Challenge
For more than 30 years, Speedpay® has been a leader in the electronic billing and payments industry. However, as competitors rolled out new products and services, Speedpay began to lose market share and their position as the billing and payments innovator. The need was clear – Speedpay had to reclaim the market by reviving their marketing efforts. Speedpay engaged Brownstein Group (BG) to develop an integrated, multi-channel external communications program. BG created a plan for Speedpay with the primary goal of making a measurable impact on customer acquisition and retention. The targeted program focused on reaching decision makers across Speedpay’s core verticals: mortgage, auto finance, consumer finance, utilities and insurance. BG utilized Speedpay’s legacy of leadership, client-first approach, customer-first design and proprietary research to reposition the company as the industry’s thought leader through engaging, unique creative and content.
Solution
DRIVING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP THROUGH RESEARCH To truly position Speedpay as the industry innovator, BG developed a robust research engine, consisting of consumer, sales and customer research, to arm the Speedpay team with proprietary data and create insights to drive the program. The thought leadership program supports nearly every aspect of the Speedpay business, and every concept, campaign and piece of content is rooted in research. A core component of the research program is the Speedpay® Pulse, a consumer research study conducted twice per year. BG creates an annual Pulse report, in addition to Pulse trend reports focused on timely topics. The Speedpay® Pulse data is the primary driver of blog content, newsletters, industry conference presentations, media relations, LinkedIn content, infographics and webinars. BG tailors content to appeal to decision makers in the industry at large, as well as specific verticals. Every asset is designed to make Speedpay stand out from competitors. Additionally, to further support customer retention and acquisition, BG developed unique account based marketing campaigns, as well as trade show events. BG recently executed a targeted multi-phase direct mail campaign to open up the lines of communication between former customers and their Speedpay representative in order to “win back” their business. BG also planned and executed in-booth promotions and off-site prospecting events, including a private racing experience at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, at more than a dozen key vertical trade shows.
Results
The multi-year, award-winning Speedpay thought leadership program helped increase engagement and brand awareness, which led to acquiring new leads for the pipeline and stronger retention among existing customers. More targeted and tailored content featuring Speedpay® Pulse data has led to an increase in newsletter opens, blog views and LinkedIn engagement. Additionally, the win-back direct mail campaign achieved a 75 percent success rate, and the trade show approach helped Speedpay reach hundreds of prospective and existing customers.
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