Case in Point: Equipment Data Lowers Cost of Direct Marketing With Video
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Real Time Content, a firm specializing in personalized online video campaigns, offers technology designed to enable marketers to benefit from face-to-face sales presentations to their online and direct mail marketing campaigns.
Randall-Reilly Publishing, the parent company of Equipment Data Associates, was looking to outsource its sales efforts by tapping video to deliver an online virtual sales tool personalized for each direct mail prospect.
“We work so hard prospecting and targeting to get to the right person in a human live demonstration,” says David Schwartz, VP Sales & Marketing, Equipment Data Associates. “Our audience is somewhat limited for the product we’re trying to serve, so it is not uncommon for us to spend upwards of $40+ per piece that we mail out to a targeted audience to cover the creative energy to get that prospect on the phone, conduct a demo, follow up and close. What we really wanted to figure out was how to take the mechanical portion and make it a self serving experience that’s fun and interactive to find out what those needs are and to determine the solution.”
EDA struggled to handle a 20% response rate to its direct marketing efforts, and the company faced an interesting dilemma: increase the size of its sales force or decrease the drop size of its direct mail campaigns.
When a prospective client visits a personal URL (PURL) supplied through EDA's direct mail campaign, RTC's platform is able to create personalized video from that PURL that incorporates the visitor's name, current date, location, and number of repeat visits. As a result, the entire experience, from the greeting through the sales presentation, is very real and very personal.
EDA debuted its new virtual demo for the construction industry in August, following with a targeted direct mail campaign to 2,000 prospective clients with a dimensional mailer and a personalized URL linking directly to the virtual demo.
“Previous campaigns using [this] technology have more than doubled conversion rates and increased sales by over 50%,” says Ian Cameron, CTO, Real Time Content. “Client return on investment can be greater than 6x and campaigns can pay for themselves within a couple of months.”