What's a PURL or personalized website?

We've been offering PURL's or Personal Websites for a while now, and I'm finding many dealers don't know what they are, and are having trouble seeing the value in them. This post is going to be just a basic explanation of what these snazzy little websites can do for you and why you might want to give them a shot. I'll do some Frequently Asked Questions early next week, if you have a question please leave it as a comment or shoot me an email with it and I'll be sure it makes the list (sthompson@triauto.com). First off, what's a PURL? These are not the type your wife (or yourself) ask for as Christmsa gifts! PURL stands for "Personal url" a "url" is a Uniform Resource Locator, or in regular person terms, a website. So for our purposes it's a Personal Website, but PURL is shorter so that's what I'm using for the rest of the article :) Who is the personal in PURL? Your future customer. Anyone you send a mailer to will have their own personalized website. On the mailer it may something like "Attention John, check out your website below for additional offers & discounts: www.Reveal.MyNextVehicle.com/JohnSample" Every mailer will have a different website with the person's name included in the URL. What is the experience like for the PURL user? It's simple really. They type the website into the Internet browser and it takes them to a site that is personalized with their name, and has a copy of your mailer & dealership information. It asks them 3 quick questions and gathers a little more contact info (in addition to name and address which are already there). If you really want to know what the experience is like, go to www.Reveal.MyNextVehicle.com/JohnSample, be sure to fill out the contact info with your name & email address. You'll then receive an email from "the dealership" thanking you for your participation. The dealership would then receive and email immediately with your contact info and the answers to your questions. In short, the experience is:

1. Log on to PURL
2. Fill out quick questions & info
3. Receive thank you email from dealership immediately
4. Receive follow up email correspondence or email from an actual person at the dealership within the next couple of hours

Why would I put a PURL on my direct mailer?

1. You gain new responders. The people that respond to mail by walking in the door or picking up the phone are different from the people willing to go online to check things out.
2. PURL responders are much more likely to be in the market than your typical prize seeker. Over 60% of our respondents say they are in the market to buy in the next 6 months.
3. PURLS drive more traffic to your website. Most dealers I talk to are trying to get more people on their website-at the end of the PURL they can click to "view inventory" which takes them directly to your site.
4. You get their email addresses and you know how these people like to be marketed to. Building a large & valid email database is becoming more and more important. You can now keep in touch with these people for the long term by adding them to your email list. You also know the best way to reach them is via the Internet since that's how they reached you (see my post on customer follow up for more http://directmaildiva.blogspot.com/2008/12/customer-follow-up-on-automotive.html)
5. You close more car deals. These leads are real and timely, most are in the market & they are usually on your website looking at inventory when you get the email letting you know they've visited their PURL. What is a hotter lead than that?

That's all for now on PURL's. If you haven't experienced this type of marketing before please take a minute to go to the sample site & follow the steps. The best way to understand this technology is to experience it. I'm excited to answer any additional questions readers have on this one--so please get them over to me this week or weekend.

Let's Connect!

With the weather outside as it is in Indiana, I'm considering this a working snow day (don't tell my boss!). So in lieu of a long post today I just wanted to share additional ways to connect with me & more importantly, your future customers.

If you haven't started looking into the social marketing craze-a slow day like today will have to be in the midwest-might be a good day to do some research online. Using Social Networking is a great way to connect to possible customers in a personal, one one one way. I just found this post that has a lot of great suggestions for how to get started:

http://blog.blogcatalog.com/guest-blogger/7-quick-tips-for-branding-yourself-through-social-networking/

If you start joining or updating your profiles on these sites please look me up on the sites below--then if you have any questions, just ask! I'm by no means and expert but have been getting my feet wet! Happy Wednesday!

Twitter

Linkedin

Facebook

MySpace

Opening the Month?

Next week when I'm making my calls to check in & start talking about February I'll hear a lot of "call me in a couple of days I'm closing out the month." I know I've mentioned this first week of the month phenomena before--the first week--when nothing can happen, when hours are spent looking backward, and an entire week of the month in front of us is wasted and just allowed to slip by. I'm proposing something new--a new was of thinking. This new way of thinking is to take place on the last week of the month. It's called "opening the month." This will be a week of planning and thinking. A week of taking the time to compile actual data from last month and deciding what worked, and what didn't. Yes, final numbers won't be in, but by the time they are, it no longer matters. After realizing what worked for you--call back your marketing people in those areas and ask them what's working for them now & what they expect to work next month. Just think-when the month starts you already know what type of advertising you'll be doing & you have some ideas on what it will look like! A large majority of our business goes to press the second week of the month. What's that mean? It means a large majority of mail is going out the final week or week and a half of the month because no one takes the time to plan ahead of time. Be one of the "planners" and capitalize on being the first dealership to send out the latest piece. This goes for mail, internet, TV, radio etc. This week, why not start OPENING THE MONTH of February?