PURLs to drive growth in direct marketing sector

According to a recent report by Global Industry Analysts, the direct marketing sector is expected to see solid growth over the next few years. The driving force behind the growth is said to be a move away from mass to direct advertising and an increase in the uptake of multi-channel marketing. More By 2015, the direct mail advertising services market will reach £16.95 billion worldwide.

A renewed appreciation for direct marketing, coupled with its integration with other advertising media, opens up a plethora of new and innovative possibilities. Personalised URLs (or PURLs as they are more commonly known) is a new and very powerful direct marketing tool when combined with targeted direct mail or email marketing strategies. To find out how your company could increase response by using PURLs in your customer or prospect marketing activity call us today on +44 (0) 1509 670 567.

The DMA did a study in 2006 which indicated that 43% of all direct mail recipients go straight to their PC with their mailing piece either to investigate further or to purchase.

So what exactly is a PURL? It’s a personalised URL that directs a customer to a personalised webpage (landing page) which has been created using valuable data held on them in the company database or mailing list.

With appropriately targeted mailings and quality lists, PURLs have enabled businesses to track and measure responses in real time, engage the customer more effectively and improve customer relationships as a result, increase response rates, and most importantly convert customer preferences into revenue. You know who has clicked through to the web page and can carry out targeted follow up activity very quickly.

How do PURL mailings work? Typically PURLs are used on a lower cost digitally printed postcard mailing, thus reducing cost as well as increasing the responsiveness of direct mail. The example below is based on utilising customer transactional information, but PURLs can also be used effectively as a new customer acquisition tool. These tend to produce a higher response rate than a normal direct mail campaign.

To find out more about how you could use PURL mailings within your marketing strategy to increase response contact us today.