CLIENT: Raindance Communications
PR:
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
BUDGET: N/A
TIMEFRAME: September - November 2004 200442004
The business world at large has been slow to warm to the promise
of Web conferencing, a technological advance supposed to ease the
tedium of what comedian John Cleese once famously referred to as
"meetings, bloody meetings." Held back initially due to the
cumbersome nature of its operation and its cost factors, it was
only a matter of time before some new technology would make Web
conferencing more practical and appealing.
So when Boulder, Colo.-based Raindance Communications, a
provider of integrated Web- and audio-conferencing services,
planned to launch its new and improved version last September, the
challenge became how to grab the attention of a jaded marketing
community already overburdened with free gifts, promotions and
pitches.
The solution, cooked up by Raindance's chief marketing officer,
Brian Burch, and a team at the Denver office of Ogilvy Public
Relations Worldwide, was to introduce the Raindance Online
Institute (ROI), offering marketers in targeted industries a free
trial of the service itself (Raindance Meetings Edition).
Potential users could log on to a restricted Web site and
participate in seminars on such subjects as building customer
loyalty and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit. Delivered by such
top marketing authors as Seth Godin, author of "Permission
Marketing" and "Free Prize Inside," and Guy Kawasaki, author of
"The Art of the Start," each speaker was scheduled to speak two or
three times during a two-month period.
The target market was 200,000 CEOs, product managers, heads of
marketing and those responsible for generating leads in companies
worth more than $50 million in the financial, telecommunications,
high-tech, manufacturing, healthcare and professional-service
industries. Research had identified those sectors as having a
business model that lent itself to collaboration. "It was important
that they didn't require as much education when it came to
technology," Burch says. "They were more aggressive in its adoption
compared with professions such as law, which are traditionally slow
adopters." By saturating selected markets, versus the "blanket"
approach of competitors, Raindance hoped to generate more than
5,500 qualified leads.
The aim was to catch marketers early on in their budgeting and
planning processes. "Marketers have great influence on the agencies
and those salesman who call on them," Burch says. "We felt that by
giving them compelling reasons to consider our products, we'd not
only be successful in building a sales pipeline with that marketing
group, but they'd also have a group of moons orbiting them." A big
believer in viral marketing, Burch -- even when contacted by sales
executives -- insists they deliver their pitch through the
Raindance Marketing Edition. As a direct result, many of them
become customers.
Rolled out in 1997, Raindance's original intent was to catch the
wave of what it thought would be a mass market for video streaming.
"Fairly quickly, we realized the big opportunity was in automated
services to help companies distribute to a broader audience," Burch
says. "Raindance was the first company to market 'reservational'
audio conferencing, and we brought out Web conferencing later that
year. Now you're seeing the next generation where audio and video
are incorporated in one."
While the birth of the dot-com boom helped kick-start the
company, ironically, it was the burst of that bubble that helped it
grow. "People had to get smarter about investing. Our tools allowed
businesses to be highly productive, and so we experienced a big
burst in business," he says. Plus with expenses like travel being
cut, companies turned to virtual lead-generation. Then came 9/11,
and a number of things came together. "It's tragic, but as more
travel restrictions were imposed and companies became more socially
responsible, our tools became an alternative to physical travel,
while the tools themselves became more integrated and innovative,"
Burch adds.
Since then, more and more companies have jumped on the
Web-conferencing bandwagon, including the mighty Microsoft.
According to a survey from the technology research company
IDC, the number of Web-conference users worldwide is
projected to increase to 107 million this year from 79 million in
2003 and 51 million in 2002.
Raindance initially launched its Raindance Meetings Edition in
March 2004, conducting an aggressive press campaign. "We looked at
the audience and realized we had to reach them through an
integrated campaign of sponsorship, direct marketing and events,"
Burch says. Some lead generation efforts continued over the summer,
culminating in the Sept. 15, 2004 launch of the ROI.
Raindance contacted Ogilvy around that time to brainstorm. "We
had discussed with them that one great way to get business
professionals engaged is to have great content," says Amy
Messenger, managing director of Ogilvy's Denver office. "And in
order to experience the content, marketers will have to use the
tool. Once they do, they realize how easy it is. Raindance already
had the kernel of the idea and the commitment to do it. They wanted
our input, especially as we are a sub-target of the target
themselves, so it was helpful that we could sit down and discuss
how to make this compelling from a user point of view."
At that stage, Messenger says, it was more of a marketing
exercise in getting out the news of the ROI to those who cover such
events, like Brandweek and CMO magazine. Also
contacted were direct-marketing associations and the CMO
Council.
"The aim was to let the marketing community know that Raindance
is a savvy marketer and was going to be doing some very different
kinds of campaigns compared with their bigger competitors,"
Messenger says. "It is a crowded space, and they're not going to be
able to compete on a paid basis with them."
Attracting such high-wattage speakers as Guy Kawasaki was
"moderately difficult," Burch says. "Kawasaki gets lots of invites,
but he had a book that had just been published, and he was
interested in getting publicity. Plus we paid an honorarium. Once
he saw the tool, he became a huge advocate of Web conferencing, and
now he's built us into his repertoire."
While expecting to generate more than 5,000 leads from such
efforts, Raindance in fact attracted some 8,000. Converting them,
Burch agrees, is the difficult part. "We have hundreds of qualified
opportunities in the pipeline," he says, "but it will be several
months before we know." Among those leads are many Fortune
1000 companies including Warner Bros., Nokia,
Lucent, IBM and Cingular. "We're in the funnel
itself," Burch says. "Success or failure is far from written. It'll
be several months before we can recap what's been done and go back
to the press with a success story."
A survey conducted after the seminars revealed that 76% of
participants did not currently use Web conferencing, and that 74%
of participants ranked the content as valuable or extremely
valuable. And what did the other 26% think? "They said it was okay
or average or better than average," Burch says. "That's a
reflection of promise made/promise kept or what I expected. No one
said it was a waste of time."
Raindance has another new product in the works to be launched
later this year and packaged along with the Meetings Editions via
the ROI. As for any proof of return on investment, Raindance points
to a May 2004 survey by IDC called "New Breed of Web
Conferencing to Make Everyday Meetings More Productive." According
to IDC, "One Raindance customer interviewed for this white paper
calculated that its return on investment from using Web
conferencing was nearly 2,300%."
Contacts: Brian Burch, 303.928.2959; Amy Messenger,
303.634.2626. [email protected]