OU integrates Web and newspaper appeals

Howard Lake | 5 July 1999 | News

he Open University is clearly attempting to track the response rate to its current newspaper advertisements for new students. Instead of simply including the www.open.ac.uk Web address on the response form, the adverts suggest contacting www.open.ac.uk/advert (see today’s Guardian). The resultant visits will be recorded on the OU Web server logs and will help their marketing department assess feedback via the Web.

The Open University is clearly attempting to track the response rate to its current newspaper advertisements for new students. Instead of simply including the www.open.ac.uk Web address on the response form, the adverts suggest contacting www.open.ac.uk/advert (see today’s Guardian). The resultant visits will be recorded on the OU Web server logs and will help their marketing department assess feedback via the Web.

It’s not the most advanced use of press ads and Web pages – the online prospectus application form still asks the visitor for the source code on the advertising coupon. However, of those UK charities who include a URL on their press ads, most stick with the base URL, thereby ignoring the possibility of measuring feedback.

About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.