Jam Agency (formerly Jam Communications) has created successful direct mail campaigns for clients such as First USA, AOL and TechRepublic.com for almost a decade. They couldn’t help but notice how ineffective some dot-coms’ and Net-related tech companies’ direct mail campaigns were. “It’s not their specialty,” says President Neil Griffen, “They know the Web. They need somebody like us to bring the direct mail expertise to the table.” So, Jam decided to do an outreach effort to sign on Web marketers as clients.
CAMPAIGN
Jam knew they needed a compelling offer to get Web marketers’ attention. They decided to publish a special report entitled, “Website Marketing: How to Drive Traffic Using Direct Mail.” Unlike typical white papers for CEOs and strategists, this report was developed to appeal specifically to the working marketer. Written by a former marketer who had worked on both sides of the fence (direct marketing and Web marketing) the report featured lots of hands-on practical advice, plus links to samples of real campaigns.
Next Jam placed text ads in various email newsletters for professional Web marketers. Jam’s VP Business Development Deb Tompkins says, “We tried not to make them sound like they were written by a copywriter. They weren’t too flashy. We wrote them in a matter-of-fact way to say ‘We have this report and we’d like to share it with you because it’s good information.’”
Click throughs were directed to a special splash page giving more details of the report, and then through to a response form. Respondents were only required to give their email address to receive the report as a PDF file … but Jam gave them the chance to voluntarily fill in their mailing address as well. The Business Development team then followed up with the best leads in a low-key, professional manner.
COST: The entire campaign including hiring an outside writer and placing text ads cost under $10,000. Web development was handled in-house.
RESULTS
About 400 Web marketers responded to the text ads run in various third party email newsletters. Tompkins says, “The hits were unbelievable. And even though we only required an email address, 60% of the names gave all their mailing information including their title. In addition, about 1/3 of the visitors clicked through to our main site to learn more about us after they got their report. We’ve already converted two accounts, one of which (Enron Energy) is a Fortune 100 company.”
