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Email Marketing Award Winners 2007

Email Marketing Award Winner
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Best Promotional Blast - Direct Sale or Lead Gen Offer:
Gold B-to-B
ESCO Customized Email Program


Brand/Client Side Team:
Tim Myers, Randy Jones

Vendors/Agencies:
OPTIEM
Les Stein, Leigh Klekar, Paul Fresty

MarketingSherpa Summary - Why They Won:
This campaign proves that even if your prospect list is small (well under 5,000 names), you can achieve blow-out success by segmenting and personalizing at an extremely granular level. Plus, if you make it easy for the sales team to use the email program while they are on the road (and nowhere near a computer), your closed sales will begin to rise even in a depressed market.

From Their Nomination Form:
ESCO was manually sending available product inventory emails approximately every three weeks. These emails were sent on the behalf of three salespeople and segmented based on the nine OEM sales lines offered by ESCO. As a result, any given broadcast may have up to 27 variations. Despite the relatively modest list size (600 contacts), the manual email broadcast process had become too much for ESCO to manage and results we're modest. Accordingly, ESCO's objective was to develop a solution that could: 1. Totally automate the email creation and broadcast process. 2. Personalize the delivery so it appeared to be coming from each of ESCO sales reps. 3. Customize each email version to show actual inventory on hand for each of the manufacturers represented by that dealer. 4. Increase email-generated sales. 5. Increase product demand in order to stimulate and schedule increased production. 6. Provide greater information about email performance (click intelligence). 7. Allow for expansion of the email program to ESCO's full sales force (25-30 reps) and contact database (approximately 3,000 contacts. ESCO was currently using a cumbersome email process to sell large, after-market equipment to OEM distributors for the heavy construction industry with modest results. This is not an audience that is typically online all day - they are either on site with customers or in the showroom working with clients, prospects and OEM's. As such, the email's personalization combined with its real-time list of available, relevant inventory, personalized by the OEM brands that each dealer offers, resonates with the target audience. The net result is a continued increase in sales during a depressed construction market. 1. 30% open rates & climbing. 2. 20% sales increase in depressed construction & building market. 3. 100% positive rep/dealer/customer feedback. 4. No opt-outs. 5. Ability to reach unreachable customers. 6. Tradeshow conversation starter ... "You're the guys sending those emails!" 7. Email format allows dealers to easily cut & paste for customize pricing sheets. 8. Positive ROI measured by: time saved by salesperson to contact customers; time saved to locate product/availability; and increase in product/brand awareness.