For small businesses who don’t have a strong brand and loyal customer following (or thousand dollar design budget for each email), it is better to use plain text emails. The biggest reason is that it looks like a PERSONAL message.  From experience, I would rather receive a personal message from a company that I am unfamiliar with, than something that looks like it went out the a million people.  What do you think?  Do you have the same reaction as I do?

I just ran across a good idea for search engine marketing. HelpSpot http://www.helpspot.com/ is an open source help desk software. If you search Google for “open source help desk software” you will see that their company doesn’t come up, but a review site does: http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/ . And guess what, HelpSpot is the “Sponsor.”… More like HelpSpot quickly through up this review website, made themselves the sponsor, and now ranks number 1 for their top keyword. Not a bad idea! Would only take an hour to implement something like this. I think I’m going to give this a try…