"When the Purdue for Life Foundation was formed in 2020 through the merging of the Purdue Alumni Association and Purdue's University Development Office, one of the offerings to alumni, friends, and fans that was greatly expanded was the travel program. The travel team asked our in-house marketing and communications team for help launching the revamped travel program and announcing more than 40 travel experiences for alumni to choose from that were planned for 2023.
Because the travel program had not done any marketing before this direct mail piece, we wanted to kick off the new program in a creative and memorable way—all with the goal of driving our target audience to our newly launched travel website, where they would be able to book a trip. In the weeks after the postcard mailed, we saw our largest spike ever (still to this day) on our travel pages with 605 page views on our travel landing page over the span of one month after the postcard hit mailboxes. We used a custom URL on the postcard exclusively to help us track the traffic coming through the direct mail piece. The travel team was thrilled with the innovative postcard and the results."
From the Judges
The Purdue for Life Foundation focused this direct mail piece to reach the unique needs of their target audience, which was those with high affinity, high engagement, high capacity, age 50 and up. This piece successfully meets this audience with the relevant information and visual style appropriate for their demographic. Additionally, the piece supported their web traffic goals for the relaunch of the program.
