A small start-up developer of computer security software got 1,000 leads in six weeks in its first-ever direct marketing campaign.
PestPatrol Inc. used a combination of e-mails, online newsletter sponsorships and a Web seminar this spring to get the names of information technology professionals involved in computer security at large corporations.
The $40,000 effort resulted in more than twice as many names as expected, noted marketing vice president Pat Bitton. She estimated the cost was at least 10 times cheaper than conventional direct mail or e-mail.
To reach its prospects, the Carlisle, PA firm sponsored newsletters and offered white papers on SearchSecurity.com, an industry-specific Web site regularly visited by more than 130,000 IT workers. That's one of 19 such sites developed by TechTarget, a Needham, MA company that offers targeted search engines and newsletters on the Web.
PestPatrol Inc.'s target audience came from IT professionals at healthcare, financial services, telecommunications and other Web-connected companies that are obligated under federal law to guard customer privacy.
The company also sent e-mails to site users inviting them to a seminar on computer security that would cover legal responsibility issues. “As computer systems assume an ever-larger role in modern society,” the e-mail read, “the legal system is responding by holding the custodians of those systems accountable for security. If your organization's PCs are, for example, used as zombies in a distributed denial-of-service attack, your organization could be held liable for not preventing this from happening.”
The e-mail went on to list the speakers and tell users how and when to log on. A total of 320 site visitors attended the online seminar. After that, the company's two field salespeople further qualified the leads.
So far, a total of 85 companies overall have purchased PestPatrol software, said Bitton.
The company, in business since late 2000, develops software that reportedly counters so-called “malicious code” software, which enables unauthorized users to gain access to confidential information. The company's flagship product, PestPatrol, detects and removes non-viral malicious code — spyware and Trojan horses, for example — which can often bypass other detection tools. Bitton said prices for the software vary but a company with, say, 1,000 workstations would spend about $18,000 on the system.
For its next campaign, which Bitton hopes will take place late this year or early next year, PestPatrol will likely target telecommuters.
No plans had been finalized at press time.
