Sirius/IBM
Challenge
It was time for many of Sirius’s existing customers to upgrade to IBM POWER8 Servers. Their goal was to generate ten new leads. Obviously, this wasn’t a huge number. But it was a number many of their campaigns had failed to produce. They needed an agency that understood the power of persuasive messaging and design, as well as successful direct marketing strategy and the complexities of intricate databases. There aren’t a lot of agencies who fit those criteria, so it didn’t take them long to find us.
Solution
First, we assured Sirius that our database marketing experience was extensive and should alleviate their concerns. Then, we explained that our past success with similar challenges led us to recommend a limited-time campaign with a series of specially crafted messages that focused their audience on an extraordinary goal. That was the formula for action and audience participation. An that’s what would lead to at least ten new leads. We created a multi-touch integrated campaign that showed the numerous benefits of IBM PWOER8 servers that the audience wouldn’t find in their older IBM Power5, 6 and 7 servers. Our direct mail, email marketing and landing pages offered a mystery tech gift that we promised these customers would love and actually use. Within each touch point, the messaging localized the issue through the use of market-specific need-based statistics and highlighted performance from older generation servers to the new IBM Power8 server. Additionally, the offer strategy leveraged the mystery promotional item to entice customers to sign up for a meeting. The campaign had a specific goal of 10 leads. Together, the messaging and offer inspired customers to act quickly. Finally, to cost-effectively ensure that the campaign spoke to the right audience, we applied a custom segmentation strategy based on each customer current server install to maximize both response rate and only allow customer on a segment list to receive the promotional item. While managing the database from start to finish we were able to keep an eye on leads generated to maximize the budget and keep the campaign in check rather than just letting it run.
Results
We were asked to generate ten promising leads. We developed 152 leads. Yes, we reached 1520% of the goal. In fact, we generated 25 leads within the first 24 hours. Five days later, the first email dropped and the leads increased to 75. After 15 days, the campaign stood at 152 leads – so we pulled the plug in order to stay within the budget. In the beginning, this was slated to be a X-month campaign that would produce ten leads. In the end, it was a little over two weeks and produced more than 15 times the lead goal.
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