Thursday, April 30, 2015

How Mailings Won 650% ROI for Data Backup Firm

Even high-tech firms can sometimes get bigger results from traditional direct mail than their usual digital efforts. Intronis, a 12-year-old cloud-based data protection service, is a case in point, as recently reported by Advertising Age. Intronis, which serves 50,000 small-business customers and sells through a network of 2,000 managed IT service providers, wanted to reach larger IT service providers. But e-mail and calling weren't getting the desired attention. So the company launched a two-part mailing campaign: Based on the demographics of the IT audience, the first piece hooked attention by including a "retro cool" Atari game player with the promise that if users spent 30 minutes on the phone with an Intronis salesperson, they would get a free gaming platform, with a choice of XBox, Wii or Sony Playstation. The company started small, sending out 50 Ataris and won meetings with 25 recipients, a 50% conversion. After 20 more waves, allowing for testing of messaging, packaging, timing and mail volume, the campaign had garnered an average 35% conversion rate (meetings) and an ROI of 650%, based on the value of deals generated divided by all campaign costs. Among the lessons learned per Ad Age reporting: With high-end premiums, send out relatively small numbers in each mail wave to reduce fulfillment costs. Put a lot of thought into the mail creative in terms of messaging and packaging; for example, the mailing worked best with a box that opened in one direction and with the brand message and cover letter on top and visible before the enclosed Atari. For the complete article, see http://adage.com/article/btob/data-backup-company-650-roi-atari-campaign/298195/

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

'Dirty' Data Continues to Sap B2B Lead Success

We do a lot of data work for clients--list hygiene, appending, de-duping, etc.--so we are dismayed to learn that "dirty" data is still the rule rather than the exception in the business-to-business lead process. An article in eMarketer recently noted that, based on a March 2015 poll of U.S. B2B marketing execs by Spear Marketing Group, executives estimate that over 25% of their marketing databases were filled with old, inaccurate and unusable duplicate leads. The majority rated their data accuracy as fair to plain bad. Worse, although the executives acknowledged that third-party solutions can boost data quality, 46% said they did not employ such data solutions, compared with the 40% who did. The waste caused by bad data is especially frustrating considering how it undermines the benefit of other improved marketing technologies. For example, over half of worldwide B2B marketing executives recently surveyed by Regalix reported that marketing analytics had increased their sales revenues between 10% and 25%, according to the eMarketer report. Imagine how much better sales would be if more lead data input was enriched and updated! For more on B2B data trends, see http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Help-Lead-Process-B2Bs-Must-Deal-with-Dirty-Data/1012396