7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
7 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

This marketing campaign failed. What would you have done differently?

by Goalie35
6 replies
I was speaking with a friend who works as a programmer for a large pharmaceutical company. They setup a website/marketing project that ended up being a failure (at least that's how the company viewed it), due to improper marketing. So I started wondering what I would have done differently. Here's the details of the project:
  1. Pharma company wanted their customers (veterinarians) to receive their certification about their medication. Certification provided benefits & access to educational material for the veterinarians.
  2. To be certified, the vet had to access the pharma's website (http://whiskersandwellness.com), watch 2 training videos, & pass 2 tests.
  3. For marketing, the pharma company had a mailing list of about 10,000 vets. They did email blasts to all vets.
  4. After 1 week, vets who didn't respond to the email received a 2nd email, followed by a 3rd followup week 3.
  5. Emails were sent out at 10:00am eastern time.
  6. The emaisl sent to vets was pretty professional looking. Described the benefits of the certification & links to access the website

At the end of the program, of about 14,000 emails sent, only about 100 took the certification.

So, just for fun, I was curious if this project had come to you, what would you have done to improve their conversions?
#campaign #differently #failed #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author newpage
    I would first take a hard look at what they had to gain or lose. What is the pain level and does it exceed the reward. Opportunity lost. Second I would look at what scarcity triggers were applied.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356652].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    First of all, 100 out of 14,000 is not too bad. Your question has no mention of price so if the certification cost $10,000 then it would be a success...

    Regardless, the company (your client?) viewed this as a failure. So let's look at what you did:

    1) Did you test the landing page at all?

    2) Sending "email blasts to all vets" doesn't sound great. What did these communicate? And how did they advertise the certification?

    3) Sending 1 email a week is low in my opinion. If someone opts-in to learn about a certification, they have a mucher higher likelihood of buying within the first 5 days then they do afterwards (not true in all markets).

    4) You sent all the emails at 10:00 am eastern, did you test that against other times?

    5) In your email copy did you give reasons why you were offering the certification? Not just benefits, but a reason why you're offering this special promotion will do much better than just benefits.

    Hope this helps.
    Signature

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356660].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Goalie35
      Your question has no mention of price so if the certification cost
      Certification was free.

      You sent all the emails at 10:00 am eastern, did you test that against other times?
      They didn't test different times. That was one of the options that came to my mind. I thought 10am was an odd time & should've been tested against other times (i.e. I would think sending an hour before the avg vet starts work, or an hour before the average time a vet leaves the office would have better results)
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356677].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author miklanderson2
    Is requiring certification for various medications a standard practice in the veterinarian industry? If not, that's your problem right there. I'd also look at the length of the training video and the benefits the vets gain by watching them/taking the test. What's being offered by the company that the vets don't already have access to? What benefits do they gain from taking time out of their day to get certified? The veterinarians I know are extremely busy people and I don't think they'd bother responding to an e-mail solicitation that required them to take a test and get certified unless there were some tangible benefits to be gained.
    Signature

    "A bargain is something you don’t need at a price you can’t resist."
    -Franklin Jones

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356684].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author hardworker2013
    For something like that, it would have been best to do direct marketing by
    contacting the customers by Phone although the list is huge. Maybe this could be outsourced
    as with direct contact the sign ups would be much greater. Also it has been proven that the best time to send out emails are 7 am to 8 am, 12 pm to 2 pm and 6 pm to 8 pm. Those are the time periods that most persons check there emails. Also there must be some veterinarian association
    through which you should get a better response rate.
    Signature
    CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE FAST
    >>GET YOUR PIECE OF THE TRILLION DOLLAR AMAZON PIE!<<
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356706].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author alvinhy
    If the certificate was free and the vet passed it, what more use does the vet have in staying on your website once they received the cert.

    If I was a vet, I get the cert, Ill be happy and leave.

    If your goal was to get 100vets to do the test, then you have succeeded.
    There was no "actually" goal setup here. (or was there?)
    Signature
    >>> The King of Online Passive Income <<<
    www.JustPassive.com
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[9356836].message }}

Trending Topics