Yesterday’s guest Jerry Wissing on how to significantly improve your direct mail campaigns with PURL marketing.

We’ve all heard it before – marketers know that 50 percent of their promotion initiatives are working but not which half. Add to that that direct mail has taken a beating for its perceived low return on investment and you’ve got yourself an uphill battle to make any postcard campaign a success….right?

Wrong! Not only can direct marketing be tracked but it can also achieve substantial lead generation and brand awareness benefits if done correctly. The key is find out how to cost effectively make each mailer personal relevant and engaging.

Enter the world of PURL Marketing. PURLs or personal websites are microsites used to capture direct mail or email campaign responses. Studies commissioned by respected groups like the Direct Marketing Association indicated that personalized marketing can get up to three times more responses with PURL Marketing having as much as five times the rate of return as traditional direct mail.

What’s more PURLs are extremely affordable and competitive in costs to traditional mailers so a company’s cost per lead will actually go down! Set up takes just a matter of minutes depending on the company’s customer database and mailing list. Best of all PURL Marketing is trackable and can help marketers gauge the effectiveness of direct mail campaigns.

Here’s how it works. When the direct mail recipient logs onto their unique PURL Web address that’s imprinted on the postcard they are sent to their very own personalized site that contains tailored information. The user’s personal information is automatically populated on the page making them more apt to read the information and engage the company to learn more. The custom content on each Web site is created by segmenting an organization’s customer database into demographic and psychographic groups. This makes the experience more meaningful and enjoyable for the visitor.

Additionally companies can track the user’s activity on the PURL site and leverage that data to further tailor follow on correspondence across all channels; including e-mail phone and in-store. Such information is powerful because it enables an organization significantly increase customer loyalty without an exponential rise in costs. Real time visitors alerts commonly present in PURL marketing systems means that the companies can respond to customer interests and inquiries in real time.

It’s no great secret that personalized marketing programs generate greater response and sales to companies. The problem historically has been the costs in doing so which is why traditional direct mail has lasted as long as it has despite the low ROI. Thankfully PURL Marketing affords any company the opportunity to rise above the noise and make their campaigns more meaningful and successful.

Jerry Wissing is the President of The Printing Shoppe a full-service printer based in San Diego. Founded in 1982 the company offers a wide range of services including PURL Marketing programs. He can be reached at jerry@printingshoppe.com.