It stood out in the shipment of direct mail that accumulated during last week's road trip, a glossy, over-sized postcard touting the power of personalized URLs. It was digitally printed, used first-name personalization in the copy on the address side, had a PURL, and a postal bar code. But there were things wrong with the card. My name, for example, was nowhere to be found. Someone else's name and company was, though, along with a PURL containing his name. But my street, city, state and zip were correct. Hmmm.

So I revved up Firefox and plugged in the PURL to find the initial landing page largely an opportunity to correct my "information," which amounts to the name and company name--not the address. Clicking deeper I quickly got to a sales pitch and an opportunity to spend money, but little about what a PURL is, how it works, how I can use it, what it can do for my business, or anything. The "thank you" page at the end was also not personalized.

Since my address was used, I suspected a purchased list. So I modified the PURL to use my name and arrived at a different landing page asking me some questions and a link to an offer. Next, I called a colleague who seems to be on many of the same lists as I to see if he had also gotten a postcard. He had, with the same errors. Then I substituted the names of some other industry colleagues which brought me to their landing pages and the same links. Checking further, I plugged in the names of friends outside the printing industry. Those got me to the sending company's home page, not a personalized one. So it really was a live list that was either wrong to begin with or something went south during document composition or printing, and at least a portion of the cards went out due to inadequate quality control. This stuff happens. Been there, done that, having learned the hard way about this kind of error about 20 years ago.

But while I have professional curiosity, would the average recipient bother to even look at a card addressed to someone else, much less plug in the PURL? Probably not. So much for effective cross-media marketing.

The bigger problem here is not just that the mailing went wrong, but that a (possibly substantial) portion of the intended audience was marketers who just might be interested in using PURLs for their next direct marketing program. And if they get a mailing from a company offering its services for cross-media campaigns, but which has visible errors in its own direct marketing program, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in how well they will handle a program for its customers.

The point is that if you are going to offer new technology, be sure you can make it work before you roll it out to the market. Whether you choose to buy the software or use an ASP model, learn how to use the tools or services involved, how to implement the appropriate levels of quality control, and make the offer one that engages the recipient, not simply offers a supposedly great deal. It's still Marketing 101: People buy what products do, and with technology products and services most prospects out there still need some education along with the offer.