Scenario
As a manufacturing company, you develop and market large consumer home appliances including refrigerators, washer-dryers, and dishwashers. These products are sold to consumers through a variety of indirect channels including home improvement retailers (such as Home Depot, Lowes, and Menards), consumer electronics and appliance outlets (such as Best Buy) and other local/regional appliance retailers. The products are serviced through a variety of store-affiliated and independent dealers/contractors who perform repairs and warranty work. From a marketing standpoint, you employ traditional and digital channels/platforms to promote or advertise your products to consumers across the US and to promote the outlets/retailers that resell your products.
One of your flagship products is a line of technologically-sophisticated, smart refrigerators that can be connected to the Internet through in-home Wi-Fi and range in price from 2,000 – $4,000 per unit. These smart refrigerators offer a variety of options to consumers including being able to program, monitor, and control the appliance through an embedded interface, (i.e., door-based, touch-screen which employs an operating system and a variety of apps) as well as a mobile app. Furthermore, smart refrigerators can provide users with a plethora of information including appliance performance, necessary part replacement alerts (such as water filters) while also providing insight into the contents of the refrigerator, i.e., being able to view food items, their temperature, quantity, etc. These refrigerators can also be integrated with other household devices such as door-bells or internal and external security cameras to provide users with greater visibility into various areas of their home.
From a consumer standpoint, the value proposition of these smart refrigerators rests in their contemporary style and aesthetic appeal, convenience, state-of-the art appliance management functions, and many other key attributes. With regard to marketing communication standpoint, you have employed a range of digital advertising tools including search engine optimization, banner ads on third-party websites, remarketing/retargeting techniques, etc.
To drive revenue growth, you have implemented a direct marketing program for your smart home appliances category. The program aims to accomplish the following objectives:
• Identify potential leads.
• Draw traffic to your retail partners’ brick-and-mortar and online locations.
• Increase sales conversion rate for retail partners.
Recently, a customer visited your company website and searched through various smart refrigerator products. The customer reviewed both product specifications for various types of refrigerators as well as pricing. In addition, the customer also reviewed information on your authorized retail partners who sell refrigerators and offer professional installation, integration, and old product disposal services. It is likely that the customer is not only comparing your offerings with other similar manufacturers, but he/she is also evaluating the various retail outlets that you partner with.
Assume you have the contact information on the potential customer who visited your website including their email as well as their physical address—perhaps it is a former customer or maybe they were asked to provide such information on your website (some companies do that before they can give out specific information about product availability, pricing, or any sales promotions), or you were able to use third-party web- based advertising tools and databases to get the contact information. You can develop your own brand, e.g., Acme Company, etc., for this exercise.
As part of the direct marketing effort, you have been assigned the following tasks (see questions).
Q.1. Draft a follow-up email for the website visitor which accomplishes the following objectives (50 points):
a) Persuades them to open the email, i.e., has a powerful subject header.
b) Serves as a subtle reminder of the specific smart refrigerator product and they had reviewed and or the retail partner link that they clicked on.
c) Informs the customer about the product, installation service, any special promotions, and keeps them engaged with the email (i.e., minimizes the likelihood of email abandonment or the bounce rate).
d) Prompts specific action such as coming to the retail partner’s physical or online store, purchasing the product, etc.
Q.2. Develop a landing page for a mock micro-site associated with the email. For instance, if the customer clicks on one of the hyperlinks or call to action buttons or graphics in the email, they are routed to a specific landing page and not the main home page of the manufacturer or the retail partner. You can simply use a Word or PPT format (wide format) to show what that landing page should look like. Embed any visuals, text, and any call to action buttons, etc., in the landing page. You can copy and paste the slide into the word document but please make sure that the content of the slide is legible. You do not have to create an actual site or webpage; you can leverage Word and or PPT. (50 points)
Q.3. Develop a direct mail piece that will be sent out to the customer’s physical mailing address. The objectives for this direct mail piece are the same, i.e., subtly remind the customer about the web search they had performed, prompt them to visit your retail partner’s physical/online store, and persuades them to purchase the product. As part of the persuasion, you must develop an incentive/sales promotion designed to entice the customer to purchase the appliance. The format for the direct mail piece must not be identical to the email in Q1. (50 points)
