Xerox Corp. found a way to use small car to get big results. But while the chance to win a Mini Cooper auto in a sweepstakes no doubt was a key factor in the success of Xerox’s Igen3 campaign last summer, so was the company’s decision to create a personalized Website for each of its target prospects. The combination of personalization, an unusual prize, and attention-grabbing marketing materials touting short-run digital color printing to commercial printers enabled Xerox to sell its Igen3 process to 9.4% of the 4,000 businesses it contacted. That’s more than three times the typical response to a direct marketing sweepstakes campaign.
“I‘m sure some of these tactics have been done before, but I think all of them put together is unique,” says BethAnn Kilberg-Walsh, Xerox’s manager of marketing communications. “With this there were so many different touchpoints.”
Xerox used multiple means of compiling its initial prospect list, relying largely on help from its sales force and internal database. It contacted these 4,000 targets—primarily contacts at direct mail houses, prepress services providers, and smaller printers—by mail with an invitation to “personalized Websites.” It followed through with nonresponders by sending them a postcard. Each site pitched the Mini Cooper sweepstakes to its target by name.
Why a Mini Cooper as the prize? The car was trendy and attention-getting, of course, but Xerox also thought it tied in perfectly with the short-run printing process the company was promoting. As Kilberg-Walsh says, the Mini Cooper “stands for quality, it stands for fast.”
Prospects who signed up on their Website to enter the sweepstakes received a personalized e-mail followed by a new posting on his personal Website asking what color car he would choose and showing the car in that hue. “That got you excited that you could win the Mini Cooper,” Kilberg-Walsh explains.
The company continued with the personal touch by mailing those who opted in a large box with a personalized brochure inside that included a mini version of a license plate from the customer’s state and a letter thanking him for signing up for the giveaway. The brochure itself came straight to the point: “Shorter runs and variable digital printing means bigger profits,” read its headline. The collateral itself was produced digitally, which went a long way toward overcoming the target audience’s historical skepticism of color digital imaging. “We had one customer who said, ‘I spent two hours touching and feeling this package. I couldn’t believe it was done on digital,’” Kilberg-Walsh says.
She adds that for the first time she can remember, customers and sales reps were asking to be included in future mailings. “How many times have you called up a company and said, ‘Can I be on your mailing list?’” she says.
The campaign, which ended last August, worked so well that Xerox is reprising it this year. This time around, though, Xerox is giving away a fully loaded Viking gas grill and sending out personalized lunchboxes as part of an “Eat Your Competition’s Lunch” promotion being sent to a different list of 4,000 printers.
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