CASE STUDIES

LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGN - DIGITAL NATION

Background
The challenge given to Versallion was that Capgemini was an established name in back office ERP in the IT departments of the media and telecommunications sectors but they were not known in other departments. This considerable lack of awareness needed to quickly change.

Objective
To establish credibility and awareness and to generate appointments where Capgemini could promote their expertise and convert a significant number into business. There was a need to reveal both short-term leads as well as long-term relationship building that was brand sensitive and in line with Capgemini's market strategy. The challenge was to avoid diminishing the brand value while winning new business within the next two quarters.

Activity
An integrated MarComs and DM campaign was devised, produced and implemented. This involved the commissioning of a 16-page supplement to be bundled with the predominant industry magazine Broadcast. It was calculated that being so visibly associated with such a well known and respected publication would immediately established awareness and credibility. This supplement was entitle The Digital Nation is in Your Hands and was used in two ways.
____It was attached to all editions of Broadcast that were on general sale and also 250 separate editions were printed with the names of each target contact on the front cover. These were mailed directly to the contact. To ensure these got past gatekeepers and were read by the target CEOs and Directors we also targeted PAs and secretaries. They were sent a disposable camera with a covering letter that stated that if they were able to take a photograph of their director reading our supplement we would have a courier collect the camera, have the photos developed, and then enter that gatekeeper and partner into a prize draw for a weekend in Paris.
____Follow-up telemarketing generated appointments which were extremely productive and the campaign was a huge success, as illustrated by the results below.

Response
w Of the 250 gatekeepers that were mailed the camera 83% took up the offer.
w Telemarketing got through to 86% of decision makers within the first five diallings.
w Of the 215 director level contacts engaged, 62 agreed to appointments at Capgemini's office for a half-day visionary session of the future scenarios in their sector. This represented a 29% conversion rate. These sessions were also tailored to job function, running sessions for CEOs and MDs; Finance Directors; Sales and Marketing Directors; IT and Operations Directors.
w Of the 62 that attended, 4 companies signed-off business within 3 months of appointments. Other larger and more complex deals entered the sales pipeline at a weighted value of £5.2m.

Testimonial
An email from Capgemini's Marketing Director:

From: Marketing Director, Capgemini UK Plc
Subject: Lead Generation Glory - CSSA/Computing Marketing IT Excellence Award

I am delighted to inform you that we have won first place in the corporate campaign category of the above award for our entry of the hugely successful, Digital Nation campaign.
____Please join me in congratulating Mark Versallion's Lead Generation Team for a great campaign and above target appointment setting. A quote from the judging panel reads "the panel were particularly impressed not only with the delivery of your presentation but also the outstanding content. The creativity demonstrated in your campaign ensured your entry was a natural choice for first place." The award will be presented at the CSSA national conference in April and we will be featured in Computing magazine.

EVENT CAMPAIGN - HOUSE OF LORDS

Background
A dinner was organised at the House of Lords allowing Chief Executives from media & telecommunications companies to discuss how the sector should move forward in the new digital environment. This had to be done in a sensitive and professional way and required the telemarketing team to talk intelligently with industry experts.

Objective
To persuade high-level decision-makers to come together and spend an evening discussing such issues, 'facilitated' by Capgemini. To enhance the credibility of the evening and to enhance the level of debate, an appropriate guest speaker was sourced, namely Lord Chadlington, founder of the PR firm Shandwick International.

Activity
Capgemini tasked Mark Versallion and his marketing team to help the corporation scope, design proposition and creative, copy write and produce, a direct mail piece. Then to follow-up event invitations with a telephone call to discuss the issues to be covered in the event, at a high level and to stimulate awareness of the issues and create an appetite for them to be discussed in a Capgemini facilitated forum. All lead generation and much of the direct marketing and follow on communications for the event were managed in an integrated and holistic way. The campaign also involved liaising with delegates to ensure photographs and biographies were included in the specially published Capgemini House of Lords Dinner programme and included the capture of qualitative intelligence and full lead reporting.

