We recently released the results from one of our customer campaigns, in which our client saw a dramatic increase in new qualified sales leads (more than 600%) in one month. The overall impact of the campaign has produced an increase in sales revenues exceeding the combined digital marketing efforts from all of 2012. What was the magic formula that drove these outstanding results and what lessons can we learn that we should apply to all marketing campaigns going forward?
In previous campaigns, our customer, Axis|SybronEndo, had always focused its emails and ads on generic bottom-funnel offers, such as signing up for a product demonstration. Our customer seldom got many new leads from these campaigns. Sometimes the company would attempt to entice new leads with free offers, such as a sweepstakes to get free products. It would get more leads from these enter-to-win campaigns, but these leads seldom came back to the website for more information or additional offers.
We started with identifying the goal of the campaign—in this case to introduce a new product called TFTMAdaptive to dentists and get them to sign up for demonstrations. We specifically targeted Endodontists (Dentists who perform root canals), and we addressed a common pain point: the time-consuming process of prepping teeth for root canals. Our strategy was to prepare a top-funnel (TOFU) educational piece on Adaptive Motion Technology, an advance in the way dental preparation tools can "sense" pressure that needs to be modified to complete the preparation. This enables dentists to complete the job more accurately the first time and reduce "chair time" with a patient. This technology is new to most endodontists, so we created the top-funnel download as an introduction to the technology—and not so much about the product itself.
We didn't go overboard with lead nurturing content, assuming endodontists are already familiar with root canal preparation technology, so our mid-funnel (MOFU) content introduced the TF Adaptive device, its specifications and user experiences. The key lead nurturing piece was a download highlighting the experiences and quotes from a well-known dentist who has used the device. We supported the campaign with several blogs, which featured video interviews with product managers and customers at a recent Dental Industry tradeshow. The idea was to provide "social proof" from other dentists using and recommending the technology to their peers.
We launched the campaign from a variety of channels to test them for viability and lead conversion. We made sure that messaging was consistent between all channels, CTAs and landing pages.
We A/B tested both CTAs and landing pages for the top-funnel offer. We also A/B tested different subject lines for subgroups of dentists in the email marketing part of the campaign before launching the email to the larger email lists. There were significant differences in conversion rates, so we chose the higher rate versions for the larger campaign effort.
We wanted to give leads an opportunity to move down the funnel at their own pace, and in some cases we expected leads to be ready to purchase right away, so we:
These CTAs produced a significant number of sales qualified leads who were ready for a call from a sales rep, which at least in part helped to accelerate leads through the funnel and increase both lifecycle stage conversions and sales in the first month of the campaign.
The TF Adaptive campaign is still running and will continue to be launched in various channels to produce more sales leads. In the first month of running this campaign, the following increases were recorded compared to previous months:
Even in a highly technical B2B marketing setting, the right combination of content targeting and multichannel promotion can lead to outstanding results in a relatively short period of time. In the case of promoting a new product that can help endodontists do a better, faster job with root canals, attracting them in with educational content and publishing both online and offline proved to be a powerful cocktail for driving both new leads and new customers. Giving leads the opportunity to learn more about the product through lead nurturing or to make a quick decision for a test drive via CTAs led to a relatively high proportion of SQL conversions early in the campaign. Conversion rate optimization throughout the campaign stages helped to maximize conversions and exceed all previous digital campaign metrics by wide margins. This campaign gives us a great recipe for future product and event campaigns for our customer and for other B2B customers.
To read more about this campaign, please download our case study (no form required):
With over 30 years of business and marketing experience, John loves to blog about ideas and trends that challenge inbound marketers and sales and marketing executives. John has a unique way of blending truth with sarcasm and passion with wit. Connect with John via Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus.
