A conversation about marketing endeavors and campaigns produced by office technology dealers would be incomplete without some examples of their methods for reaching out and informing customers about the products and services at their disposal.
With a growing number of available marketing platforms, it falls upon dealers’ marketing departments to tap into their creative resources to devise memorable and effective campaigns that can grow business with existing accounts and spark highly desired net-new opportunities. Our State of the Industry panel notes that during the pandemic, more net-new business inquiries have presented themselves, opening the door for dealers to capitalize at a time when service revenue is still lagging pre-pandemic levels.
However, marketing can serve a valuable purpose beyond fostering sales. Access Systems of Waukee, Iowa, embarked on a pair of campaigns earlier this year to bolster awareness of the dealership from an prospective employee and customer point of view. One was aimed at bolstering the company’s recruitment efforts, another was aimed at enhancing brand awareness and education to customers of Elite Business Systems, Access Systems’ recent acquisition. Both initiatives accomplished their primary objectives, notes Maddie McGinn, marketing coordinator for Access Systems.
The recruitment initiative, titled “See Yourself Here,” was driven through social media. Periodically, Access System posted employee spotlights featuring team members from each department. A photo of the employee was accompanied by tenure information and a response to the question “Why would you recommend someone to work at Access?” A second question inquired, “How does Access empower you to bring your full authentic self to work?”
According to McGinn, the effort was intended to showcase Access Systems’ diversity and inclusion while illustrating the skills and talents team members bring to the organization. The key, she said, was to spark engagement and position Access Systems as an ideal employment destination.
“As we’ve seen in the past year, it’s been difficult to attract and hire new talent,” McGinn said. “We had some new hires reference `See Yourself Here’ as a key factor in making their decision to join the Access team, so it was quite successful in attracting new talent.”
The second initiative was an email campaign centered on the Elite Business Systems acquisition, educating the newly-added firm’s client base on the solutions and services offered by the dealer. It was effective in increasing conversion rates in Elite’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota, market.
Charlie Kiesling, director of people and culture at Access Systems, believes the email campaign was significant in that it helped assure Elite’s clients that they would continue to receive a superior level of service and customer support. Including photos of Elite team members conveyed to clients that they could count on the same individuals who had been servicing them.
“Since Elite strictly sold copiers, Maddie highlighted a lot of our other technology resources, from PaperCut to IT services and VoIP/telecommunications,” Kiesling said. “We saw a 30% open rate, which was quite strong. It’s something we’re going to continue as we make acquisitions in the future.”
Video Twist
Email prospecting is a popular vehicle for office technology dealers to drum up prospect leads, which is the case for Virginia Business Systems (VBS) of Richmond, Virginia. Outbound prospecting begins with supplying the dealer’s list broker with a suppression list to avoid lead purchasing redundancy. The lists the dealer receives are segmented by SIC code, then sorted by ZIP code to match the sales reps’ geographic territories.
VBS keeps its email templates clean and simple, with headers containing images relevant to the vertical markets targeted. Using best practices, the recipient’s first name is referenced in the subject line, and the emails are sent on a Tuesday to improve open rates. A few days following the initial outreach, reps are provided with open-rate analytics to set the stage for their follow-up efforts.
According to Keith Bax, director of marketing for VBS, reps are provided with telephone scripts and talking points for the vertical markets targeted. “These warm follow-up calls helped drive the reps’ daily and weekly prospecting activity objectives,” he said. “Overall, our open rates for these emails exceeded 25%, and our click-through rates were just under 5%. Considering that these emails were sent to net-new prospects, the performance exceeded our expectations.”
Bax, who had not embarked on an email marketing campaign since his days working in another industry, noted his past experiences had yielded much lower open rates. What really helped spark appointments and key conversion rates was the inclusion of personalized 1/1 videos in the email missives. Employees were filmed to create introductory videos to be inserted in their email signatures, and the introductions are included on the VBS website under “meet our team.”
VBS President Jim Dotter believes the video segments added a personalization that recipients found compelling. “The reps that have adopted this are doing much better with net-new opportunities and first appointments,” Dotter remarked. “Some of our reps aren’t comfortable on camera, so the adoption rate isn’t 100%. But we’re teaching (the reps) how to fish and are hoping they take advantage of it. By embracing Zoom and video conferencing, the net effect is we can do a lot more calls today than if we’re driving around town. Our productivity rates have jumped, and our net-new business has increased during the pandemic.”
