MarCom Professional

Are You Ready to Profit from Personalised URLs?

The desire to feel special is a natural human emotion, and people want to be treated as individuals, rather than merely another target on a mass marketing bombing campaign. The problem with a lot of marketing is that it fails to make people feel special, but simply dumps the same message as wide as possible to hit as many targets as it can.

Simply pouring money into unrefined email blasts and bulk mailings is a clumsy and expensive approach, because we now have the technology to engage prospects in a one-to-one marketing dialogue that’s more relevant and personalised for each individual.

With a recession looming, the competition for customers is only going to increase.

So, to engage people’s attention your marketing needs to appeal more closely to their interests than the rest. And the evidence shows that integrating direct mail with digital is the best tactic for getting more personal with prospects.

Direct mail makes the introduction

Despite what some internet fanboys (might) think, print isn’t dead and will be the touch point of choice with most prospects for many years to come. In fact, a Pitney Bowes survey found that 73% still prefer to receive product announcements in the mail compared to reading them on a screen.

With this in mind, direct mail is the best medium for introducing prospects to online promotions. It’s effectiveness in launching a one-to-one campaign extends beyond merely the name on the label, because the website address it sends people to is personalised too.

People love to see their name in print, and few can ignore the curiosity of visiting a website featuring their name in the URL.

Personalised URLs look after the conversation

It’s when prospects visit their own personalised URL that the conversation really begins.

Not only does each mini site greet them by name, but also features products and services carefully arranged to match their interests. This customised approach already helps improve your chances of generating leads.

However, where a PURL’s power really lies is in its ability to listen as well as talk. Every mouse click and interaction is recorded and added to the feast of information stored on your database, ripe for future targeted marketing activity.

Cost effective, quick and a high response

In a recent BDA campaign for Siemens we experienced first hand how effective an integrated, personalised campaign can be.

A letter was sent to prospects promoting Siemens’ ‘A Meeting of Open Minds’ breakfast seminar along with their own personalised URL. On each individually addressed website, prospects could interact with a ‘cost calculator’, to see what savings they could make, and then book their place on the seminar.

Recording the interests of prospects, by how they interacted with the site, was estimated to save two weeks of telemarketing and generate leads at half the cost of conventional marketing activity.

The personalised one-to-one approach was also so effective in attracting interest that Siemens had to run two additional seminars to cope with demand.

Personalised campaigns get you closer to your target

The tracking provided by personalised websites enables you to get progressively closer to every prospect. From initial acquisition through to retention, with each subsequent campaign you can fine tune your offer to appeal to the interests of each individual.

Numerous case studies have shown that integrating direct mail with digital campaigns is the way to go. Recent research by the Royal Mail found that over half of consumers prefer a combination of the two, and that integrated campaigns could increase customer spend by 25%.

The technology is now available to deliver one-to-one campaigns that are relevant, targeted and provide a much better response from consumers.

So are you going to continue bombing your prospects with mass untargeted messages? Or are you ready to get closer with personalised URLs?

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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog - real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.

Also posted on www.thinkbda.com