Purchasing Power LLC - Outbound Marketing Program of the Year

Company: Purchasing Power, LLC, Atlanta, GA
Company Description: Purchasing Power, LLC, a voluntary benefit company, offers the leading employee purchase program for consumer products and services using payroll deduction, as well as a platform of tools and resources to improve employee financial wellness. Based in Atlanta, Purchasing Power is available to millions of people through large companies including Fortune 500s, associations and government agencies.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Outbound Marketing Program of the Year

Nomination Title: “Purchasing Power Chicago Style” – SHRM Campaign

Tell the story about your organization's outbound marketing program since the beginning of July 2017 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

For the past two years, Purchasing Power®’s B2B marketing team has used account-based marketing (ABM) tactics as the foundation for all strategic business initiatives. This approach involves directing all sales and marketing communication and resources to targeted accounts within specific markets.

The reason for the ABM approach is that our sales cycle – from broker contact to prospect client to eventual customer implementation – takes anywhere from 6-18 months on average. Conversely, a general marketing campaign simply fails to generate optimum lead interest.

Our buyer, typically an HR executive within a large organization of 1,000+ employees, is one of several high-level company representatives who together make the final decision of adding our program to their voluntary benefits package. The bigger the company, the more people, departments and disciplines required to be involved. In truth, we’re not marketing or selling to an individual. We’re marketing and selling to an entire account team.

All ABM marketing campaigns aimed at a specific company or industry are created with a comprehensive understanding of the targeted accounts and the specific decision-makers representing them. This approach, despite requiring more time, research and focus, has proven to dramatically increase Purchasing Power’s marketing efficiency and alignment with its sales team.

THE CAMPAIGN

Every year Purchasing Power invests heavily in exhibiting at SHRM, the largest, most important HR conference in the United States. Participating in this event provides the single, most significant opportunity for exposure and relationship-building with prospective key accounts.

We created a market-specific campaign to drive new client engagement and first-time, on-site meetings with our sales team representatives.

The core offer, intended to address limited budgets within many HR departments, was a complimentary conference pass to attend SHRM, valued at $900. In return, the recipient agreed to a one-on-one meeting with our sales director at SHRM.

Developing a fun, creative campaign was essential to capturing both attention and goodwill among our targeted prospects.
The 2018 conference occurred at McCormick Place in Chicago. The B2B Marketing team centered the campaign around an iconic food exclusive to this city – the deep-dish pizza. (See attached PDF materials for artwork and execution)

All ABM marketing materials – emails, advertising, social media and direct mail materials – featured a call-to-action for recipients to visit a designated landing page where they could register for a personal meeting and secure their complementary conference pass.

The multichannel, three-week campaign included:

-3-D Themed Mailer

-Postcard Mailer

-Series of Emails

-Targeted Online Advertising

All materials reflected the theme of the campaign. From the messaging content to the actual 3-D mailer, everything was designed to recreate the experience of eating a single-served deep-dish pizza. We wanted to make prospects imagine themselves already enjoying the “Windy City.”

We’ve pitched the “Purchasing Power Chicago Style” campaign to key players within targeted companies with more than 5,000 employees:

• Human Resource Directors
• Human Resource Senior Managers
• Human Resource Managers

In total, the campaign reached 5,878 prospect leads. The sales team also used the materials with existing companies in the sales pipeline.
The call-to-action across all channels was to visit the campaign landing page, which detailed all pertinent information about the offer.

OVERALL RESULTS
The 2018 Chicago Style campaign out-delivered all expectations, including every previous year’s efforts:

• Campaign out-performed the 2017 campaign by 5000% (attracted only 1 prospective response in 2017)
• 1,291 landing page unique visits (up 8% compare to 2017 campaign)
• 51 specific positive responses to the offer (4% conversion rate from landing page unique visits)
• 25 accepted prospect meetings with sales representatives from Purchasing Power in advance of the SHRM conference (49% conversion rate from responses to offer)
• KEY: $278,610,400 in projected estimated revenue (once pipeline cases are successfully closed)

Our sales and B2B marketing teams attributed the success of the 2018 SHRM campaign to accurate targeting of potential prospects, and to the creative, engaging campaign assets that aligned and paid tribute to the Chicago event marketplace.