pURLs

Measurement & Tracking Feedback Loop

It is important to include a means of tracking and measuring campaign results. Postage paid Business Reply Cards (BRCs) or envelopes, coupons, or discount codes are often used in printed direct mail campaigns, but these require the recipient to manually communicate back to the marketer or sales rep, as well as a manual process for tracking the response. This can limit the response and the ability to accurately track the results of the campaign.

Multi-Channel solutions provide more efficient, immediate, and accurate ways of measuring not just responses, but overall performance and the complete tally of campaign results. e-Mail and personalized URLs provide a more interactive approach to establishing that all-important dialogue with the recipient.

However the tracking mechanism is designed, it should provide an easy way to measure how many recipients responded, who they are, what offer they responded to, and what actions they took.

In conventional direct marketing, there are many actions a recipient can take that are not traceable. If provided a pURL, the recipient is more likely to visit the resulting Web microsite either to gain more information or simply out of curiosity. This offers the marketer one more opportunity to interact and keep the dialogue going. As an added benefit, by incorporating the Web in this way, the marketer can have access to real-time data as the campaign progresses, along with a more accurate measurement of the results. Conducting a campaign in waves also provides the marketer with the ability to assess the effectiveness of individual offers, creative, and communications mechanisms that can then be refined to deliver even better results over time.

Multi-Channel Campaign Workflow

The first communicationis typically some form of direct mail (print or e-mail). This document can include both static and variable information, such as first name, as well as a pURL. The pURL will take the recipient to a personalized Web page where they may answer survey questions or enter data into form fields. This data is stored and helps the marketer to build a database for future, more relevant mailings – including a “Thank You” email that is automatically sent to the recipient at the conclusion of his Web visit. At the same time, an email can also be sent to the local sales representative who can then contact the recipient—all of this can happen within minutes as opposed to hours, days, or weeks with traditional methods.