Turning Mailing Lists Into Databases
Thursday, 06 October 2011 00:00
One of the factors that has traditionally scared marketers away from any kind of database marketing is the lack of databases. This is where personalized URLs really shine. Personalized URLs don’t require detailed customer databases. They can help create them.
With a little marketing savvy, personalized URLs can turn even a basic mailing list into a highly qualified prospect list. This is because each campaign can be used to gather more information that can be appended back into your marketing database to be used for more precise targeting later.
Say the program is for Bob’s Landscaping. The company rents a list of homeowners within a 20-mile radius, with each homeowner making at least $100,000 per year. It sends out a four-color mailer featuring an outstandingly landscaped yard that invites recipients to log in to their own personalized URL to see if they’ve won a free landscaping design consultation and $500 worth of landscaping services.
Each recipient’s mailer is printed with his or her own unique URL—www.bobslandscaping.com/marshagraves or www.bobslandscaping.com/bobpearson. When recipients log in, they are greeted by name and asked to take a short survey before finding out if they’ve won. The survey includes questions to help the landscaper with prospecting, such as the timeframe of the homeowner’s next landscaping project, what kind of yard they have (primarily shade, primarily sun, part shade/part sun), what types of plants they prefer, and whether or not they would like someone from Bob’s Landscaping to contact them.
This gives Bob’s Landscaping an extremely well qualified prospecting list and, with knowledge of prospects’ landscaping needs, allows the company to refine its marketing efforts and prioritize its leads.
In the meantime, recipients learn whether or not they are winners in the sweepstakes. They can also browse the company’s website, where their online behavior can be tracked. Which pages did they click on? How long did they stay? Did they view videos? Download PDFs? About what kinds of services did they seek more information? All of this is important, not only for prospecting, but for helping Bob’s Landscaping refine its Web presence.
In an age in which customer databases are increasingly important, the ability of personalized URLs to simplify and streamline the process is a critical element of their value proposition.
