What is direct marketing? Direct marketing involves putting your offer directly into the hands of people you think might be interested in it. Typically, direct marketing has been done via direct mail. Nowadays it may be supplemented with email marketing and VIP landing pages.
Direct marketing can be contrasted to display and broadcast marketing, in which all readers, listeners or viewers receive the same message indiscriminately. Direct marketing campaigns can be numerically measured for effectiveness, something difficult to do with display and broadcast campaigns.
What are VIP landing pages? VIP landing pages are websites customized for a single user that allow the user to respond to your direct mail on the Internet. When you include a landing page in your campaign, your prospects have a convenient online alternative to traditional response methods such as call centers and business reply cards.
What are PURLs?
Personal Universal Record Locators are the web addresses people use to access their VIP landing pages. As the name indicates, they are personalized for each recipient.
What do prospects see when they arrive at their Laser Direct landing page?
They first see a Welcome Page that includes your logo, your creative, and specific information about your offer, as well as a personal greeting highlighting their name.
What else is included in a typical VIP landing page?
A VIP landing page can have up to four components, including a:
- Welcome Page
- Survey Page (optional)
- Profile Confirmation Page (optional)
- Thank You Page
It may also include a Flash introduction. The Welcome Page and Thank You page may be versioned.
What does “versioned” mean? Versioning refers to customizing the content of the page based on information about the viewer. For example, we can alter what appears on the Thank You Page depending on how viewers answer questions on the Survey Page.
What can PURLS and VIP landing pages do for my direct marketing? They are direct marketing’s missing link, allowing you to:
- Quickly generate and qualify leads
- Gather more information about the your prospects’ interests
- Adjust messaging and creative content on the fly, as you monitor landing page activity
- Continue addressing your prospects with ever more relevant mail and email
How do Laser Direct integrated campaigns work? They can work in many different ways. One example would be:
- A direct mail piece invites your prospect to visit his or her landing page to learn more about your offer, product or service
- A survey on the landing page requests information about his or her interest in your offer
- Based on answers to the survey, a lead is sent to your follow up person
- A Profile Confirmation Page asks your prospect to confirm his contact information
- A Thank You Page provides more information or links to white papers, corporate websites and so on
- Each step is carefully tracked by our system to assess campaign effectiveness
For greater security, can you add login codes to PURLS? Yes, at your option.
Will Laser Direct campaigns support my sales team? Yes. When prospects visit their VIP landing pages and fill in your survey they pre-qualified themselves. This information is immediately transferred to your representatives’ smartphones or computers for appropriate follow up.
What can I ask my prospects on the Survey Page? Anything you want to.
What is a campaign dashboard?
A campaign dashboard is a real-time summary of the overall activity on the VIP landing pages associated with your campaign. You access your campaign dashboard via a website we provide as part of your Laser Direct package of services.
What is personalized or variable data printing? Modern digital presses can vary the text, images, colors and layout of each and every print over the course of a press run. This allows you to tailor and design messages that are relevant to each of your prospects, and add individual PURLS to each their pieces.
How much customization can modern digital presses handle? Traditional direct marketing mail pieces are typically customized by varying the names and addresses that go on each piece only. With Laser Direct’s system you can vary everything on each piece, according to your goals and what you know about your prospects.
What do you mean when you say your campaigns are personal? We strive to send each of your prospects information relevant to him or her as an individual, according to what you know about their interests.
What do you mean when you say your campaigns are interactive? Laser Direct’s VIP landing pages let your prospects talk back to you and tell you more about what they want from you. What you learn allows you to treat them more personally in future interactions.
What do you mean when you say your campaigns are measurable? One of the strengths of Laser Direct marketing is that you can track responses and compare the value you receive to the cost of your campaign.
What measures do you use to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns? Cost per response is one measure. Return on investment is a better measure.
Will you help me calculate the return on investment of my campaigns? Yes.
Can you work with my existing collateral? Yes. It is usually easy to add PURLs to your current designs.
How do you price your service? We give you a fixed price for each campaign, based on the campaign development, execution, and management and review services you use. Campaign costs also vary with the size of your mail list, the number of mailings in your campaign, and the complexity of your mail pieces.
Does your fixed campaign price include postage? No. We cannot compute postage until we presort your mailing list.
So how much does a typical campaign cost? Laser Direct campaigns typically run from around $4,000 to $12,000 depending on the development services you require, your mail piece complexity, the number of mailings in your campaign, and the size of your list.
Can a campaign include multiple mailings? Yes. Multiple mailings often make campaigns more effective. The cost of multiple mailings can be included in your fixed price, and their timing is completely flexible.
Can you do “trigger” campaigns? Yes. We can send your prospects mail triggered by events such as birthdays, when subscription or lease terms are about to lapse, or other relevant dates. We can send out such mailings individually, even one at a time.
Who uses this kind of marketing? - Candidates for political office use it to survey voters and raise money
- Nonprofits and alumni associations use it to give people an easy way to donate online
- Automobile dealerships use it to promote weekend sales, end-of-lease programs and service specials
- Manufacturers use it to sell services and supplies, and to promote trade show traffic
- University admissions departments use it to promote applications and improve matriculation rates
- Professional organizations use it to promote seminar enrollment and attendance
- You can use it in many other ways limited only by your imagination!