We're big fans of direct mail, likely due to all my years at Xerox. They say the trick in achieving a good response is compelling copy, the offer, and degree of personalisation. A new twist in personalisation is including not just the recipients name, but a unique, personalised webpage for them to go to, called a PURL. It provides an easy place for them to instantly respond, subscribe, purchase or gain more information on the product or service being offered on the mailer.

PURLs - The Catalyst for Direct Mail Growth? Several US companies provide a complete Print+PURL service, boasting response rates from 15-50%! Small Business Marketing guru David Frey outlines it all in this video and provides some tips on how the small business sector can use PURLS with direct mail, benefiting themselves and printers. Confused? Watch the video below.

Firstly, review todays variable printing problems
We looked at the clients perspective in last months popular variable print, variable success article. Basically, most small business owners today don't use direct mail widely because of the cost, complexity and security concerns. Also, for most direct mail print providers, the small 200-1,000 print run doesn't make sense either...

David mentioned the need to use a good 'variable data printer' being someone with a digital colour press and expertise in direct mail and variable colour printing. But here in NZ, although there are hundreds of variable-capable Xerox, Canon and Konica printing devices around, the front-end skills are scarce.

Those few that do have the expertise have to charge extra to cover the many hours needed to set a variable job. $1,000 or more is typical. On a $400 short-run print job, it's a major disincentive for customers to go variable. Adding in complexity and costs isn't the answer. There's also security concerns. Most businesses we've talked to are certainly not keen on letting out their client address database that's needed to run a variable colour, direct mail job!

But what if we could eliminate the design, offset print, database integration, special prepress and inserting components - only need to perform the digital colour printing and guillotining tasks, just like a 'normal' job...

Let's Keep it simple
One obvious solution is to let the client take care of the database and file generation themselves, using software they already know.

It's easy. By providing customers with special design templates in an MS Word format, non-technical business users can use Word's powerful mail merge feature to generate the complete file with static high res images and personalised text elements including mailing address. To eliminate envelope, label and inserting costs a postcard format is ideal. Unlike a few years back, todays fast PCs handle all this with few problems. We'll even convert an existing job or logo designed in Adobe software, into a Word-compatible format.

Providing a customised pdf driver helps too, ensuring files arrive in a suitable print-ready format. Many US corporates have been using this method to send out their direct mail jobs for many years. Innovative Digital printshops there happily process these 200 or 20,000-page pdf files without problems. Some don't even open the incoming file - they just drop it into a pre-defined print queue that also checks, repairs and imposes the job. It's easy work and easy money.

The Quality? Against all expectations and industry truths, the overall design and print quality achieved using MS Word can be stunning, which means a delighted customer.

Creating Real Value
The bottom line is that what once took days, sometimes weeks of effort and lots of money can now be done in minutes for little cost. The client takes over the file design, creation and database merge, the printshop does the printing, finishing and perhaps assists with the original design templates... 

The speed, simplicity and low cost greatly encourages small businesses to actively market themselves regularly using direct mail. In many respects, it's actually easier for them than email marketing and being print, it has a 99% delivery rate, instead of emails 20-30%. Plus, by adding in our PURL technology as outlined above, we increase response rates by 4-5 times.

For the client, the icing on the cake is not just the numbers, but the speed of response, and because a website is involved, just like email, everything is tracked. Actually, when compared with what agencies charge for an email newsletter campaign (click here) direct mail postcards with PURL links not only gives 3-5 times better delivery and response, but may be cheaper too! (How ironic we're using unreliable email to tell you about it. Look out for a postcard in the new year).

It's a brand new market, just waiting to be tapped... 

P.S. We're now looking for limited number of digital print providers to work with to quickly develop this unique, high potential print market opportunity. To offer small businesses a fast 'PURL-enhanced' direct mailing service - We take care of the PURL websites, marketing and software bits, you look after the postcard printing, finishing and delivery. Qualifying printers will be appointed on an area by area basis. Interested? Phone or email me now  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

Kevin Trye   pH Auckland (09) 889 0480 or Christchurch (03) 669 0181

PURL Software - Buy here 

Comments (3)

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written by Kevin Trye, December 13, 2007

Big images in Word are certainly problematic. We use several template tricks (and $49 of software) to make it work. I just 'built' a mail merge job with 500 recipients including a big background image. It took my PC 10 minutes and resulting high res file for upload or email to the printer was just 2MB. A simple process few businesspeople would object to.

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written by Robert D, December 13, 2007

My operator just tried a big mail merge in Word with high res images. The resulting document file size was over 800MB. How could this system possibly work?

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written by Jeff Lin, December 13, 2007

So this means I don't have to worry about nasty databases or buying expensive variable print software and I can still run clients variable colour jobs? Sounds great. Sign me up!