Direct Mail Landing Pages – Examples & Ideas

It’s no surprise that direct mail continues to be a proven, successful marketing tool. Studies show that over 40% of direct mail recipients either read or scan mail they receive. What does that tell us? It tells us a few things. 

1. Direct mail recipients are a captive and engaged audience 
2. There’s huge opportunity to drive traffic to your website from direct mail pieces you’re already sending out

To us, it’s a no brainer to capitalize on the opportunity to mix both physical mail and digital and how do you do that? By using direct mail landing pages. There are a few different ways to incorporate landing pages into your direct mail marketing strategy and we’re sharing those here in this article. 

What Should Be On Your Landing Page?

The key to a successful landing page is a well constructed page. Landing pages differ from main website pages because they often are specific to a single product, service, sale or special offer only available to direct mail recipients. 

To help you get started, a landing page should include the following: 

• Headline – this should be a clear match to what was on your direct mail piece that highlights what you are promoting, or offering 
• Descriptive Text – the “body” of your landing page should give additional details about your business and/or what you’re offering to those that come to the page 
• Images & Videos – if you have images of work you’ve printed that’s relevant to what you’re promoting or a video that better explains who you are and your promotion
• Call to Action – a clear call to action is the key to direct mail landing page success. Whether that be an order or quote form or a phone number for someone to call, your landing page needs to tell visitors exactly what you want them to do

Using QR Codes on Direct Mail

QR codes, or quick response codes, have made a major comeback in the last few years. Businesses have started to utilize them more and more because they are easy to create and can easily drive users to a specific webpage. 

You invest time and money into your direct mail campaigns and hope they are successful and you see a return in the form of responses. An easy way to track the ROI of your campaigns, drive traffic to your website AND improve user experience, is by using QR codes in your direct mail pieces. 

As mentioned above, it’s been shown that people do engage with direct mail and there isn’t an easier way to get your direct mail recipients to your website than through a QR code that sends them to a dedicated landing page. Once you’ve created the landing page for your campaign, it’s as simple as generating a QR code that when scanned, sends a user directly to that page. 

The biggest benefit to using QR codes in direct mail is that it reduces the need for someone to type in a URL provided on a direct mail piece. They just have to scan and it takes them directly to the landing page. 

Direct Mail PURLs that Lead to Landing Pages

Although we just discussed the use and benefits of QR codes in direct mail landing pages, we want to touch on utilizing PURLs because it’s a common practice. PURLs, or personalized URLs, are unique web addresses built specifically for a marketing campaign. The URL often leads to a dedicated landing page used just for that campaign. A benefit to PURLs are the tracking capabilities but an even bigger advantage is the ability to customize the URL to the recipient which makes the experience for them more personal. 

PURLs in direct mail often have a much higher conversion rate because a recipient looks at a direct mail piece and sees a personalized-to-them website URL and immediately types it into their device to see what’s on the other side. This is a goldmine for businesses. 

You can take a standard direct mail piece promoting a new product or sale that likely wouldn’t have much engagement to a high converting campaign that not only drives website traffic but also converts. 

What Are Vanity URLs? A Direct Mail Hack

While PURLs are a great option for direct mail to landing page marketing, they can end up being long URLs that may turn recipients away because they have to type all the characters in order to visit the page. 

Vanity URLs on the other hand, are unique web addresses that are branded strictly for marketing purposes. Rather than being unique to an individual or recipient, vanity URLs are more universal to the overall campaign. 

If you’re sending out a direct mail piece on a back to school promotion, you can simply purchase a URL that is www.b2school.com or something similar that links to a landing page where someone can order or take advantage of the offer. In this example, the URL is likely much shorter compared to a PURL or your standard landing page URL. 

The biggest benefit to using vanity URLs in direct mail landing pages is the ease of use for those receiving your direct mail piece which results in a higher response and conversion rate.

There isn’t a one-size fits all way to use direct mail landing pages so our hope is that sharing some of these ideas and examples on ways to drive traffic to your website will help you get started for your next direct mail campaign. 

Contact Us Now for More Information