MainControl® Wins Small Business Accounts by Schmoozing Them at a Virtual Golf Game

CHALLENGE
Since 1994, MainControl® has sold big companies, like Sears and Southwest Airlines, software to help them manage their technology assets. Last year they decided to grow by reaching out to "the other 80% of the marketplace" -- small-medium sized businesses.

However, marketing to small business is very different from marketing to the Fortune 2000. So, MainControl turned to ENC Marketing, a marcom firm that specializes in helping high tech companies reach "beyond the sales force." ENC's VP Creative Services, Matt Arozian talked us through what happened next.

CAMPAIGN
ENC decided to play off of the pop culture image of Fortune 2000 bigwigs making business deals on the golf course. Instead of a real golf game with a VP Sales schmoozing you, ENC created an online golf game with sales messages at each hole. You could call it a "virtual schmooze."

ENC tested a wide variety of both offline and online media to drive targeted traffic to the game, including direct mail postcards, banners, and email newsletter mentions. The offer was a sweepstakes for a $2,500 dream vacation. Entrants were sent to an online "scratch card" where they were instructed to enter an identifier number. Next they got to "play" three holes of golf, each of which bore a little marketing copy for the product. At the end of the virtual course, players were instructed to fill out a very short list of questions (name, title, organization and some sales qualifying questions) in order to find out if they won a prize.

Finally a button next to the prize information asked gamers to "Visit Our Pro Shop!" where they could download their choice of six white papers on the topic of IT infrastructure
management.

RESULTS
MainControl was "very, very happy with the quality of leads generated."

Surprisingly the snail mailed postcards were the most successful traffic-driving media -- with an impressive 29% response rate! Banners got just a .25% click through rate and
produced lower quality leads.

A solid 20% of all visitors went through the entire game from start to finish. Almost 200 visitors downloaded white papers and about 600 opted in to receive more emailed information from MainControl.