Microsite Delivers Big

A nice, neat list of multichannel marketing tactics is OK for starters. But putting those strategies into practice is another thing.

Johnson Direct worked recently with electrical products manufacturer Gardner Bender to launch its line of Circuit Alert hand tools. The goal? To generate industrywide awareness for the tools, support sales efforts in retail and distributor channels, and enhance Gardner Bender’s image as an innovator.

We developed a multichannel effort with an informational and direct response-oriented foundation including a product line brochure, individual sell sheets, a four-minute demonstration video and campaign-specific microsite. An aggressive public relations program helped attract free publicity. All the while, the results of each campaign element were being tracked and measured.

Proactive PR delivered a return on investment of 11 to 1 after just 16 weeks. Industry publications like EC&M, Electrical Contractor, and The Electrical Distributor featured articles on the tools. Do-it-yourself publications such as Popular Mechanics and Handy weighed in with reviews as well. Fox News broadcast coverage pegged Circuit Alert products as a “handyman must-have.”

Publicity drove visitors to the microsite, where they viewed the demo video, downloaded product sell sheets, made online purchases or found a participating retailer. As Derek Erickson, Gardner Bender’s product manager for hand tools, notes: “[The microsite] is the premier measurable metric at the center of the campaign. We’re able to track, measure and analyze every strategy to determine how future product launches can bring us even greater success.”