HP Exstream, the customer communications management solution from HP, enables large organisations to create fully customised high-volume statements and bills, on-demand marketing, self-service web applications and personalized correspondence. It drives top line revenue and improves customer relationships while reducing costs.
The target audience is senior IT, finance, marketing, procurement and operations executives. And key sectors are financial services, utilities and telecoms.
The challenge
Despite being one of the largest IT services companies in the world, many people still think of HP as a hardware manufacturer. As a result, the HP Exstream sales team were finding it hard to reach the right people in some organisations.
When the HP Exstream solution was cited by Forrester as a leader in the Q3 2011 Forrester Wave report (Document Output for Customer Communications Management), HP Exstream wanted to communicate this achievement to prospects in order to raise prospects’ awareness of the HP Exstream service, and provide an objective overview of its key benefits.
HP Exstream has been working with The Marketing Practice for over four years. The agency delivers an ongoing, sophisticated lead nurturing programme comprised of regular, highly targeted campaigns. High quality contacts, developed and maintained over this period, and an in-depth knowledge of the market meant that The Marketing Practice was ideally placed to communicate this success to prospects who were already engaged with HP Exstream.
The solution
When HP Exstream was announced as a leader in this iteration of the Forrester Wave Report, The Marketing Practice designed and developed a bespoke campaign to communicate the achievement.
The campaign was called ‘Riding the crest of the wave’ and featured a surfing theme, playing on the name of the Forrester report and HP Exstream’s iconic multi-colour wave design.
The aim of the campaign was to secure face-to-face meetings with senior representatives from a database that The Marketing Practice had been qualifying for a period of time. The campaign launched on 11 November 2011.
The data was divided into two parts. The first segment comprised 100 senior decision-makers who received a high-value DM, which was a surfboard-shaped USB stick. It was sent along with an A3 blotter to maximise its impact and make sure it stood out from other post received by prospects. The second segment, made up of 275 contacts, received a designed HTML email introducing the campaign.
All recipients were also directed to a microsite where a summary of the report was available to download, and visitors could enter the competition to win a seafood and surfing holiday in Cornwall. If they set up a meeting with HP Exstream, they could have a copy of the full report (worth over £2000) at no cost.
Two follow-up emails were sent over the course of the month-long campaign, linking to the microsite and reminding people to enter the competition.
How the data was qualified/nurtured?
The data was cleaned and qualified by continuous calling for other campaigns The Marketing Practice had run for HP Exstream prior to November 2011.
The prospects were then rated from one to five, where one was an individual who has responded to a marketing campaign or taken proactive steps to demonstrate interest, and five was an individual who has the responsibility, budget, and a defined timeline to purchase.
The high value DM was sent to prospects in categories four and five (so highly engaged) and the email campaign was sent to the rest of the data.
Once the high value DM and email were sent, business intelligence callers followed up on a regular basis, nurturing the contacts.
Results
The combination of an engaging creative concept and well targeted data generated excellent results for HP Exstream, including a contact from a large organisation that HP Exstream had been trying to get in touch with for a while.
The Forrester Wave campaign fitted neatly into the existing lead generation programme, with The Marketing Practice achieving 150 per cent of the agreed monthly target for November, making it the best month of 2011. More than 60 per cent of the leads were directly attributable to the Forrester Wave activity. The campaign had a lasting effect, with approximately 30 per cent of the leads delivered to HP Exstream during in December and January having received the Forrester Wave campaign.
“This campaign was brilliantly designed and worked on multiple levels. It generated valuable leads, including a large organisation we’ve been trying to get in touch with for a while, and was also a success internally. ‘Riding the Wave’ has been used to showcase HP Exstream throughout HP. Another great campaign from The Marketing Practice.”
Kirsty Weatherall, marketing manager UK&I – HP Exstream
Activity going forward
This campaign was part of an ongoing nurture programme. Some leads weren’t ready to be passed over to the HP Exstream sales team and were put back into the nurturing process run by the Marketing Practice. We keep them engaged by regularly sending them emails, event invitations and monthly newsletters, while our callers continue to build relationships with them.
