MARKETING CASEBOOK #2: SIMPLE IDEAS, BIG RESULTS.

Some marketers would like us to believe that it takes a mysterious mix of experience, scientific testing, and creativity to produce a breakthrough campaign. The truth is, there's also a lot of sheer luck behind many great marketing ideas. A random "let's try this" suggestion suddenly produces a cascade of orders; a quick-and-dirty solution to a supposedly trivial problem makes customers sit up and take notice. In retrospect, we can always figure out why these ideas were so powerful-- but they were far from obvious at the time.

In fact, most of this year's best "marketing casebook" ideas (which we collected from Soft-letter readers) grew out of rather modest promotional experiments. Unlike many dot-com marketing campaigns, which burned through millions of dollars on profoundly ineffective ideas, the mini-case studies we present here typically demonstrate that a good, simple concept is usually a far more important success factor than having a fat budget.

* Get dealers to underwrite trade show appearances: Back in 1984 when Autodesk was a fairly small company, recalls marketing consultant Jessee Allread, "I was hired as the trade show manager, with a miniscule marketing budget. With no staff or equipment, I recruited our then-nascent dealer network to staff, equip, and pay for a percentage of the booth costs in exchange for generated leads. We always selected a 10x10 booth to give the appearance of high activity and divided the costs among four dealers, effectively eliminating any cost to Autodesk. Voila, revenue-centric marketing!"

By shifting costs to local dealers, Allread says, Autodesk was able to exhibit at more than 50 different shows in six months. "The dealers benefitted because of their diverse uses of our product (PC board design, architecture, you name it) with direct access to potential sales; the benefits to the company are obvious." In fact, he says, the program created its own momentum: Dealers were increasingly eager to take part, and Autodesk could set higher minimum purchase requirements for dealers and distributors. "We accomplished a hockey stick of growth in approximately 12 months."

Jessee Allread, principal, DX3 Consulting, 1430 Bidwell Ave., Chico, Calif. 95926; 530/891-0557. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Make demo data more personal: Hertzler Systems makes data acquisition software--not the kind of product that usually lends itself to eye- popping demonstrations. But Hertzler president Evan Miller says the company recently created a demo system for trade shows that's tied to a golf simulator "so we can collect and do statistical analysis on a golfer's swing."

Says Miller: "It really works. Every stroke yields a rifle-shot sound that echoes through the entire hall. People hear it from 75 or 100 yards away and they're like curious cats--they have to check out what it is. When they see the demo, they have this sort of jaded view until we explain how it ties into our product. Then their eyes get wide and they say, 'That's really cool.'"

Evan Miller, president, Hertzler Systems, 2312 Eisenhower Dr., Goshen, Ind. 46526; 219/533-0571. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Personalize trade show follow-ups: "Most software companies do an abysmal job of following up on leads," says Bruce Milne of the Corum Group. "They believe that fancy ads, six-color brochures, and 'eyeballs on the Web site' are enough to actually get orders--which is not true." Milne once put together a simple, low-budget campaign for a vertical market software company that had collected a stack of leads from an industry trade show. "We developed a seven-stage follow-up program, whereby every lead would receive a written contact every ten days over a period of 70 days," he says. "The follow-up might include a letter from a happy customer, a product review (positive, of course!), a sample report showing something unique and useful that the system did (hand circled in red), etc.," says Milne.

Most of these materials were "the usual stuff," he adds, but with a secret ingredient--personalization. "Where possible, there was a personal note saying 'thought you might be interested in this...' The work was done by the receptionist using a simple contact manager during slow times. The messages were short, with a call to action."

"At the end of three months, we measured the results of the campaign to the target audience and sales had more than doubled from previous efforts," Milne reports. In addition, the campaign achieved "long-term brand-building" that made the company the most recognized supplier in its market. "It worked," says Milne."

Bruce Milne, president, Corum Group, 10500 NE Eighth St., Bellevue, Wash. 98004; 206/455-8281. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Automate the follow-up process: Another way to handle leads, says Judd Kessler of Abacus Data Systems, is to develop multiple sets of sales letters that can be sent out automatically "depending on the source of the lead." Each new lead is assigned to one of several "letter tracks," he explains, "and each week the system knows what letter to send to each person." By keeping track of response rates for each series of letters, Kessler points out, "we can change letters and measure the effectiveness of messages, right down to which letter produces the best results."

Currently, the automated system produces a hefty 22% order rate, says Kessler. "We've found the most effective follow-up is to send a letter each week for the first five weeks, and then a letter every other week for ten more weeks."

