Sprint Calls on B-to-B Customers
SURE, A DIME a minute sounds good. But try two free CD-ROMs packed with 15 million prospecting names, free long distance calling on Fridays and a business strategy kit.
Those are a few of the incentives small business customers picked up when signing with Sprint Business during a four-week, 1.2 million-piece direct mail campaign that began in August. To find prospects, Sprint bumped its acquisition model, called the “value model,” against a combination of targeted and compiled files through an exclusive agreement with Dun & Bradstreet. The model is a profile of Sprint Business’ best customers, small business owners or decision makers who bill between $50 and $5,000 per month in long distance calling and are in a “growing mode,” says Mark Johnson, marketing communications manager for Sprint Small Business.
The mail campaign-which cost $900,000-dropped in five waves, with the last wave hitting mailboxes at the end of September. The promotion is expected to ring up a 4% to 5% response, Johnson says.
Collected consumer data will be used to track ad dollars and response as well as the number of phone calls, closed sales and customers in disposition.
Five versions of the offer reached prospects in the financial, health, consumer services, manufacturing and computer industries. The creative detailed the two CD-ROMs, which house Inc. magazine’s 15-million-name Prospect Pro B-to-B database. The CDs feature contact name, type of business and phone number. “It’s actual leads,” Johnson says. “One of the things small businesses have a challenge with is continually generating customers.”
Other incentives include free long-distance calling on Fridays until 2000 after spending $50 per month, and a choice of one of three “performance tool” kits: “Ensuring Customer Satisfaction,” “Increasing Sales” or “Improving Employee Effectiveness.” The campaign also touted a pledge to work with small companies to help solve business challenges using the right mix of products and tools. “There are a lot of telemarketing companies out there and we’re trying to distinguish ourselves from them,” Johnson says.
The campaign included radio spots to drive awareness. Print ads ran in local and regional business journals as well as national news and business publications, such as USA Today, Business Week, Time and Newsweek. A BRC was tested in some national ads “to see if it makes a difference,” Johnson says.
Typically local ads bring in fewer responses but a higher conversion rate than national ads, Johnson notes. “We’re really trying to target our dollars into the right vehicles to drive response.”
