A Fortune 500 manufacturer of business equipment was preparing to launch a cutting edge new product. Marketing was under increased pressure from management to deliver results, and there was a significant spotlight on this particular launch. In fact, the product manager felt this launch needed to prove unquestionable ROI to ensure continued marketing funds could be justified and secured moving forward. The campaign was to target both current customers and entirely new audiences, and would need to build the current as well as future sales pipeline.

In order to determine a winning strategy, we assessed the company’s previous product launches, then applied our past experience about specific areas that could be maximized. This customized approach shifted spending away from poorly performing tactics into more cost effective ones. We determined that this manufacturer could generate the highest number of quality leads for this product launch by integrating four different marketing tactics: outbound telemarketing, direct mail, email and web marketing.

We designed the campaign so that current customers would receive two or three separate touches based on their opt-in status (email, direct mail and telemarketing) and prospects obtained through an opt-in rental list received two touches (direct mail and telemarketing). The copy and creative were designed to tout the new technology advancements that made this product so exciting. All three vehicles directed customers to a web page where they could register for a giveaway while providing answers to qualifying questions which we used to rank prospects to determine the best mode of follow-up.

ResponsePoint’s tiered approach to lead qualification first identified the hottest leads as those determined most likely to buy within 90 days. Those were passed back to the manufacturer’s sales team for immediate follow-up. The identification of second and third tier contacts that were deemed good prospects to become buyers within the next six months with some nurturing were also identified and flagged. This step, often overlooked by organizations, was crucial to provide this manufacturer with the ongoing pipeline they were seeking. Just as important were the leads that were identified as not likely to ever become customers by identifying those contacts and taking them out of campaign efforts, marketing dollars were maximized and future response rates increased.

Even more critical to the success of this campaign was the telemarketing follow-up that was performed. In most organizations, there is typically some “leakage” as prospects make their way through the sales process. Performing follow-up telemarketing on the hot leads passed back to sales, provided numerous benefits such as obtaining feedback that can be incorporated into the sales process, answering questions for those still making buying decisions, and most importantly, closing sales that likely would not be closed otherwise.

The direct mail response was an impressive 7.5% for current customers and 5.0% for prospects, which significantly exceeded client expectations. The pieces together yielded over 6,134 hits to the campaign landing page and produced 1,516 new contacts through the online contest. In addition 1,910 new contacts were added to the database, 1,518 existing records were updated and 838 requests for product information were fulfilled.

The most impressive outcome, however, was that from 312 hot leads, the lead to sales conversion rate was 25.9% for a total of 81 sales that generated approximately $828,387 in revenue. This result gave our client the unquestionable ROI (8 to 1) they needed to ensure future marketing dollars were secure.