Sometimes, a new combination of common things creates something new and exciting. Everyone understands direct mail, email marketing and websites. Many are familiar with variable printing and personalized URLs (pURLs). But how many have seen a system that combines all of these into a single messaging engine?

PitchRocket is a new web-application which combines these common activities to deliver uncommon results. Other applications combine email and direct mail (like Vertical Response, Exact Target and Amazing Mail), and pURLS have been around for awhile.

Common Marketing Tactics – Combined

But the PitchRocket engine puts them all together, mixing traditional media with digital media to deliver a unique experience for both recipients and users.

The folks at Ad Giants are behind PitchRocket, and for full disclosure, we just announced a strategic partnership with a long-term goal of synergizing their upcoming marketing execution tools with our upcoming marketing planning application.

But back to PitchRocket. From it, users can access and filter their lists, select and customize creative templates, instantly create web-sitelets and use PitchRocket fulfillment services. It’s an elegant solution that allows users to create and launch turnkey campaigns without ever leaving the browser.

Think of it as

• Using personalization with one-to-one printing and pURLs in your direct mail piece;
• Integrating website pages with pURLs to extend your message to the web;
• Supporting the message with email; and
• Tracking the direct mail with almost the same precision as email.

Naturally, this combination delivers much higher response rates than an old school direct mail or email campaign. How much higher? It depends, but what Donovan Dillon, Ad Giants’ President, told me was impressive: “Jim, we don’t even load a template piece until we’ve tested it enough to achieve an 18% response rate.”

Of course, actual results are also impacted by list quality and offer relevance, but nevertheless, this is impressive.  It’s an ideal sales-generation tool for field-marketing managers, corporate sales executives and professional marketing departments. Examples of its uses include

• Lead generation
• Trade show and event communication management
• Sales follow-ups
• Satisfaction surveys
• Internal communications
• Newsletters

Try it yourself and see how you fare. Personalization is powerful.  When someone sends me a link or mail-piece with my name on it, I always take notice!