Judd Kessler, president, Abacus Data Systems, 6725 Mesa Ridge Rd., San Diego, Calif. 92121; 858/452-4280. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Write a book: Producing a full-length book is an ambitious project, but it's also an excellent way to build credibility and visibility in emerging markets. Last year, for example, Business Objects CEO Bernard Liautaud authored a 306-page overview of "e-Business Intelligence" that helped explain his company's relatively new technology category. With the help of Eastwick Communications, Liautaud landed a contract with McGraw-Hill, a major trade publisher, which released the book last November. "As of January," says Eastwick publicist Erin McCabe, "the book was in the hands of over 30,000 readers (now more than 45,000) and was rated one of the best-selling books on Amazon.com."

In addition to reaching thousands of interested readers, McCabe notes, Liautaud's book also generated a wealth of reviews and interviews in places like the San Jose Mercury News, Upside, Investor's Business Daily, Information Week, and InfoWorld. "The editorial outreach was very successful," she says.

Erin McCabe, senior associate, Eastwick Communications, 1735 Technology Dr., San Jose, Calif. 95110; 408/572-7204. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Publish an e-book: NetPro is another company that relies on a book to generate corporate visibility--but NetPro's "Definitive Guide to Active Directory Troubleshooting" is an electronic publication that readers can download for free from the company's Web site. An important element of the e-book approach, explains marketing director Christine McDermott, is that the "Definitive Guide" is released a chapter at a time. "More than 1,000 people registered for the e-book before the first chapter went live, and we now have nearly 4,500 people registered to download new chapters every month," she says. "Every time a chapter posts, we have a new opportunity to touch registrants by e-mail."

McDermott says NetPro plans to make the book available for download for the next two years, with regular updates that will inspire readers to keep coming back to the NetPro site. "The book drives exceptionally qualified leads to our site--and our products--every day," she notes.

Christine McDermott, director of marketing, NetPro, 7150 E. Camelback Rd., Scottsdale, Ariz. 85251; 480/941-3639. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Find a local PR angle: When Symantec launched Norton Internet Security in 1999, a key part of the rollout was an eleven-city media tour to alert consumers about the vulnerability of home PCs to "cybercrime." To attract coverage from local broadcasters and newspapers, says vice president Erin Hintz, Symantec recruited local security experts--including so-called "white-hat hackers" and cybercrime investigators--to take part in press meetings. "We also researched the latest local hacking and virus-related news to make the meetings more enticing and timely to journalists," she adds.

Working with local experts requires a good deal of extra media training and scripting of key message points, Hintz points out. "Most of our spokespeople had never been interviewed, let alone appeared on camera before." The local experts were supported by a Symantec security expert, she adds, and Symantec provided a "visually stunning b-roll" for TV stations and a statistical backgrounder "about the world of cybercrime and how consumers could avoid becoming a victim."

Showcasing local experts significantly boosted media coverage, Hintz reports. "To date, we've secured 40 television hits reaching more than five million households, 387 radio hits reaching more than seven million listeners, and 45 print hits reaching more than three million readers," she says. "The campaign was one of the most successful proactive consumer PR programs Symantec has implemented."

Erin Hintz, vice president, global consumer marketing, Symantec, 10201 Torre Ave., Cupertino, Calif. 95014; 408/517-8269. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Hold a contest for customer testimonials: Collecting customer success stories is usually a tough process, but Mapics recently came up with an effective solution: At its annual user conference in April, the company awarded prizes for testimonial stories that users submitted about their experience with Mapics manufacturing software.

"A booth was set up in the main area of the conference," says Beth Ubele of Abovo Marketing, the company's public relations firm. "A crew of 'reporters,' identified by 'press' hats, strolled through the crowd and solicited stories to be followed up for more details later." At the conference itself, users who submitted story leads were entered in a drawing for a TV; once the full stories are written, Ubele says, "a panel of editors and analysts who cover the manufacturing industry will judge the stories for additional awards--and the best customer success story will be awarded two Polaris watercraft."

The result: During the three-day conference, Mapics gathered 82 customer success stories for future use. A valuable side benefit, Ubele notes, was the face-to-face contact with satisfied users, which "strengthened relationships for future programs as well."

Beth Ubele, director, Abovo Marketing Group, 100 Ashford Center N., Atlanta, Ga. 30338; 678/597-3388. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Don't hide from controversy: Like many companies that provide Web- based personalization technology, Predictive Networks found itself facing an unusually hostile media environment. Predictive's software creates "behavioral profiles" that banner advertisers use to deliver targeted ads--which made the company a natural target for consumer privacy advocates.

