Ed Mayer was an international authority on direct mail and direct marketing from the mid-1930s. He developed the 40/40/20 rule that has been a staple for the direct marketing industry ever since.  The rule states that 40 percent of your direct marketing success is dependent on your audience, another 40 percent is dependent on your offer, and the last 20 percent is reserved for everything else (including the purl).

But from my experience from seeing a large number of successful, and unsuccessful, PURL campaigns, is that the new rule is more like 60/30/10.

Audience/List (60)
Having a highly targeted audience is crucial to Personalized URL (PURL) campaigns.  So what is a “highly targeted” audience?  Ideally it is a list of prospects that are already familiar with your business and have given you permission to reach out to them.  This is the audience that will pull a 30%+ response rate.  If you don’t have the time or resources to acquire this type of audience, your response rates will be significantly less.

Offer (30)
The offer can also make or break your Personalized URL campaign.  Giveaways, sales, rebates and bonus will give the recipient a reason to visit their PURL.  Try to approach the offer from your customer’s perspective. What do they think will be valuable? Don’t give away the farm, but make it significant enough to drive responses.  But wait! There’s more!

Everything Else (10)
Everything else is the design, medium, and copy that you choose to deliver the message. Yes, this is where PURLs fit it.  With your PURL campaign, your medium will likely be a postcard and related Personalized URL landing page.  The design and copy for both these mediums to be related. Simple is usually better, and the design should make the call-to-action obvious. But the rules for “everything else” ends there.

I’ll be the first one to tell you that PURLs will not make or break a campaign.  Sure, it can give a campaign a significant boost, but without the right audience or offer, your PURL campaign is sure to fail.

First Rate Mortgage Inc (http://www.firstratemortgagecorp.com) recently used Purlem to send out a PURL Campaign to 20,000 recipients. The list of FHA Loan prospects was gathered through Targeted Credit data leads.

The Postcard, seen below, was sent to the prospects.  The strictly text-based card is an interesting approach.  As Kevin Wade at First Rate Mortgage points out, it looks like a voter registration card and it pulls in some good response rates for them. (Not to mention lower printing costs!)

The PURL Landing Page is actually a series of pages made up of a few questions each.  Made to gradually lead the prospect deeper and deeper into the site. Everybody that responds to the PURL is given a deal based on selected criteria.

First Rate Mortgage has been sending postcards to prospects for years.  But now, for the first time using PURLs, they experienced an additional 1% in their response rate.  A significant increase considering the number of postcards that are sent out.

Congratulations First Rate Mortgage Inc on a successful PURL campaign!

First Rate Mortgage Personalized URL Postcard

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First Rate Mortgage PURL Personalized URL Landing Page

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First Rate Mortgage Purlem Results Page

Just finished reading “Landing Page Optimization” by Tim Ash.  I was looking for  some specific examples of what makes a good landing page, and how I could apply these best practices to Personal URL (PURL) pages.

What I got from the book was “You have to figure it out for yourself through testing.” Okay, okay.. I guess that’s true, but not really what I wanted to hear.  I was looking for the “magic bullets” but didn’t find any here (and maybe that’s because they don’t exist).

The specific advice and examples the book did give were very obvious and commonsensical.  But I guess it is good to be reminded of the essentials.  Here are some examples:

• The landing page should be focused on the “maybe” visitors.  The “yesses” will always buy, and the “nos” never will.
• Appeal to the emotions of the “maybes.”
• Remove the clutter.  Only show parts of the site that will drive conversions of the “maybes.”
• Be gunuine and use genuine photos.
• Place important objects above the fold.
• Use inverte pyramid format for copy writing.
• Visitor’s make judgements quickly.
• Coherency is crucial to establish confidence with the visitor.

In regards to testing the landing page, Tim recommended starting by focusing on the pages that can provide the biggest bang for the buck.  Within those pages focus on the top left and center areas of the site for possible improvements. Again, nothing new here.

The last few chapters coverers statistical analysis and sophisticated testing techniques and plans. Although interesting, it is not a realist approach for a  business with a limited budget and time.  You could spend months with this stuff.  How about just act on what you think will work, test, and build on your success.  (I’m not a fan of plans).

If there was one thing I took away from the book was to know who your visitors are and focus on developing content and direction to each “persona.”  For example, Purlem has different groups (personas) of visitors.  There are the small business owner, marketer, and printer.  All have a different goals and needs.  My site does not do a good job of providing content for each different persona, so maybe this is something I can focus on.

Use DirectSmile to create attention grabbing PURLs!

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!

With Purlem it is easy to place Personalized URLs (PURLs) into a Microsoft Word document. When you export your contact list from Purlem, you can use that file with Microsoft Word’s ‘Mail Merge’ feature to automatically add PURLs to your documents.  Learn more with this video:

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.

Purlem goes international with this personalized URL (PURL) case study.

A Fitness Club in Finland used Purlem to track the responses of their marketing campaign to old gym members.  (Members that were once members, but have let their membership expire).  The goal of their campaign was to simply reach out to these members and offer them other membership options that would fit their lifestyle.

A postcard was mailed out to these members with a PURL on it. The PURL would direct them to a website like seen below.

Traditinally a postcard would get a 1-3% response rate.  But when they used the PURLs, they had a 22.3% response!  Below is a chart of the responses for this campaign over time:

I have been talking with some collegues lately about  the buying cycle for those that utilize (or are thinking of utilizing) personalized URLs.  The general consensus.. its long!

My target market is printers and small business owners that can benefit from using PURLs.  Often, they stumble across Purlem doing a search for “Personalized URLs” after they hear some of the amazing statistics that are out there.  They give Purlem a try, like what they see, then have to pitch this to either their boss or client.  (Takes a few weeks at least).  Then the their boss/client approves and they have to come up with a campaign that utilizes the PURLs.  (This could take a 2-6 months).  Then when they finally have a campaign ready to go they will purchase their PURL application.

From my experience, from the point that somebody researches PURL applications, to the actual point of purchase can be several months.  Life would be much easier if everybody that stumbled across Purlem would just go ahead and purchase it right away!

UPDATE: Now its even easier to integreate Purlem with WordPress with the new Purlem Personal URL WordPress Plugin!

Finally!  You can now tie Purlem’s Personal URL application into WordPress themes.  After several requests for this feature, I slightly tweaked Purlem and added a tutorial on how to Tie in Purlem with WordPress.

The biggest benefit of doing this is that you can select from the thousand of wordpress designs to use as your Personalized URL Landing page!

I hope to create a wordpress plugin… but for now this should do the trick for those that don’t want to wait.