Presidential presentations with PURLs

I am in the middle of two projects right now, a PURL mini campaign in which I am soliciting members of the president's society (St. John's students who are the most involved) and creating a web presentation on how to utilize PURLS to increase contacts and response.

In both cases, I am looking at how I can creatively get folks to open materials, whom to segment and what methodology to utilize - is best practice an email and then a postcard? I know that mail responses are 300% better than postcard and 500% better then email responses for me - maybe it should be in a letter format? But how?

I had the brainstorm last week for the mini campaign at STJ to utilize an envelope that is wedding invitation reply size - small, simple, cheap and just begs to be opened, if the USPS doesn't lose them on me, with the president's office as the return address. That should solve that.

What to tell folks for 75 minutes about how to implement and utilize a PURL then? I will start off with the simple suggestion that it is simply a new way to raise curiosity. Maybe we should start off with spelling folks who are not connected names wrong and tell them they can update it by logging in. Would engender open rates through the roof - of course they would all be upset but I bet a huge portion of them would correct their information before they quit. Maybe worth trying with hardcore nondonors... have to think about that one!

In all reality, this simple offers a new opportunity to catch folks attention. It can be combined with VDP (variable data printing) to create an eye catching appeal that will generate responses but what I am really going to focus on is what is next - once they open that PURL what value are you providing - most likely only going to get this shot once for the less connected folks so you better make it good. I am connecting mine to microsites that offer a wiki or blog style interface and encourage alumni to interact. I am seeding that site with alumni who are already close to me - don't want folks to have the feeling of walking into an empty room. Maybe I will even be lucky enough to get the president to leave a message of thanks to the alums for their support as students. In any case, I am creating opportunities for engagement, adding value and web 2.0 style interaction to my solicitation. Ask me in June how it went.