The Power of the pURL
Front cover project blends print with GAM subscribers’ personalized Websites.
By Mark Vruno -- Graphic Arts Online, 5/1/2008
Whether they know it or not, each of GAM’s more than 70,000 subscribers has their own “www” online address (see front cover for yours). The magazine’s editors have taken the liberty of assigning personalized Websites as part of a semi-annual data renewal effort.
In a classic case of form following content, GAM editor-in-chief Bill Esler picked up the phone and called MindFireInc, a nine-year-old, Irvine, CA firm that he’d seen exhibiting at Graph Expo and elsewhere. MindFire develops applications and services to help marketers synchronize direct-mail campaigns with the interactive capabilities of the Internet.
The company’s research shows that one in three people prefers responding to direct mail online. And sending them to a cookie-cutter corporate Website just isn’t good enough for today’s Web-savvy audiences, whose attention demands more meaningful dialog. 
Personalized URL (pURL) marketing does this via “VIP” landing pages, where respondents stay interested longer and are more likely to make a purchase or, in this case, renew their subscription.
As part of the pURL development, MindFireInc’s flagship product, LookWho’sClicking, helps automate the creation and management of a pURL for every recipient. The activity of each respondent is tracked and reported, and leads are automatically sent to sales teams for prompt follow-up. MindFireInc practices what it preaches, too, creating a mass-media landing page (www.HigherPageVolume.com) to gauge the success of this cover project. (See the company’s ad on facing page.)
Developing the subscriber homepage script was a collaborative effort. GAM’s circulation department in Colorado provided subscriber information, including names (up to 30 characters), account numbers, renewal dates and source codes revealing the method of last contact. Readers not due for renewal are presented with an opportunity to subscribe to our e-GAM newsletter instead.
At press time, the online script is being finalized, with plans for early respondents to receive a gift card as an incentive for providing feedback. Depending on the geographic location, your personal Web page may include local weather reports and an image of your state’s official bird. And there also may be an educational video about pURLs as well as a survey section where you can vote for your favorite GAM columns and topics.
Senior art director Anne LoCascio worked out the details with MindFireInc and GAM printer, Fry Communications (Mechanicsburg, PA), which inkjetted your URL on the cover using a Videojet Print Pro with a Heidelberg controller. LoCascio also provided graphics to VI HelpDesk, a MindFireInc customer based in Tempe, AZ, that created the personalized landing pages. (VI HelpDesk provides variable data file-prep software support for commercial and quick printers using the MindFireInc applications.)
GAM’s next attempt at truly integrated marketing may be this fall, with more pURLs of wisdom tied to variable-data print produced on a digital press.
ONLINE: go to mindfireinc.com and VIHelpdesk.com
