Coupling QR Codes with Personalized URLs
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on Monday, May 21, 2012 
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This summer, the USPS is holding another mobile barcode discount program. In order to qualify for the discount, companies must either point the QR Code on their direct mail piece to a mobile commerce site or to a personalized mobile landing page.
Below I discuss the 2nd option — integrating PURLs and QR Codes. I hope you find this material helpful!
P.S. If you are interested in taking advantage of the USPS Mobile Barcode Discount program, please contact our team today!
Integrating QR Codes and Personalized URLs
QR codes offer a number of benefits for marketers. One of the most important is the ability to tie together the print, mobile and Web channels to increase the response rates on multichannel marketing efforts.
Since QR codes make it easy for people to jump from print to the Web, this intelligent tool can add to the success of your personalized URL (PURL) campaigns, too.
QR codes have the ability to lower the barriers often surrounding customer response which, in turn, leads to an increase in overall campaign response rate.
Here are several benefits that can be easily achieved by coupling QR codes with PURLs to boost the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns:
Providing one-to-one communication
PURLs can be embedded right into QR codes, so when a customer or prospect scans the code she is taken directly to her personalized landing page.
Once a recipient is at that personalized page, you have the opportunity to engage her and have a one-on-one dialogue.
Making it easy to respond
QR codes make PURLs portable. They allow the recipient to access each individual PURL without the need to sit in front of a computer.
Because people are on the go, and many carry their phones with them at all times, this portability is ideal in increasing the response rate.
Additionally, QR codes eliminate the need for a recipient to type what may be a rather lengthy PURL into her Web browser.
By simply pressing one button on their smartphone, your prospect or customer is automatically directed to her own personalized Web site. This eliminates the chance of typos and decreases the amount of effort required by the recipient to access the information.
Tracking and measuring
Every marketer knows there is nothing more important than being able to measure the success of a campaign.
PURLs provide the ability to track which recipients visit their personalized page and, depending on the level of the PURL, gather additional contact information about each individual.
Similarly, various software programs have been developed that will also record the amount of scans per day, what time those scans took place, the location of the scans, and the type of device being used to scan the code.
Together, QR codes and PURLs can provide a more complete picture of which recipients express interest and which leads are the hottest.
QR codes will only enhance the value PURLs already bring to campaigns, becoming a logical extension of the PURLs you may already be implementing. Use them to fill the gap that other cross-marketing tools cannot.
Tags Customer Tip: Add a File Upload field to your Landing Pages
Within ilinkONE Version 8′s marketing software, users can set up surveys, registration pages, feedback forms, download entry points, and more through our Campaign Management and Landing Page features.
Within that piece of our software, users can easily build Question & Answer forms for a variety of reasons. Most of our customers typically choose from Question Types such as:
- Multiple Choice
- Single Choice via Radio Buttons
- Single Choice via Dropdowns
- Open-Ended
But there is another option available that may assist you in your marketing efforts. That option allows you to create a field on a landing page that enables people to upload a file while they are filling out the form.
Using the File Upload Feature
If you are familiar with how to build campaigns and landing pages in our system, it is very easy for you to use the File Upload feature.
- To create a File Upload field, you’ll want to create/edit a Question for your campaign.
- On the “Edit Question” page, set the Question Type to “Single – Open Line Text” and then check the box for the “Display as File Upload” field.
Once you’ve taken those simple steps, the ilinkONE Version 8 software do the rest of work.
Next time that you view the landing page that those questions are associated to, you will see your web browser’s Upload File utility displayed with that question.
The system will store the images on the FTP server. You will be able to access them by simply finding the folder associated to the Client that you built the campaign for.
We hope that you find this feature useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our Customer Support team!
Three Ways to Personalize Your Direct Mail Efforts
If your company sends out direct mail (which it should be doing as part of multi-channel campaigns, right!), it is vital that you add personalization to your materials.
One benefit of doing that is it may help your materials stand out from the crowd. Also, personalizing direct mail helps us to demonstrate to our customers and prospects that we’re paying attention to them, and that we want to share relevant information and offers.
It really does boil down to this: When it comes to mail, the more enticing the material, the more likely a recipient will be to read it and take action. And a personalized direct mail piece can certainly be enticing!
If you are looking to personalize your direct mail pieces, here are three ideas worth considering.
