The Cross-Media Conversation

Ok, you have an idea; lets add a pURL (personalized Uniform Resource Locator) to our direct mail piece. Everyone is excited and you start by asking your printer if they can print pURL’s. The answer comes back YES! Wow, you are really going to hit a homerun on this one.  The job is printed and mailed. You wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually the reality sinks in and you’ve struck out.

pURL’s are similar to a phone number to call for more information. Too often people utilize technology for the sake of technology. Instead of calling a phone number the recipient invokes their pURL to find out more. When the recipient hits the landing page there better be a good reason to do so. This is where it is easy to fall short of that game winning smash.

The technology of pURL’s is only but one small part of a successful campaign. Stop thinking about pURL's and start thinking Integrated Cross-Media! Here is an example of what should happen.

You design and print a beautifully produced direct mail piece. Included on the piece is an offer driving a potential lead to a personalized website. Stop, do you know the email address or mobile phone number of the recipient and have they given you permission from past dealings to email or text them offer information? If so, why not send an email or SMS notification at the time of the print production informing them to watch their mail for an important offer being delivered in the next couple of days. You now have added another touch point to the offer. Notifications can be timed as well. Maybe before the direct mail piece arrived, or maybe after, as a follow up message. A follow up could be something as simple as: Did you see our direct mail offer yet? If not, please go to johnsmith.myAwesomeCompanyName.com to see what we have created just for you!

The landing page is the most important part of the campaign. This is where you have the opportunity to obtain important information about your recipients and understand a bit more about them. ALL landing pages should include some kind of inquiry or simple questions to help qualify the lead. Questions like: Why did you visit your personalized page?, When do you plan on buying? Are you coming to the event? Also, here is an opportunity to obtain important information about your recipient for future use. Information like email addresses, mobile contact information, hobbies, future plans etc. Additionally a link for your recipient to dynamically share the offer with a friend is a good idea? Referrals are one of the best ways to obtain leads and your satisfied customers are your best salespeople. Landing pages afford you a simple way grow and qualify your lead generation.

Now that you have developed an effective landing page, you need to act on the information you obtained. Simple thank you emails are a must. If you collected personal information like hobbies, that data can be used in the target message for future campaigns. Lets say you are selling fertilizer and your recipient is interested in gardening. They would be a great target for food safe fertilizer products. If they were interested in a deep green lawn, then maybe a high nitrogen content fertilizer would be more appropriate. Building relevant data for the future is one of the most compelling reasons for these types of campaigns.

Information that is gathered can also be sent real-time to your sales group. What could possibly be better than contacting a potential customer right when they were inquiring about your product or services. They obviously had some sort of interest because they followed through on the offer. Prompt follow-up to an interest increases your success. The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes increase 100 times.  Most integrated systems can be linked real-time to your existing CRM systems. This integration is another key to your success.

The cycle goes round and round. The keys are to collect relevant data about your leads and utilize it to tailor your message to them. Each time you connect the message should get more and more relevant! This information will increase your ability to convert leads to customers. Eventually hitting that elusive game winner!