Hope for Businesses Marketing with a Strict Local Geography and Reach
In the marketing industry and in lead selling, we are often asked for internet leads for any number of business types. Most lead buyers have at one point purchased an internet lead and done fairly well with them subject to the health of the industry they participate in, the saturation level and amount of competition in the industry and the quality of the lead provider and publisher. What those who are not in the publishing world don’t fully grasp is that most media that produces leads on a cost per unit/lead basis is done on a national campaign basis and any restriction on states may increase cost because a lead provider must account for and move leads generated in every state. If there are unaccounted for leads that hurts the average price paid for leads in the market whether it is radio, TV or internet.
So, what is a local business to do with their marketing? Is there hope? I would definitively say yes!!!! Direct Mail has always produced one of the highest quality inbound calls of the many lead generation strategies today and while it is not the most exciting campaign out there, the direct mail campaign produces a hot inbound call. But wait! It gets much better. For those who want an online presence and leads from the internet, that can be achieved through direct mail pieces using P.U.R.L.S also known as Personal URL’s.
For a moment, let’s break down a typical direct mail campaign. Data and mail is paid for and invoiced. Data is ordered and filtered with input from a purchasing company with the goal of creating the most responses from prospects who fit the desired characteristics. Essentially this should look like the mold of their ideal customer. So mail is received in the home and there is an 800 number on the mail piece and a call to action that is geared to motivate the recipient to pick up the phone and call now. There are lots of people who pick up the phone and call companies that have sent them a direct mail offer. But, what about all of those people that are too timid and reluctant to respond? What about those who have been scammed or hurt by somebody they thought was legitimate? Truthfully, they will not pick up the phone. What about tech savvy people who by nature respond online? The internet gives them a veiled response and request for more information that gives them protection and anonymity to an extent. These people probably won’t pick up the phone either but when you add a personal URL, mail recipients who may not be comfortable responding by phone actually do respond online. This includes the suspicious and the tech driven prospect.
So just what is a PURL? That is the question. A Personal URL represents the marriage of a direct response mail campaign with online technology to produce a diversified response from prospective clients. It is a cost effective way to bridge the gap between direct response mail and online/internet lead campaigns that are so desirable in today’s market. It is a URL that is dedicated to the name of the recipient of the mail. Its goal is to pry loose response from those people that simply would not respond otherwise. The personal URL dedicates a landing page personally to the mail recipient. This landing page may be generic or maybe more importantly customized to the message that a sales organization wants to extend to the mail recipient motivating them to call. For example: If you are mailing to Johnny Smith you would have a personal URL that is something like www.johnnysmith.com. This will take the responder to an offer and it is up to them to continue by putting in a reference code or approval id that allows them to open a form to request contact and information via the internet. The form is filled out and the submit button is pressed and it brings a thank you message to the screen and the online request is sent to the company that mails as an online response and internet lead. I don’t believe a mail campaign should ever go out without personal URL’s if the goal is to have greater response and more closed deals.
So there you have it. Expand response with personal URL’s and close prospects whose way of doing business is not calling in on offers but responding online. To ignore this group of people is to ignore another pocket of revenue and sales that you fail to tap into and it is right before your eyes!
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