"We decided we could run, but we couldn't hide," says publicist Betsy Kosheff. "We felt strongly that our targeting technology could accomplish what marketers needed, while our privacy technology could protect consumers at a level far above others in the industry. But how to prove it?"

The solution: Predictive CEO David Hosea invited several of the most influential privacy advocates to take an in-depth look at what the company was doing. Three of these advocates--a book author, a famous inventor of public key encryption technology, and a prominent civil liberties attorney--agreed to join an "independent privacy board," Kosheff says. "Each member was chartered with full 'tenure'--that is, Predictive couldn't fire them, none was compensated, and each was given full authority to talk to the press about the company's practices."

"With this backing, we went to the media, resulting in articles from CNET, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and several trade magazines. We also got a Red Herring cover story that described Predictive's privacy board as a model of a company 'capitalizing on increased privacy awareness.'"

Betsy Kosheff, principal, Kosheff Communications, 38 W. Center Rd., W. Stockbridge, Mass. 01266; 413/232-7057. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Publicize sexy features: "Word of mouth has always been a core vehicle for customer acquisition at Intuit," says Steve Gordon, product manager for the company's Quicken.com Web site. But when the site was recently relaunched, Intuit experimented with an e-mail-based "tell a friend" link that emphasized a specific feature on the site--the One- Click Scorecard, which Gordon calls a "groundbreaking investment tool." Site visitors who alert their friends to the new "must-see" feature seem to be exceptionally persuasive: Gordon says that more than 35% of referral recipients visit the site to see what the excitement is all about. "That's about five times more effective than conventional e-mail marketing and a hundred times more effective than Web banners," he notes.

Steve Gordon, product manager, Intuit, 2475 Garcia Ave., Mountain View, Calif. 94043; 650/944-6460. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Create an archive for marketing collateral: As companies grow, Pete Kent of Timberline Software points out, it becomes a "significant challenge" to keep track of sales and marketing materials--spec sheets, presentations, case studies, press releases, logos, screen shots, ad slicks, proposal templates, and the like. "We were distributing easily hundreds of pages of updated material to our direct sales staff and distribution network," he says.

To get this increasingly chaotic process under control, Timberline's marketing group recently came up with a simple strategy: Distribute everything on one CD-ROM disk (called IntelliSource) that would be updated on a regular quarterly basis. Now that the IntelliSource library has been implemented, Timberline's internal staffers can access download collateral files from the company network, and resellers know they have the most current version of Timberline promotional materials. To make sure obsolete materials are purged, moreover, Kent says back files go through a formal review process every time a new CD-ROM disk is produced. "It's simple and it's cost-effective," he says.

Pete Kent, senior PR specialist, Timberline Software, 15195 NW Greenbrier Pkwy., Beaverton, Ore. 97006; 503/439-5919. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Offer a pre-launch sneak preview: "We were getting ready for the release of a major new version of our Office Tracker Scheduler," says Milum president Kelly Hayes, "and we felt like sales were slacking a bit because many prospects were waiting to make a buy decision. We decided if we could give our prospects a real taste of what was to come, along with a call to action to buy the new version before it was released, we might take up the slack."

The result was a mini-movie disk that highlighted new features, plus a special offer to encourage pre-release purchases. "We created small boxes with special 'Sneak Preview' stickers that looked like movie tickets," Hayes says. "Inside the box were small tickets along with shredded colored paper, snack packs of M&Ms, and popcorn."

The sneak preview campaign was "a real hit," she adds. "The close rate was in the 20% range--better than any other campaign we've done!"

Kelly Hayes, president, Milum Corp., 1901 W. 30th St., Austin, Tx. 78703; 512/327-2255. E-mail: [e-mail].

* Convey a sense of importance with red-ribbon packaging: Business-to- business companies usually rely on simple, functional packaging for "serious" products like software and documents. That's a mistake, argues financial consultant Mike Gonnerman. Several years ago, Gonnerman sent each of his top ten referral sources a set of financial report templates wrapped in red ribbon inside a FedEx package. He included a note saying, "These reports are so special they are usually treated like gifts."

"The response," says Gonnerman, "was both immediate (one investor asked for several more sets the day he received them, and another dozen the next day) and long-term (six months later, another investor gave his set to a CEO, which led to a major assignment). And each of the ten referrals provided introductions to other new clients." Total cost of the red-ribbon packages was about $600, he adds, "and yielded more than a half-million dollars of business."

Michael Gonnerman, principal, Michael Gonnerman Inc., 65 Washington Dr., Sudbury, Mass. 01776; 978/443-1340. E-mail: [e-mail].