CROSS-MEDIA CAMPAIGNS: THE BASICS

Define Targets, Attract Visitors & Analyze Results

A cross-media campaign typically includes a direct mail component and an electronic strategy like email. The addition of a personalized URL (PURL) landing page enhances one-to-one communication.

A PURL is a web address used for tracking response to a direct mail or email promotion. It has two parts: the recipient’s name (johnsmith) and a campaign-specific domain name (johnsmith.freebanking.com). PURLs are a cost-efficient tool with built-in measures to gauge the effectiveness of your message and collect important customer data. 

The distinguishing factor of a cross-media campaign is integrating these strategies so they support each other with consistent messaging and timing, rather than using each media channel independently. By combining direct mail, email and PURLs into one integrated campaign, you increase your return on investment (i.e. better response and conversion rates).

When you combine the precise targeting abilities of direct mail, the attention-grabbing relevance of a personalized url, and the immediacy and convenience of email, small businesses are experiencing dramatic improvements in their response rates and increased sales.

DEFINE…

The best place to start for a cross-media campaign is with your existing customers. Here’s why:

• Maintaining and enhancing relationships with your current customers is vastly more profitable than acquiring new customers.

• The process of categorizing your existing customers based on their specific interests, needs or wants will give you insights on how best to attract new customers with similar defining characteristics.

As you begin to identify the defining characteristics of each of your target market segments, you will gain valuable insight needed to identify new sources of people (or businesses) with similar needs, wants and interests. What demographics describe your markets? What interests do they have in common? 

One way to help stimulate your thinking is to spend some time looking through the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) of mailing lists available online and at the library. With over 50,000 lists available on every conceivable market, topic, interest or niche, you can find a universe to match virtually any criterion you can imagine.

And that’s really just the beginning. A good list broker or direct mail partner will have valuable insight and access to many additional lists which may not be available in the SRDS. In addition, local, state and federal government licensing boards and institutions maintain and make available (under the Freedom of Information Act) lists and information on a vast array of businesses and professional licensees. (Allegra Okemos can help you find the right mailing list for your specific campaign target. Just contact us to get started.)

If you have a clear idea of defining characteristics of the target markets you want to reach, you can rest assured there are lists available to reach them.

ATTRACT…

Now that you have defined the market you want to reach and you have a mailing list that matches your criteria, you need to create a direct mail piece that will motivate them to visit the personalized site you have prepared for them.

The biggest obstacle facing you is human inertia. It is always easier to simply do nothing! To overcome this you’ll need to rely on more than simple curiosity. You’ll have to offer the reader a benefit, a reason to stop what they are doing and visit their PURL online. You will need to appeal to their self interest – and the only way to do this is by providing information relevant to their needs and wants.

If it is consumers you are targeting, how can you help the reader save time or money, gain prestige, enjoy better health, end drudgery, live more comfortably, be free from worry, or have greater security and personal safety?

With business-to-business messages, you should still appeal to emotions. (After all, there are people behind those business decisions.) What can you offer to help them advance on the job? Look good to superiors? Most often – if your market is business, industry or intermediary buyers – the most compelling appeals are economic ones concerning price, availability, quality and suitability. The economic motive can be expanded upon to include efficiency in operation, dependability, reliability, durability, enhancement of productivity and economy of us--all factors, that in the end, make the individual or team look good.

ANALYZE…

The key to success in cross-media marketing--or any marketing--lies in testing all of the variables. Empirical proof is the only way you can separate theory from facts.

Testing can reveal very large differences in results caused by the media you choose, the message in your communications, as well as other factors. As a result, it is not unusual to double or triple the effectiveness of your marketing campaign through testing. And while trends come and go and the pulse of the public is ever changing, there is one rule that never changes: test everything on a small scale before you spend money on a large scale.

The most important variables to test are:

1. The mailing list used to reach your market.

Start by testing to find out which mailing list produces the greatest response. Use at least two different lists so you can establish a baseline and compare how much actual business resulted from each list. Differences of 500% or more are not unusual. Another way to put it: one dollar is doing the work of five!

 

2. The appeal/offer used in your campaign.

Test two different appeals or offers. While copy, art, design, photographs, illustrations and production value all influence response, the basic reason you give for buying, visiting, requesting more information, or other desired action is by far the most important. 

Usually expressed in the headline of an ad (or opening paragraph of a mailing) the right appeal can overcome weak copy, poor graphics or any number of other sins. At the same time, beautiful design and clever copy cannot overcome a weak call-to-action.

3. The visitor’s behavior on their PURL.

Finally, analyze visitor behavior on the response site. Today’s PURL software packages come complete with tracking and analytic reporting. With these features you can instantly get an extraordinarily deep understanding of your customers' behavior and how best to reach them. In fact, the depth and amount of information available can be so overwhelming, you can easily lose sight of the most important and useful information.

If your PURL includes a link to your main website, you can also access and analyze reports here, too. First, focus on understanding the sources of traffic to your site and the relative profitability of each. Then work on improving conversion by testing and comparing content and design of any page on your site.

NEXT STEP

The distinguishing factor of a cross-media campaign is integrating these strategies so they support each other with consistent messaging and timing, rather than using each media channel independently. By combining direct mail, email and PURLs into one integrated campaign, you increase your return on investment--better response and higher conversion rates.

When you combine the precise targeting abilities of direct mail, the attention-grabbing relevance of a personalized url, and the immediacy and convenience of email, small businesses are experiencing dramatic improvements in their response rates and increased sales.

To discuss PURLs, direct mail lists, design or copywriting, or other cross-media marketing topics, contact us at Allegra Okemos at 517.333.0713. We're here to help grow your business as your printing and marketing partner.