Sweet Results
Spokane, Washington’s Pearson Packaging Systems, founded in 1955, is one of the largest and most respected manufacturers of secondary packaging machinery in the United States. The company’s ongoing commitment to customers is to deliver the lowest Total Cost of Ownership and the highest levels of Overall Equipment Effectiveness in End-of-Line packaging systems.
Pearson was eager to create an end of year “push” to close promising outstanding business. The company’s marketing director identified a range of customers with strong potential totaling 6,000. This included those who already had proposals in hand (200) and those who were longer lead prospects (5,800). In a challenging economy, potential customers seemed to be taking a “wait and see” approach to significant purchases. Pearson needed to encourage final decision-making before the end of 2008.
Mentus was tasked with garnering the attention of top tier prospects with a direct mail piece that was visually intriguing, offered significant savings, and was personalized to the target.
What the agency created was the “Sweet Deal” promotion. It involved a series of variable data postcards sent to highly targeted prospects. The personalized postcards stated that the company was “sweetening the deal” on their existing proposals. The card’s visuals included a mouth-watering piece of chocolate as well as packaging cardboard to remind the customers of Pearson Packaging’s product offering. Top tier prospects (the top 200) received the promotional card with a box of high-end chocolates. Others received the postcard only. Generic versions of the card were also created for distribution at a tradeshow. Additionally, a Spanish translation and a Flash animation was produced for the website, all reinforcing the “sweet deal” being offered.
The results exceeded the entire team’s expectations. For a nominal $15,000 in expenses – including postage and printing – the company reported $1.3 in sales. Of 11 significant deals closed during the limited time offer, receiving the chocolates and postcards influenced 8 of the deals or 73 percent.