You said “The last item I’d like to bring up is that one thing is absent from this entire post and that is the value that a PURL campaign brings in the respect of gathering data.”

CMO’s don’t really need help on marketing campaigns. They have lots of people they manage full time to figure out the most effective way to do that. Printers actually don’t have a lot to add, in my humble opinion.

However, CMO’s are under constant pressure to gather information about the behavior of their customers. The reality is that most of them don’t have a clue as to how to do it or what processes to use.

The issue is not what the global can teach, it is what a global can learn. If printers joined with the best analytics companies we could help the globals create the predictive analytics that they will gladly pay for.

I agree with you on all counts and you mention very valuable points for others to note.

Over the last year and a half or so we’ve been averaging 3 to 5 PURL or GURL campaigns per month. Many started as the vehicle to gather the data needed to be relevant other had sufficient data already but the win is that now our clients are enjoying response rates twice and three times that they were before they started this method. 5% to 8% is now common, double digits don’t happen every month but there are a handful of them.

One aspect which I think is a key part of the strength of personalised URLs is its ability to link marketing effort across multiple media (mail, email, online, even mobile and SMS). Create a relevant, targeted, campaign to a customer; present it in the right media (mail followed by email, for example) for that customer; use PURLs to create an equally targeted and relevant web experience; then we see campaigns that a) make more sense to the customer b) make better use of creative resources, and c) get better response rates. And we can even use PURLs to measure the impact of different media, and especially of the cumulative effect of different media – something that’s incredibly difficult to do otherwise.

Add this to what everyone else has been discussing here, and the power is huge, and we’re seeing it working really well for our clients.

The use of a larger qty. when illustrating the the point of the less than cost effectiveness of a PURL campaign vs. a CURL campaign in many instances to me is invalid. We have seen our client base who used to do spray and pray direct mail now targeting their efforts and the effect is lower qtys. that are highly targeted thereby making the investment in PURLs affordable.

The second is that all you are describing concerning a CURL is a versioned campaign which is and has been a common practice for GURL campaigns. Nothing new or earth shattering about it.

The last item I’d like to bring up is that one thing is absent from this entire post and that is the value that a PURL campaign brings in the respect of gathering data. You mention the need for good data (which to our firm means relevant data) but leave out the fact that many do a PURL campaign as the means to collect new / additional information so they can start being relevant.

I was trying to figure out the path for a commercial printer to make CodeZ – information rich QR codes – part of their workflow. Please feel free to email me at josefowm(a) gmail.com if you think the info would be off topic in this interesting thread.

This is all really about creating that dialogue with the client. And of course, once you engage them at your site you are able to capture additional information about their preferences which can be used to refine the future messaging and make it even more relevant.

It’s all about ROI
It can now be shown that adding personalization and relevence will yeild the best results. Clearly if done right the PURL option will yeild a better result. The key is all about the data, continuing the conversation and gather more data along the way. The ability to react to specific questions and gather intel is key.

My bet is that the research would show that the “Creep factor” as in “how did you get my name” is a bug, not a feature. After years of personalization in direct mail and the concerns about privacy, I have to believe that the micro reaction to seeing one’s name or any personal information on a web page is “What else do they know about me?”

On the other hand, coming to a page that has a selection of “interesting to me” can be a delight. It creates the “How did they know that “people like me” would be interested in all this cool stuff.

On the other issue of the marketing campaign. In the days before the possiblity of real time metrics of engagement, the only indicator of success was the sale itself. The paradox is that sale is the end of the process, not the beginning of the process. It is better thought of as the conversion rate.

Most printing salespeople understand that getting to conversion can be a long process depending on the nature of the value proposition. Retail stores have always understood the importance of traffic and have well defined measures to relate traffic to conversions.

The new reality is that spam – either in the form of email or paper – has lost it’s power to be the surrogate for “traffic.” But what I’ve been calling Clickable Postcards and Newsletters might be newly appropriate ways to start and nourish the conversations that lead to lifetime customers and continuing conversions going forward.

Personalization and relevance that these channels affords, allow marketers to continue to keep the conversation real. For example, personalization doesn’t just mean using the first/ last name or creepy personal details.

It could be something like “John, in the last message you said that access to credit was a problem for you, here’s a payment scheme that we know will work for you”.

When campaigns are also continuous, then personalization and relevance will work like a charm and not be creepy. You will be remembering what the prospect said rather than using more and more creepy personal data.

Are continuous campaigns more expensive? Probably, but remember, you will be tracking response down to the individual. This means you can ensure you spend 80% of your marketing budget on the 20% of prospects that will likely end up as customers.