BUSINESS ISSUE: Low Sales to Existing Customers
In mid-2005, a leading hardware provider embarked on a market research initiative in order to determine why their new Industry Standard Server (ISS) product was experiencing less than expected sales within their enterprise customer base. The study’s results pointed to a simple problem: more than half of the market sampled possessed “little to no” familiarity with the new technology, while another 30 percent possessed only “moderate” familiarity. Thus,leaving less than 20 percent of the market in a position of knowledge to evaluate and purchase the product. Evaluating the results of this research against their current marketing message, it became evident that their message was too complex to resonate with their target market.SOLUTION: Targeted Multi-Media Lead Generation
TeleNet Marketing Solutions was hired in Q3 of 2005 in order to develop a targeted telemarketing program to improve awareness of the ISS product and technology, build product knowledge and consequently increase interest within their customer base. Partnering with our client, TeleNet Marketing devised a marketing approach tailored to each customer’s specific level of familiarity with the product and technology. Through telemarketing, customers were interviewed to determine their level of familiarity and then were provided information that was deemed most relevant for their particular situation. For instance, those who had no understanding of the technology were provided with an overview of the basic product benefits, while those with a high understanding we represented with more advanced concepts such as Virtualization. Call-email-call techniques were utilized in order to move prospects into the sales funnel. Additionally, an informational “resource center” Web site was developed in order to aid the educational process.Customers were frequently directed to the online resource center to view product briefings, case studies, as well as in-depth whitepapers. The overall goal of the program was to increase awareness and interest within the customer base and to uncover and qualify leads.Leads were qualified based on several criteria including, identified “pain”, timeframe of less than 12 months, identified budget, and willingness to consider our client’s product. Qualified leads were provided daily to our client’s sales team for immediate follow-up.RESULTS
This marketing program was implemented over the course of 9 months to ensure adequate time was spent to educating the top enterprise accounts. TeleNet Marketing utilized our Lead Lifecycle Management methodology to follow-up on a regular basis with each qualified lead provided to our client’s sales team. The follow-up strategy was designed to ensure each lead received top-mind-awareness with the sales executives and did not fall through the cracks. Additionally, it was our goal to obtain key metrics from the sales team in order to determine the ultimate success of the campaign. The results of the campaign and this process are as follows:- Campaign Lead Rate:
- 9.54%
- Total Closed Revenue:
- $3.4 million
- Largest Single:
- $1 million
- Return on Investment:
- 23:1 (Compared to Average ROI of 8:1 to 12:1)