WorldFinderCorp. sent the first of numerous BTB direct-mail drops last month to drive traffic to a new Web site called WorldAtOnce.com.
The piece mailed to 30,000 recipients, mainly the heads of the marketing and purchasing departments at internationally focused companies. The goal is to get them to use WorldAtOnce's database of more than 40 million companies from 200 countries and 3,000 vertical markets. The database provides the company name, address, telephone and fax number, and contact names along with an e-mail and Web address.
The mailer is being sent in a translucent envelope with a headline that reads: “Suddenly … 40 million companies are coming your way.” Through the envelope a number of frogs can be seen marching over the globe. The back of the envelope has an image of a frog rising over the globe like the sun. Above him a headline reads: “A new day is dawning.”
“We had a couple of options when it came to what type of piece we wanted to use,” said Pat Dujan, president of WorldFinderCorp, Santa Barbara, CA. “The frog theme was chosen because it injected a little bit of humor into the piece and made it lighter. The frog also represents the ability to jump from country to country on the site.”
The piece unfolds into an L shape. Inside is a description of how a user can locate a company anywhere in the world along with an outline of the Web site's benefits and services.
Recipients are asked to visit the site for a test search. Before conducting a test search they are asked to provide some information.
“We ask them questions in order to figure out the size and nature of the business,” said Peter Sandor, president of Sandor Marketing Group, the advertising firm handling the campaign.
“We also try to find out what they plan on using the site for and where they found out about it.”
Users can pay on a monthly basis or a search-by-search basis.
The company plans to run the campaign for the foreseeable future, Sandor said, at a rate of 30,000 pieces per month. WorldFinderCorp will focus on U.S.-based companies for the first few months before targeting executives in other countries.
WorldFinderCorp is using various list sources for the campaign, including its own inhouse file and a number of list brokers.
Sandor said it might experiment with a self-mailer in the next few months.
It originally ran the campaign back in May of 2001, but cancelled it after two months due to work being done to the Web site. Sandor said the response rate was 4 percent to 5 percent for those two months.
