An advertising campaign integrating teleservices, the Internet, radio, print, TV and direct mail has helped generate 31,000 sales leads for Honeywell Home and Building Controls. To date, 420 appointments with contractors that install the company’s heating and ventillation equipment have resulted from the campaign.
The campaign, which is being conducted in the greater Chicago area, is centered around a toll-free number, 877-4COMFORT, and a Web site (www.8774comfort.com) created especially for the campaign. The Web site and call center are linked so that visitors to the site can request an immediate phone call by typing their phone number into a designated place on the site. The company has created a database of sales leads in a secure area of the site that includes phone numbers captured on the Web and through the toll-free number.
Customers also are able to request faxed brochures about Honeywell’s products from the phone or the Web site, and Web visitors can have their names and addresses directed to the home pages of contractors in their local areas, creating a region-specific database. Since the campaign kicked off at the end of August, the site has generated about 159,000 hits.
“I think the one thing that was a shock to us was that the response to the Web pages was a lot more than we thought it would be,” said Ruth Knockeart, an area market leader for Honeywell. “The Web site is definitely something that you need to work into a campaign, especially with the group of people that we are targeting, which is professionals.”
The teleservices aspect of the campaign is highly automated. Elliott Communications and Design Inc., Geneva, IL, which created the campaign, maintains the call center for Honeywell using its proprietary Inteloquence software system and telephone technology called the Electronic Secretarial Administrator.
“We’re able to do this with just four live bodies, because we use so much integration,” said Dan Elliott, principal and creative director of Elliott Communications. “Automation is driving this whole thing.”
Customers who call the toll-free number are given three options: they can press “3” to hear recorded infomercials about Honeywell products, they can press “5” to request product brochures and coupons via fax, or they can press “9” to speak to a live operator. In any case, the phone number of the caller is captured automatically along with the services the caller requested.
Honeywell representatives can obtain the phone numbers of callers from a secure area of the Web site and determine which products they were interested in.
The nine-month campaign, which is supported by five Honeywell suppliers and distributors and more than 40 heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractors, includes a broad mass-media effort using TV, radio and newspapers and a 15 million-piece mailing. The mailing was included with the November and January monthly billing statements of all Northern Illinois Gas Co. customers, and will also be included in February and March statements.
The campaign was designed to increase awareness of the Honeywell brand and to educate consumers about Honeywell’s product line, which includes thermostats, humidifiers and electronic air cleaners. Knockeart noted that the campaign also served to strengthen the company’s relationships with its contractors, whom Honeywell depends on to install its products. n
