RTC Virtue for EDA - A Virtual Sales Video Experience
The challenge
An excellent 20% response rate for its direct marketing campaigns posed a problem for marketing intelligence supplier EDA: whether to increase the size of its sales force to handle demand, or decrease the drop size of its direct mail campaigns.
“We didn’t want to do either,” said David Schwartz, EDA vice president of sales and marketing. “We wanted to maximize the opportunity while minimizing the operational costs.”
The solution – RTC Virtue
EDA turned to Real Time Content’s personalized video technology to create an online virtual sales tool that is personalized for each direct mail prospect - using the specialised RTC Virtue service. The solution builds on the success of its direct mail campaigns, which offer a gift incentive to direct mail recipients who attend a 40 minute online WebEx demo conducted by an EDA salesperson.
Now, with the launch of the new sales tool for EDA, when a prospective client visits a personal URL (PURL) supplied through EDA’s direct mail campaign, RTC Virtue is able to create a personalized video from that PURL that incorporates the visitor’s name, current date, location, and number of repeat visits. As a result, the entire experience, from the greeting through the sales demonstration, is very real and very personal. The service adapts on the fly to provide a custom presentation based on each prospects specific needs.
The service replicates aspects of the one-to-one WebEx experience, including awarding a gift to visitors who complete the presentation. Visitors can view the sales presentation at their own pace, selecting topics of interest in addition to the messages pre-selected by EDA. As a result, visitors can learn about the benefits most relevant to them in as little as 20 minutes.
EDA launched its service with a new virtual demo for the construction industry, following a targeted direct mail campaign to 2,000 prospective clients and a personalized URL linking directly to the virtual demo. Further services for the printing, lift truck, agriculture and machine tools industries are currently in preparation.
Organic visitors to EDA’s site – those who have not received a direct mail invitation – can also learn about the benefits of EDA’s products and services by entering their profile information before viewing the resulting personalized video.
Results
We maximized sales reach while minimizing the operational costs. A few months into the service, 48% of visitors with PURL are now requesting a quotation online. This no-touch approach to the demonstration of the product means that EDA’s sales staff are now deployed where they are most effective, at the final stages of the sale – thus increasing ROI.
“David Kane [EDA’s virtual salesperson] is our best ever sales hire!” said David Schwartz, EDA Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “He’s ultra reliable and works 24/7, 365 days a year – and gives a perfect personalised presentation every time. The RTC service has more than doubled response rate compare with traditional Webex presentations.”
“I haven’t seen any company in any industry use technology to do what we’re trying to do,” said Mike Reilly, Randall-Reilly Publishing President and CEO. “It’s fun, it’s inviting, it’s interactive, and the sheer volume of deliveries is going to be so much higher because we’re expanding the capabilities of our human resources.”
Summary of personalisation parameters
Engaging
- Personalized to resonate with each visitor
- Recap on return visit
- Long and short versions
Relevant
- Local date and time
- Personalized by industry
- Personalized by business type
- Personalized by state
- Addresses sales objections
- EDA’s key sales messages incorporated
Interactive
- Data gathering
- Checking for understanding
- Checking for objections
Reporting
Full performance reports are available through RTC’s secure online dashboard. This includes details of the performance of individual options and storyboards and live visitor data such as active viewers by industry, duration, company name, contact, stage in presentation. This information is also available historically for all past visitors. Reports can be exported in common file formats.
All visitor details and interactions are synchronised with EDA’s customer relationship management system, allowing sales representatives to instantly see which prospects are online at any point in time, and even their current stage in the presentation. In addition, RTC sends e-mail notifications each time users start and exit the demo.
RTC also integrates seamlessly into Google analytics, allowing EDA to access detailed visitor data (referring URL, browser type, connection type, etc.).
To request a full demo of the solution,
please contact Cedric Smith: csmith@realtimecontent.com
