ConferenceCall.com Dials in Email Marketing Success

Email powers audio and web conferencing services provider to explosive growth

Background

ConferenceCall.com understands the value of business-to-business communication. That’s part of the job description when you facilitate virtual meetings for a living. And when this leading provider of audio and web conferencing services wants to reach its customer base, email marketing is the method of choice.

Problem

When ConferenceCall.com began searching for a way to enhance its external communications, management knew it required a system that provided tremendous reach, but was also accommodating enough to meet the various needs of an expanding and wide-ranging customer base.

Discovery

Today, ConferenceCall.com executives are quick to note that email offers both the scope and the flexibility needed to serve its large, diverse and rapidly growing customer base. As a company focused on increasing customer productivity and providing more convenience in communication, customized email campaigns suit ConferenceCall’s ideals and strategies quite effectively.

“Email marketing provides a method of communication that is easy to implement for a broad audience, and easy to customize for various customer segments,” explained Carolyn Campbell, Senior Director for the Marketing Department at ConferenceCall.com. “We find that by implementing well-timed email communications with customized messaging based on the customer’s product usage, we can reach out to each customer in a way that is meaningful to them, thereby increasing their adoption of and loyalty to our conference services.”

Solution

In 2001, when ConferenceCall.com began searching for an Email Service Provider (ESP), the company sent just a couple thousand emails per month. Four years later, the Carrollton, Texas-based outfit delivered more than 100,000 messages each month through VerticalResponse, a leading provider of email and direct mail marketing services. As the relationship grew, Campbell was impressed by the fact that VerticalResponse offered “continuing enhancements without unreasonable price increases”.

Results

Today, email marketing forms the backbone of ConferenceCall.com’s customer communications program. Messages offering service announcements, product upgrades, upsell information and special promotions are introduced on a monthly basis through VerticalResponse and organized through its campaign management interface.

“The principal benefit we’ve seen from using VerticalResponse has come in our new customer activation rates,” Campbell noted. “Since we close a large amount of new customers who are e-shoppers, we must begin the relationship-building process after the customer has subscribed.”

Since many ConferenceCall.com customers began their relationship with the company through its website instead of with sales representatives, they embrace email as the company’s preferred method of interaction. Establishing email as the primary mode of communication early on “frees sales representatives for more focused efforts”, where their personal attention can be leveraged in the most profitable manner.

Those efforts are bearing fruit, as supported by the fact that ConferenceCall.com now boasts more than 50,000 active users and selects VerticalResponse for projects ranging from 50 to 100,000 emails.