PURLs: Why the MEDiaHEAD booth was the most well attended at our industry trade show.

By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

A month before our event, we sent a variable custom mailer to each of the attendees inviting them to visit a landing page for a free promotion. We used a PURL (Personalized URL) which led them to a custom micro website created with just that one person in mind, the recipient of a specific direct mail piece. In a campaign where 10,000 pieces are mailed, there will be 10,000 different personalized websites generated.

Not only does each website have a unique URL, but the PURL landing page typically greets the recipient by name. Because each website is unique, it’s very easy for the sender to determine which recipients responded to the mailing.

When they visited the micro website, they were able to choose a product – fairly normal for a trade show, BUT: we generated a huge response by allowing the recipient to upload a picture of their favorite thing – dogs, children or funny photos that we printed as a poster, notepad or on a deck of cards.

At the show our booth was mobbed with attendees picking up their gifts and chatting with us.

They were able to see the high quality that we were able to print digitally on their product in addition to the samples we had displayed from other projects. (And we were also able to capture their email addresses for future marketing initiatives.)

Successful marketing applications for PURLs can be found across nonprofit, for-profit businesses and even government. PURLs have been used effectively with existing customers & donors, and with new prospects. Any organization that wants to start a conversation with an audience, or pre-qualify a group of prospects should consider using PURLs!