PURLs can be an invaluable tool for businesses

By Melissa Busch

A Personalized URL Strategy Guide

L2, a San Jose, California-based provider of Fuse, an on-demand Web-based platform designed to create customized marketing campaigns through direct mail, e-mail and the Web, has released a personalized URL strategy guide to alert marketers to the perils of relying too much on the novelty of the ‘URL’ and losing focus of the strategies to using the technology for customer conversion and brand interaction.

Wrich Printz, president and CEO, said, “Personalized URLs should be regarded as the key that gets you in the door. The vanity associated with personalized URLs might get you the 10 extra seconds of attention or the increased incentive for the customer to visit, but marketers still need to employ the strategies that actually provide the legwork in a targeted marketing campaign.”

The strategy guide, outlines the benefits of using personalized URLs as an addition to a cross media marketing mix and provides a checklist of how marketing can benefit from personalized URL campaigns. Some of the benefits outlined by L2 include tracking, trigger-based follow-up, the timely inclusion of sales in the marketing process, lead scoring to identify the individuals most likely to buy and viral marketing applications.

The personalized URL strategy guide reflects on the important role that marketers play in the success of cross media campaigns using personalized URLs. The unique knowledge marketers have of their business, industry and customer segments complemented with customer information from their CRM are what L2 identifies as the true drivers of personalized marketing campaign success.

Printz said, “Marketing budgets have started to move more significantly from traditional media to more direct and social marketing channels. This shift also requires a corresponding change in marketing strategies to one that involves deeper interaction and an intricate understanding of the buying process of each customer.”

The personalized URL strategy guide is available at http://PurlStrategy.L2soft.com.

Those in the marketing and direct mail arena may say these are better than the kind you find nestled between the shells of an oyster.

Unlike pearls, personalized URLs (PURLs) can't be strung around your neck or ground into cosmetics. But they do have their uses and often create a more direct relationship with a person of a certain audience a company or organization is interested in reaching. Data has shown that businesses that have used PURL campaigns saw a spike in levels response as compared to more traditional direct mail and e-mail campaigns.

Nevertheless, to truly understand the benefits of PURLs, companies must comprehend what they actually are and how they work.

A PURL is a personalized website used for marketing and data collection, which is used to gather information for future marketing campaigns or sales. Typically, a site greets a visitor by name and presents them with products, services and information based on a database of preferences. The site can be an ongoing campaign that changes depending on the data collected from the visitor or the site can be used as a one-time marketing announcement for registration purposes.

A common example of a PURL is a web page with a URL such as www.abcmagazine.com/joejones. "Joe Jones" is the receiver of the message, either via e-mail or direct mail, who is encouraged to visit the web page.

PURLs have benefited business at Edison, New Jersey-based Prodigital Printing, A Consortium Company.

Bill Doehler, Prodigital executive vice president, said the company started using PURLs nearly two years ago because the technology seemed like a "natural add-on." Initially, Prodigital produced its first campaigns through another licensee with zero profit. Eventually, Doehler noted it took the "proverbial plunge," purchasing a Mindfire license.

"Our decision to purchase a Mindfire license coincided with our adopting a new strategy for promoting ourselves within the distributor community. I had run across the concept of permission-based marketing, at the center of which is sharing your 'intangibles' (knowledge, experience, etc.) with your target audience expecting nothing in return beyond their remembering you. Having the software required to invite people to educational webinars, and to do so using PURL technology gave that new strategy a real jump-start."

A Real Gem