Client: Xeikon
Agency: Catalyst
Objective: Reach relevant prospects using a hypertargeted, personalized direct mailer designed to generate brand awareness and open the door to sales calls
The Back Story: If your goal is to target decision-makers at companies looking for a digital printing solution, the direct mailer you send to attract them had better be perfect.
“You can’t cut corners on production at all; these guys will hold the piece up under a loupe and examine it until next Tuesday, so it’s got to be pristine,” says Chris Zirbel, project manager at direct marketing agency Catalyst, which recently worked with Xeikon on a highly successful coffee-themed lead generation campaign that broke new grounds for the digital color printing technology manufacturer.
Xeikon, primarily known in the document and commercial printing market, was looking to raise awareness of its digital label and packaging solutions, which are currently a big focus for the company globally.
Xeikon uses a multichannel mix, including trade shows, regional conferences, PR, and traditional advertising. But the company knew it had to get really personal if it wanted to generate face-to-face meetings for its salespeople.
The Strategy: First, the analytics team at Catalyst created a look-alike model using Xeikon’s customers and prospects to identify companies with similar traits—such as employee size, current print applications, revenue range, etc.—to develop a list of about 2,500 high-quality leads.
The next step was to develop a mailer so engaging that it would capture even the corporate gatekeepers’ attention, while demonstrating Xeikon’s capabilities.
To those ends Catalyst devised a dimensional direct mail piece that contains a high-quality glossy brochure, label samples, and four different flavored Keurig K-cups, each of which meant to represent a different quality of the Xeikon 3000 Series press. For example, “Breakast Blend: Savor its reliable production” and “Sumatran Reserve: “Bold Blend: Savor its reliable production” and “Sumatran Reserve: “Bold and robust color quality.”
Each mailer—and the subsequent follow-up email—included a PURL comprising the recipient’s name (for example, KCraig.xeikonlabel. com) that led to a form prepopulated with her information. The PURLs made it easy to see exactly who was accessing what, which helped Xeikon sales reps be more relevant during follow-up calls.
“All [visitors] had to do was verify and hit submit,” Zirbel says. From there a recipient could access a wealth of additional content, including downloadable case studies and white papers, via a microsite.
Additionally, the messaging made it clear that the mailer was created using Xeikon technology exclusively. “The box was produced by one of our customers; it was an example of real Xeikon output,” says Andy Dwivedi, Xeikon director of marketing in North America.
“This is our technology and the box itself reinforces what our presses can actually do.”
The Creative: The offer and call-to-action on the mailer was compelling, simple, and seductive: “Make an appointment to see a Xeikon rep and get your Keurig brewer.” Having scheduled the appointment, a Xeikon sales representative would personally deliver a gratis Keurig brewing system, a difficult gift to turn down.
“The goal of the campaign was to book appointments for the salespeople,” Zirbel says. “So what better way than having them deliver free Keurigs to prospects?”
The Results: The mailer resulted in an 8% response rate from prospects proactively visiting their PURL and an 80% conversion rate from microsite visitors completing a form, clicking a link, or downloading a brochure. The number of leads—115—exceeded the original goal by nearly 300%, and Xeikon has seen 5X ROI so far, with active leads still in the pipeline.
