When timing is everything, don’t miss a beat.
Improving Results. A Case Study:
Competitive Takeaway
The Client:
An established company offering enterprise resource planning software for healthcare, professional services, manufacturing and other industries.
The Opportunity:
Our client had a proven industry-specific software solution that was already in market and in use by many large healthcare systems nationwide. They believed their technology was a better fit and more flexible than the solution available from their well-known competitor.
Then that same competitor announced that one of their solutions would sunset and no longer be supported – meaning all customers using their product would have to switch to something different.
Knowing that these customers were already well aware of their situation, we knew they would be looking at their replacement options. We needed to get their attention fast to get on their shortlist for consideration.
The Assignment:
Create a targeted integrated offline/online campaign to encourage this select group of users to consider and ultimately switch to our client’s software product. Leverage the knowledge that, regardless of their decision, they would have to migrate to a new product and replace their outgoing solution within six months.
Total budget: $50,000 for creative development, media buy and webinar production.
The Campaign:
Using both print and electronic elements, we reinforced the message that while their current technology solution was being discontinued, they had options beyond simply doing what their current vendor hoped they would do.
- First in market was a direct mail package sent to a highly selective mailing list of just under 100 contacts. Each included a personalized letter and brochure, as well as the invitation to an informational webinar outlining their options.
- Next up: a series of emails sent by the client that arrived within three days of the mailing.
- As part of the media buy, an industry-specific publication sent a third-party version of our emails to their subscribers, further reinforcing our messaging.
- Since even the most targeted list might not be fully inclusive, we also included online advertising, including website banner and subscription e-newsletter display ads.
- For non-responders, we recommended limited internal telemarketing to encourage registration and attendance of select key accounts to the webinar.
- Given the highly-targeted audience and limited opportunity, social and inbound content marketing were judged to be unnecessary.
The Results:
In the first 4 weeks, the client’s webinar attendance had more than 90 registrants, including representatives from 5 of the leading targeted accounts.*
The ROI:
From a total $50,000 investment, we helped create a potential return of $1.2 million-plus (a 24:1 return) in qualified opportunity sales, which went directly into the sales pipeline for immediate follow-up and closing.
Now, that’s what we call a result!