Advantexe Learning Solutions - Marketing Solution – New

Company: Advantexe Learning Solutions, West Conshocken, PA
Company Description: Advantexe is an award-winning training and performance improvement organization that designs and delivers customized, live and web-based learning solutions in Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling learning solutions. We utilize sophisticated business simulations as the catalyst for learning and we enable participants to "learn-by-doing", retain knowledge longer.
Nomination Category: New Product & Service Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Solution – New

Nomination Title: The Santa Simulation

Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, explaining the features, functions, benefits, and results to date of the nominated new or new-version product or service, OR a written essay of up to 650 words describing the same? (Choose one): An essay/case study of up to 650 words

Every year, companies spend significant time and money on developing and sending out holiday cards to clients and prospects. With the advent of ecards, companies were able to develop an ecard and send the card out via email to their database at a fraction of the cost. The problem now became, everyone was able to send out cards and recipients were getting inundated. In a 3-year cycle, starting in 2016, Advantexe saw our open rate of our eHoliday cards go from 26% to just over 2% in 2018. Clients and prospects were just not reading holiday cards anymore.

Advantexe did not want to stop sending out ecards, but we wanted to optimize our time and improve open rates. Advantexe is a world leader in the design, development, and delivery of business simulations. So, in attempt to solve our issue, in 2019, we leveraged what we do best. We created a Santa Simulation as part of an Holiday ecard offering.

The Santa Sim is a digital business simulation where users have the opportunity to take on the role of Chief Operating Officer of Santa’s workshop. As the COO, users are responsible for overseeing daily operations including budgeting, capacity planning, cash flow, inventory management, and employee engagement. The ultimate goal of the simulation is to achieve the highest Holiday Cheer Rating, Employee Satisfaction, Delivery Readiness, and of course maintain a high Santa Jolliness rating.

The simulation teaches users about the fundamentals of business, as well as the challenges and opportunities of leading and managing a team. Users are required to make a series of business decisions that will have a direct effect on the business metrics and financial performance of Santa’s Workshop.

To play the simulation https: //forio.com/app/advantexe/santa-sim (Create a new user name and password.)

Our Process

We sent an ecard (See attachment) to our database inviting users to participate in the simulation. We tried a number of different A/B tests on the subject line to see if we can drive open rates. Initial subject lines with “Happy Holidays” were not effective, with just an average of a 2% open rate. “Happy Holidays from Advantexe” subject lines were even worse at less than 1%. After a number of tries changing the subject lines, we were able to finally drive open rates to an average of just over 13% with the subject line, “Santa Needs Your Help!” Our “Time Spent” viewing the email metric (contacts who opened it and viewed it for more than 8 seconds) went from 33.3% to 51.9%.

While we improved the open rates and read through rates, we struggled with getting readers to react and take action. Click through rates to play the actual simulation were less than 1%. We had to go back to the drawing board and change the design of the email. We swapped out images and included a call-to-action at the top of the email so it was clearer what actions needed to be taken. We saw a shift in CTR from our client data base to over 7% and CTR from the prospect database list to over 5%.

Results

We sent the holiday card out to just under 2500 people and we had over 140 people actually complete the simulation, giving us what we are calling a 5.5% “interaction” rate. Users were able to have some fun with the simulation and learn a little something about business, although the simulation results were a bit bleak!

-Only 33% of the users were able to improve revenue
-70% increased costs significantly
-5% had negative net income

Direct feedback from readers included:
“Tell Jim I love the Santa Simulation!”
“What a great idea! Really love the Santa sim”
“The Santa Sim was so cute. Very different idea.”
“Really Clever”
“Love This”
“I bankrupted Santa. Does that mean I end up on the naughty list?”