Response
Sixty companies were sent the piece and telephoned. Sixteen Chief Executives (and equivalent level representatives) from target companies attended, representing a 26.7% conversion rate from mailing to appointment. Feedback was exceptionally positive with delegates finding the evening very stimulating. It was recommended that Cap Gemini sent a few of their own Directors to sit amongst delegates which ensured improved relations and better awareness of Capgemini. There were representatives from the BBC, Sky, Carlton, Channel 5, Flextech, Open and Shandwick to name a few. The success of this campaign was due to the high-level of research and knowledge gained before the campaign was implemented. Mature and intuitive telemarketing combined with the ability to learn quickly and understand complex issues enabled high conversion rates as well as quality.

LEAD GENERATION CAMPAIGN - DATA WAREHOUSING

Background
With approximately forty consultants, Rosetta Stone had built itself up over three years through word of mouth, networking and recommendations. With a solid track record in Data Warehousing, CRM and Business Intelligence project work, and highly commended client references, the time had come to move business growth up a gear.

Objective
The campaign had two symbiotic aims: (i) to establish credibility and brand awareness in markets and specific multinational companies that had not been marketed to before; and (ii) to generate face-to-face appointments and telephone appointments where the company could promote its expertise and secure a request for proposal. Each and every appointment was qualified by decision-maker authority to sign-off a project/purchase, an available and sufficient budget and the intention to spend within six months. There was a need to reveal both short-term leads as well as build long-term relationships that were sensitive to brand and the company's high-value reputation. The challenge was to help Rosetta Stone move from a transactional lower level sale to a high-quality enterprise-wide solution pitch, while discovering and securing new sales within the next two quarters.

Activity
Versallion Marketing was retained to devise and implement a lead generation campaign that profiled, mailed and telemarketed approximately 1,500 UK companies. This involved the researching and writing of four industry tailored DM letters with the purpose of being followed-up by telemarketing. PAs and secretaries were targeted through telephone calls so to build an understanding of issues and processes in their departments and to increase the likelihood of mailings, emails and future telephone calls getting past these 'gate keepers'. Follow-up phone calls engaged the decision maker in an exploratory conversation about both his experience of data warehousing and of Rosetta Stone's work with other major clients. Current systems and issues were logged into a contact management database and subsequent appointments used the extensive information gathered in the phone call, enabling better preparation and consequently a greater conversion of appointments into proposals.

Results
w Due to account and contact telephone research prior to the campaign start, telemarketing got through to 84% of target decision makers within the first five diallings when following-up mail piece.
w Of the first 250 decision-makers contacted (DMC), 28 converted to appointments. This represented an 11.2% conversion rate. More would later convert to appointments and all the new data accrued in this campaign proved invaluable in other sales and marketing activities.
w Of these first 28 appointments sat, 11 resulted in immediate requests for a proposal and 5 of these resulted in new sales within six months of the campaign start date, all with an above average order value.

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FULL DM, EMAIL & TELEMARKETING
APPOINTMENT SETTING CAMPAIGN - NEW BUSINESS

Background
Cisco had experienced rapid success in certain sectors of the UK market but had yet to penetrate target accounts within key sectors.

Objective
Versallion Marketing was retained to help devise a long-term campaign that would cut through the clutter and enable several Cisco propositions to be considered by senior level decision-makers. The campaign's objectives where twofold: (i) to establish brand awareness and gather information on target accounts and (ii) to generate face-to-face appointments and telephone appointments where the company could promote its expertise and secure a request for proposal. There was a need to reveal both short-term leads as well as build long-term relationships that were sensitive to brand and the company's high-value reputation.

Activity
Versallion devised and implement a direct marketing campaign that profiled, mailed and telemarketed approximately 400 companies. This involved the creation of various channel collateral, such as direct mail pieces, html emails and micro-site web pages and telemarketing. Follow-up phone calls engaged the decision maker in an exploratory conversation about current systems and issues which were captured into Versallion's contact management database and appointments were diarised through an extranet set-up between Versallion and Cisco.

Results
w Of the 400 companies targeted, the information captured directly contributed to over £6m of new revenue and is continuing to prove invaluable in long-term relationship building.
w Some 52 appointments were generated in a time of cautious IT spend, and of those appointments, sixteen Invitations To Tender (ITTs) were submitted and four were signed-off within one quarter.