Future Shock
Monthly email campaigns have become a fixture in the marketing platform of Gordon Flesch Company (GFC), based in Madison, Wisconsin. Among the resources produced was a visual guide titled, “Office of the Near Future,” a fun, fact-filled, two-page campaign that provided a glimpse into the genesis of the dealer and its evolution, complete with technology predictions for what 2020 holds in store, along with the trends that will impact businesses.
The campaign doesn’t spitball wild exaggerations of what the future might look like in a “world of tomorrow” parody fashion. The predictions are accompanied by source references from reputable industry and business analyst organizations. But it does feature fun and thought-provoking propositions, such as “meet your robot coworker” in a nod to AI’s growing influence.
“The design of the resource was meant to start with the history of how GFC got into the office tech business and then work through data that shows where technology will go in the future,” noted Connie Dettman, director of marketing. “A blend of general business tech, such as robots, was used for attention, but we quickly work into tech that GFC sells and services.”
The email is sent to all customers and prospects in GFC’s database, and recipients can visit a landing page with downloadable content. That provides the dealer with analytics such as how long visitors are on the page, who they are and other data. Visitors can also indicate if they would like a follow-up call for more information.
“We try not to be too Big Brother about it, unless they say they want to talk to their salesperson,” Dettman added.
While “Office of the Near Future” offered a broader appeal, campaigns that focus on more narrow topics, such as ECM, managed IT and production print, are aimed at specific clients for whom the topic is most relevant. Dettman notes that the targeted campaigns yield a lower open rate, but generally result in higher quality leads that can be converted.
Recent campaigns have targeted verticals including legal, education and health care. In August, GFC rolled out a back-to-school initiative for its education customers, focusing on how school districts need to be more prudent in their budgeting, along with a call to action that detailed how GFC could address their requirements. Dettman is also mindful of oversaturation and limits the email campaigns to once a month, with an end-of-month blog digest that reviews the subjects for clients who aren’t signed up to receive GFC’s blogs.
On the Fly
Offering specials had never been a factor in the marketing playbook for Copiers Northwest of Seattle. Ian Crockett, president of ICE Advertising, which represents the dealer, believes it can lead a business down a dangerous path, as it conditions the customer to wait for specials to be offered. Frequency and consistency—sparked by morning-drive radio spots, social media and website optimization—is Crockett’s preferred line of attack.
Still, the pandemic, as it has shown for the past 18 months, has a way of changing plans. When schools and high-end restaurants—two of Copiers Northwest’s significant customer segments—were sent home, the dealer mobilized to create a work-from-home promotion. The packages included a choice of four different printers, two color and two monochrome, and while the promotion wasn’t wildly successful, it did provide a revenue stream for the dealer during a period when it was sorely needed. The same held for two lines of temperature-scanning kiosks it offered.
In April, the dealer launched another promotion for essential businesses to leverage its in-house print center to create signs, banners and posters, particularly ones that addressed health guidelines on the state and federal level in respect to social distancing and hygiene. The company also sent an email blast that detailed its safety measures regarding the servicing of devices.
While the pandemic program wasn’t a branded effort, Crockett felt it fell under the category of serving needs. “It’s all about being responsible for your customers, doing what was good for them at the time,” he said. “People were still leasing copiers, but they weren’t putting clicks on them. And since 70% of dealer profits come from the service side of the business, that’s where all dealers really felt the pain.”
LinkedIn, the unofficial social media platform of choice for many businesses, was the focus of a recent campaign for Pearson-Kelly Technology. Makenzie Ward, marketing coordinator for the Springfield, Missouri-based firm, recently put the finishing touches on a LinkedIn Ads campaign, a series of three individual advertisements in support of one of the dealer’s manufacturer partners.
Ward notes the campaign paid dividends for an investment that cost less than $1,500. “The ad campaign was extremely successful,” she said. “We had over 75,000 impressions, with more than 500 click-throughs to the website. That’s a 0.69% click-through rate, higher than LinkedIn’s 0.56% benchmark.”
