Case Studies

Ricoh

Ricoh wanted to increase penetration within the Fortune 1000 IT sector; however, many of these companies saw Ricoh as just a copier company and were unaware of Ricoh's service and technology offerings.

Hothead Studios helped Ricoh create a unique variable data print campaign to help their sales team generate leads, increase prospect interest, and set up rep appointments. The direct response vehicle was a tongue-in-cheek "book" - Crack the Code - supposedly written by the prospect. Each book had a custom-tailored jacket that featured the individual prospect's name, as well as a unique priority code and URL. The book jacket copy positioned Ricoh as a solid player with strong IT capabilities, products, services and industry-leading ideas for managed document productivity. The campaign also drove traffic to a unique URL site that promoted Ricoh's one of a kind industry event, "Enhancing the Strategic IT Contribution to the Business." A follow-up faux magazine article / advertisement mailing was also sent to prospects.

The variable data print campaign was well received by the IT sector with strong lead generation results. In fact, this campaign has been so successful that Hothead and Ricoh have gone on to create several other similar "book" campaigns for their other business markets.

Crack The Code Update!

Hothead Studios brings Ricoh Worldwide a huge response. 1,980 CIOs and Directors at Ricoh's top Fortune 1000 accounts were targeted. Our strategy: quickly explain the offering AND show how the offering can help the CIO/Director do their job well and achieve business objectives. Our campaign included a series of three "business books" highlighting key Ricoh business solutions, bookmarker with sales rep information, and a "faux" magazine article as a final follow-up mailer. All campaign components featured the recipient as a renowned author who re-engineered their business through their partnership with Ricoh. We initially projected a 4% response rate. The actual results have been phenomenal, far exceeding our expectations. In just one week after the initial mailing, Ricoh had set up 150 individual face-to-face meetings with CIOs and Directors. To date, the response rate is 15%! There have been a total of 300 appointments, with a win rate of 13%. The average deal size in this environment is $100,000 per engagement. As of mid-March, Ricoh projects were closing at least $3,900,000 in business with a mere $28,000 investment!