The optical disc, better known as CDs and DVDs, has made a big impact throughout today's modern society. Everyone knows that disc technology has revolutionized music delivery (with the audio CD) and changed the nature of the movie business (with the DVD).
But the effect of plastic discs embedded with code goes far beyond entertainment. It has introduced new opportunities for attention-grabbing and effective business communication. And that's especially critical during an era when every marketing and PR expenditure is mercilessly scrutinized.
CDs and DVDs represent a unique and effective way to communicate with many different audiences: customers, business partners, trainees, newly hired employees, video aficionados, music lovers, audio book listeners, catalog browsers, and more. They can be packaged and delivered using a wide variety of materials and shipped inexpensively.
Discs offer a simple, universal means to convey information in digital form to anyone, anywhere. You have to do some serious hunting to find a household that doesn't have a DVD player, and, the DVD drives included with most computers will play everything from the latest movie releases to the earliest audio CDs. Unlike the early days of optical disc technology, today you can send just about any kind of a disc to anyone with a high degree of confidence that he or she will be able to play it without difficulty.
So, what are businesses doing with discs? The following stories offer a glimpse of some of the possibilities of CDs and DVDs for business communication – stories of Disc Makers customers who have found ways to reach their audience more effectively with discs.
A Huge Boost in Response Rates
Essex Technology Group (EssexTec) provides server virtualization solutions and deploys highly cost-effective systems that maximize server resource use. It's a complex and specialized field, and the first step in harvesting prospects comes in the form of a CD-ROM that invites the recipient to a seminar where the virtues of this technology are explained.
Packed with links, videos, and PDFs that explain virtualization, EssexTec's CD-ROMs have proven a very effective tool for drawing prospective customers. Response rates from the CD-ROM mailings typically draw more than four times the response rates of printed mailings the company previously used – they've increased their response by 400% with these CD-ROMs.
"We use the CD-ROM to hot link directly to our website," says Lee Sowers, Vice President of Marketing for the Essex Technology Group. "We link right to the landing page for the event. The page describes the event in more detail, gives an agenda, discusses what we'll be talking about, and provides an opportunity to register online."
As a $100 million company competing with $2 billion value-added resellers, EssexTec leverages the business communication capabilities of their CD-ROM to give seminar participants the background they need to get more out the presentations. Links to partner sites – IBM and VMWare – detail the technical specifications of the solutions offered and ensure that the most current information is immediately accessible.
EssexTec has earned the highest partnership level with IBM (Premier Business Partner) and VMWare (VMWare Enterprise-Level Partner) – a stature that can often be a deal maker with new clients. The introductory CD-ROM helps open doors as well. "We've engineered this CD-ROM for our marketing," explains Sowers. "It allows us to compete on the same level as the billion-dollar guys with the same level of technical competence and credibility in the industry. It's a very powerful tool.
"We used to use traditional printed materials to get across the same information and we would typically have 10 people show up at a lunch. When we use the CD-ROMs, we usually have over 40 participants attend, so our response has increased by over 400 percent using the CDs."
Sowers is a strong advocate for using interactive marketing techniques and sees discs as an ideal way for a company to tell its story, especially to executive staff members. "I can mail you something by snail mail," Sowers said, "and then you'll have to go find my website, or maybe you'll lose it or toss it. I can call you by telemarketing and, again, try to get you to a website.
But, the interactive CD is the only approach you can take to market to C-level corporate executives. They will take that CD and – when they are on the plane or at home at night or have a free moment – they will put it in the PC and get the full presentation of the message.
This has proven much superior to direct mail, to telemarketing, to any of the traditional, classic marketing methods – because it is interactive.
This is an excerpt from Disc Makers latest DVD White Paper, "Marketing with Optical Discs, How businesses capitalize on disc technology." To read the entire article, click here to download the PDF.
CDs and DVDs represent a unique and effective way to communicate with many different audiences: customers, business partners, trainees, newly hired employees, video aficionados, music lovers, audio book listeners, catalog browsers, and more. They can be packaged and delivered using a wide variety of materials and shipped inexpensively.