3 Ideas for Personalizing Direct Mail
- Consider the location of the recipient and design the materials accordingly: By taking a look at the recipient’s location, you should be able to identify a data element that could be converted to personalized content. For example, if you are sending direct mail to promote your retail store, gym, or some other physical location, you could personalize the piece to show just how close the person is to that spot. This could be represented graphically, via a map, or simply in text (i.e. “you are less than 2 miles away!”)
- If you are targeting previous customers, appeal to that and possibly reference the product or service they purchased: If we are sending direct mail pieces to our existing customers, we truly have no excuse not to personalize our materials. Take the time to look at their purchase history. With that data, you should be able to ensure that the promotions and offers on your direct mail piece are truly relevant to them.
- Based on demographics that you know, select colors that may appeal to each group: This one may take a bit more research and creativity. But there certainly are studies out there regarding the effect that certain colors may have on different groups of people. If you can find a way to use the right ones for the segments inside of your target audience, you should be able to increase your response rates.
These are just a few ideas for how your marketing efforts can be improve with personalized direct mail.
Are there others that you’ve enjoyed creating or receiving? If so, please let me know in the Comments!
3 Tips for Succeeding with Direct Mail
One of my favorite people in the print industry, Margie Dana, wrote a fantastic piece this week that was titled “How Direct Mail Packs a Punch in 7 Ways“.
If you are looking for ways to improve your marketing efforts, her article is a must-read. It provides inspiration and incentive for companies to use direct mail to reach their prospects and customers.
If Margie’s post does inspire you, I’d like to share a few tips with you as well. Here they are!
3 Tips for Succeeding with Direct Mail
For companies that run direct mail campaigns, the ability to effectively measure the highs and lows of those campaigns is vital to the success of their advertising as a whole. The following tips will have you well on your way toward making the most out of your company’s direct mail marketing:
- Utilize a tracking software system that will measure the statistics of your campaign easily and efficiently: Yes, there is no denying that it may cost less money to send emails than it does to send direct mail. However, if the act of sending direct mail to your audience could bring you better results, wouldn’t you want to do that? Of course! However, we must put forth the effort to prove that is true.This may primarily mean that we set up our campaigns and landing pages in a way so that direct mail responses are measured differently than responses to your emails, social media posts, or activities on another channel.
Response mechanisms such as QR Codes and personalized URLs can help us measure direct mail effectiveness as well!
- Select a focused audience versus conducting a blind mailing effort, thus increasing the potential for successful contacts: The days of spray-and-pray must be a thing of the past. This is certainly true from a budgetary perspective. But it also should be true from the fact that technology makes it easier than ever to create targeted, personalized materials and by doing so, we can increase our response rates.By segmenting our audiences, we can deliver direct mail pieces that may have text, images, and offers that are relevant to each individual.
- Ensure that your direct mail pieces are both informative and aesthetically pleasing: We must never forget marketing fundamentals. Sure, it can be fun to get excited about new marketing channels (i.e. I’m so excited that I can add a PURL to my mailers!) However, we must not neglect putting forth an effort to ensure our direct mail pieces look good and tell a compelling story.
These are just a few of the ways that companies can successfully incorporate direct mail into their marketing mix. If you’d like to learn more or perhaps see how interlinkONE’s software can help you in that regard, click here.
Grow Big: A Success Story About Personalized URLs
I must send a very special thank you to Ab Kuijer for two things.
For one, he wrote a great book recently titled “Think Small, Grow Big”, which contains a ton of great content for companies that are looking to use social media effectively in their marketing efforts.
And second, I must thank him for mentioning our company in the book along with a great case success story regarding personalized URLs.
While I do not want to steal too much thunder from the book (buy a copy today!), here are the highlights from the case study:
- JuniorSenior used interlinkONE’s marketing software to generate a campaign that utilized personalized URLs
- The campaign was for the Cultural Youth Passport Organization in the Netherlands
- The goal was to inform their partners about a new “Culture Card” program
- Personalized URLs were created for each partner and were included on the letters and direct mail pieces that were sent out
- The URL directed people to a personalized landing page that presented information specific to the partner’s company
- They received a 71% response rate!
Now certainly, a response rate at that level is not typical. But when other marketing fundamentals are done right (having a great list, a compelling offer, strong design, helpful personalization), this case study helps to show that it can happen.
We hope that you enjoy Ab’s book, as well as the additional details about the case study that he included.
If you would like to learn how interlinkONE’s software could help you to generate campaigns that include personalized URLs, please let us know.
