Not your grandma's PURLs

Over the last year I have spoken to a number of folks who have implemented a PURL campaign with great expectations and then gotten a response rate in the single digits and little to no engagement or results. My first question of them has always been "who did you use" and they have almost to a person responded with the name of a printer. Now not holding anything against the commercial print world - have some very good relationships there and there are many things that those folks excel at. This is not one of them. Let me say that again to be clear - printers are NOT the source for PURL creation.

In order to make a PURL campaign effective and work it requires work. This includes a creative implementation, a smart and effective marketing campaign (including but not limited to print) and customization of the PURL program. That customization needs to include expertise in programming and marketing, not print production and that means working with a media company with extensive experience in the digital production environment.

In addition, the campaign needs to be focused and built around a meaningful aspect or reflection on the institution. This can be based on historical role, religion, service, athletics or countless other aspects of what makes the organization or a segment of the constituency similar and interested. What won't work is what carried PURLs for the first 2 or 3 years of their use: novelty and pride.

You need to establish value to the end user - odds are good that they have seen several PURLs already so this is much harder than it once was. You can make inroads into this through planning, selecting a PURL domain and building a campaign around it that shares information and provides as much to the user as you ask them to provide to you.

As you build out the campaign consider the mobile platform and implementation - statistics show that 40% of all emails opened are on a mobile device and you can increase that open on mobile platforms through utilization of QR codes in the print and online materials you market it with. The PURL and associated pages need to be mobile browser friendly and you need to consider that it will be responded to on a mobile platform in an environment full of distractions.

How you market this also needs to change - what works for you already and how do you incorporate this into that? Is it facebook ads? Is it direct mail? Your electronic newsletter? Direct email? Put the PURL into everything that you send for 3 months. Provide incentives for folks to answer it and forward it to friends. Include it in your phone calls and follow up materials.

Finally, the back end of the campaign matters. A lot. Make sure that you have real time access to the data, make sure that you have it programmed to provide what you want. This is not an inexpensive tool, don't cut corners to save a few dollars in exchange for substantial drops in reporting and results.

PURLs can be powerful and useful tools to engage and solicit constituents but the free lunch they were once providing has gotten up and danced away making vendor/partner selection a crucial aspect of implementation.