UGM (User Generated Mailing)

Background

Natural Servicios wanted to promote a new service that they had never sold in the country before – a water heater for big swimming pools. The brief had two major challenges: to sell a very hard to explain service and to find the relevant clubs, hotels, estates and condominium complexes with pools large enough to target. Natural Servicios estimated that there were probably less than 100 institutions with such pools in their entire sales territory. CP Comunicación Proximity had to find them.

Idea

The agency used Google Earth and GPS technology as well as telephone research to identify prospects. They scrutinised Google Earth for big masses of water and then zoomed in to see if they were pools; applicable coordinates were gleaned and inserted into a GPS system that identified the streets/roads surrounding the property.

After the compilation of the research data, a mailing was sent out to the appropriate venues. Instead of sending a typical business message in the company’s ‘voice’, the 'user-generated content' era inspired the agency to come up with a more innovative approach. The mailing was in the form of a ‘thank you gift’ from the members of the club, neighbours of the condo or guests of the hotel to thank the pool operator for heating the pool. The pack included an inner-tube with the sender's grateful messages written on it and a ‘home-made’ CD video showing the party that the members/neighbours threw to celebrate the newly heated pool.

Results

The agency discovered 83 eligible pools (31 from brokered lists, 34 from desk research and 18 through Google Earth) within the Natural Servicios sales territory. To date, 41 locations have accepted a sales rep visit (49%) and 17 sales have been made (41%), exceeding target by 70%. Annual revenues from the 17 sales are more than US$175,000. The costs of the campaign were US$5,400 for the list generation (including the cost of the telephone verifications) plus US$6,660 for the mailing. An ROI of 1450%.

Target audience

The head managers of country clubs, sports clubs, condominium complexes and hotels with large swimming pools.

Volume/size of campaign

The total cost of the campaign was US$12,000

Our Thoughts

If an essential part of direct marketing is identifying your target audience, that’s not always so easy. There aren’t many lists of swimming pool operators. So to find them, the agency used Google Earth and searched Argentina for swimming pools, finding them in country clubs, hotels and upmarket condo’s. Then they mailed them the story of how they could be saving money on heating costs. Cool.