Any direct marketer worth having a martini with will tell you that fear and greed are the two most powerful selling emotions.
But what about pain? Does pain sell?
Peter Ostrow, vice president of business development for MarketOne International, sure thinks so—as long as it’s not done in heavy-handed fashion. His latest campaign is all about the pain a significant number of his prospects are experiencing, and their fear of experiencing more of it.
The Boston-based company sells high-end sales-lead reports created by doing in-depth interviews with executives at its clients’ target companies.
The reports aren’t cheap, however. A typical contract with MarketOne runs in the tens of thousands of dollars, according to Ostrow.
“It’s a very intangible product that we provide and it’s a long sales cycle, usually three to six months or more,” said Ostrow.
In a post-holiday campaign aimed at playing on sales reps’ fears over missing their numbers, MarketOne sent an e-mail to about 1,600 prospects in its house file with the subject line, “Jump Start Your ’06 Sales Quota.”
Clicking open the e-mail revealed a photo of an old, junked Volkswagen Carmengia with a bow on it, similar to the bows used in Lexus holiday television ads.
“For sales executives who missed a team quota, it wasn’t a very merry holiday season,” said the headline. “When you fall short of quota, you and your team aren’t the only ones who take a hit. A disappointing result often leads to disappointment at home as well,” began the body copy.
Ostrow said marketing and sales executives often don’t hit their numbers in technology companies, which is MarketOne’s primary audience.
“Most sales reps and sales managers in technology don’t make their numbers because Wall Street drives them to make ridiculous promises,” said Ostrow. “Our clients are a mix of marketing and sales executives. Because of the timing—it being the new year—we thought it would be fun and impactful to reach out to sales leadership and inspire them with a specific pain-oriented message which is ‘you’ll have a better chance of reaching your quota this year if you adopt a long-range effective tool,’ which is our deep-mapping product.”
Moreover, the ad was intended to remind recipients that missing sales quotas has effects outside the office, as well.
“Talk about playing the emotion card,” said Robert Rosenthal, president of Mothers of Invention, the Maynard, MA agency that created the campaign. “I’m glad they [MarketOne] showed the courage to approve this campaign. The idea was ‘what if they missed their quota and it effected holiday gift giving?’”
The ad invited recipients to click through for a sample report and offered a free die-cast 1931 Cadillac Roadster to the first 25 respondents.
“Respond now, and next holiday season, put something very different under that bow [than the rusted Carmengia],” the ad concluded.
Though the free die-cast Cadillac offer was aimed at spurring response, it wasn’t a crucial part of the campaign, said Ostrow. Also, the subject line was purposely crafted without mentioning the premium so recipients who clicked didn’t do so just to get the car.
“Of the 15 or 20 people that have responded and the dozens and dozens we have called who have said ‘we should chat,’ two people have even mentioned the Cadillac,” said Ostrow.
Rosenthal added that it is important in any campaign to make sure the premium is tied to either the creative or the offer. “When premiums have absolutely nothing to do with either the product being pitched or the concept, the likelihood of getting a lot more false positives rises dramatically,” he said.
As of last week, MarketOne had called everyone who received the ad, and had begun dialogues with a significant number or prospects, said Ostrow.
“Our deals are at least one to two quarters in length [to close],” said Ostrow.
“Many companies send zillions and zillions of messages out and simply wait for responses to dribble in and then inside sales calls them,” said Ostrow. “We’re not waiting for pure inbound response.”
The ad can be viewed at www.themothersofinvention.com/projects/marketone/carmengia
