Personalized URLs Work for Nonprofits

April 1, 2011 By Ethan Boldt

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Today, every fundraiser understands that direct mail can't do it all. Any campaign needs the other channels, to some extent ... and ideally on the same page. And while the closely coordinated direct-mail and e-mail campaigns are both popular and successful today, perhaps the most effective demonstration of the offline-online marriage is a personalized URL (PURL) campaign.

These campaigns, it turns out, work remarkably well for the nonprofit space. Such campaigns, three of which fall into the fundraising category, are explored in the comprehensive report "PURLs for Profit: Your everything-you-need-to-know guide to personalized URLs, including: Best Practices on why they work, campaign strategy, multichannel creative, analytics and 10 Case Studies." Just published, click here to find out more.

So, what kinds of fundraising organizations qualify for a PURL campaign? It's surprisingly simple and far-ranging.

"Any client looking to engage with their customers uniquely or those who have access to a database for a marketing campaign," says Shawn Burst, founder of Dukky, a custom landing page and analytics software platform.

Crystal Uppercue, marketing manager at direct-marketing services provider EU Services, agrees and says fundraising is a PURL natural — she mentions any type of organization that has membership and higher education organizations as two examples.

In the report, one case study features the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, Pa. It used a series of three postcards with a PURL to drive lapsed donors to personalized URLs. These lapsed donors were not just any lapsed donors. They had not made a contribution to the campaign at any time over a 10-year period, even though their support had been solicited on a yearly basis through direct-mail programs.

How did the personalized URL fit into the project?
Diocesan development and marketing staff developed an innovative campaign-communication structure that's content did not focus on an appeal for campaign participation but, rather, on questions that would reaffirm this group's participation in its faith using targeted and personalized messaging.

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Personalized URLs Work for Nonprofits