| The waste water management and treatment
industry is huge. Every municipality in the U.S.
has to treat waste water, so each is a potential
customer for In-Pipe Technology Co., a Wheaton,
Ill.-based waste water treatment technology
company. In-Pipe Technology has a small
marketing budget, however, so it relies on trade
shows as a way to get in front of prospects.
For example, last year it sent postcards by
mail to 4,000 attendees of WEFTEC.07, the Water
Environment Federation’s Annual Technical
Exhibition and Conference, asking them to stop
by the company’s booth and enter a drawing. The
company paid $290 for the postcard design, $776
for postage and $2,900 for printing. Of the
4,000 attendees who received the postcards, 120
people dropped the cards off at the booth, and
76 people got their badges scanned.
“Even though we got 120 back, there was no
way to know if they read the card, and we have
no idea if the other cards we sent were even
received,” said Nikki Clay, the company’s sales
and marketing coordinator.
After taking a careful look at the success of
the direct mail campaign—and its cost, which
worked out to be about $4,000, or $1 per piece
mailed—In-Pipe Technology decided to make a
change. The company started working with e-mail
service provider SubscriberMail, creating a
campaign around this year’s WEFTEC conference.
The company used a list of 1,091 people—a mix
of customers and prospects, some of whom had
attended the conference and signed up for e-mail
in years past. The message, which included a
bulleted list of what the company’s product and
service does with links to landing pages and a
request to stop by the booth, was e-mailed efore
the show. It received an incredible open rate of
22.46%.
“In other words, 245 people actually opened
and read our message,” Clay said. “Compared to
the direct mail campaign, that’s a 104% increase
using a list that is a quarter of the size.”
Almost 9% of people who opened the e-mail
clicked through. In addition to the 245 unique
opens, In-Pipe saw 491 total opens, which was
really significant, Clay said. The company
scanned 92 badges at the booth, an increase of
21% at a much lower cost.
“We were able to see what people were most
interested in. Because we have an innovative
technology, we’re not always sure how the market
perceives our product and what they find
interesting,” she said. “This gave us an idea of
what points people wanted to learn more about.”
The e-mail program worked so well that
In-Pipe Technology has abandoned its direct mail
campaigns completely. In addition, because of
the undisclosed cost savings, the company now
has the money to advertise in print
publications.
“My CEO said this was the best ROI marketing
program that we’ve ever done—the best marketing
dollars he’s ever spent,” Clay said.
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