1.    Begin with the Desired Action: Each campaign starts by defining a desired action for a specific audience within the industry and plan backward from there.

2.    Make it Highly Relevant: Deliver the message that appears “natural” from the audience’s perspective. Offer compelling benefit exchange and appeal to their values.

3.    Make it Inescapable: Deliver the message by Postcards, by Landing Pages and by Emails. Nothing can replace the power of “Reach and Frequency”.

4.    Stake Out a Unique Competitive Position: The marketing campaign must be designed to reinforce the unique competitive position of your product. The messaging must be uniquely positioned in order to stands apart from the crowd.

5.    Extend the Brand: Project why your product or service offering is the best option over the alternatives.

6.    Make it Viral: Try to encourage recipients to help spread the word and reward them for making referrals that results in leads or conversions.

7.       Test, Optimize and Test Again: Version the campaigns as appropriate and track the responses. Fine-tune as needed on the fly and measure the results. Repeat as necessary.

Discovery is an invaluable prerequisite for PURL Campaign Planning. The best way to draw up a successful blueprint for any campaign is to build it upon a sound knowledgebase. Before you start planning your PURL campaign strategy, I highly recommend that you begin by being as smart as possible. How? By conducting germane research and asking a lot of questions to learn as much as possible about the key factors affecting your campaign. Gather pertinent information regarding the business you are in, the current state of its industry, the competitive arena and perhaps most importantly, your marketplace. Who are you targeting? What are their expectations? Where and how are they making their purchasing decisions?

By anticipating your prospective customers’ needs, you can deliver relevant offerings and win their confidence. You’ll want to identify the “barriers” as well as the “enablers” of your campaign performance. I call this process “Discovery” and I consider it to be a mission critical component towards the development of successful PURL campaigns. Don’t be shy about asking as many questions as necessary until you are crystal clear of your starting point and the ultimate objective(s) you wish to achieve. Your clients or associates shouldn’t mind taking the time to answer your inquiries. After all, regardless of your campaign objective, the ultimate payoff is the return on your investment.