A direct e-mail campaign touting the launch of an on-demand webcast to promote Storability's new data storage system has gotten a better response than the company anticipated, possibly because of safety concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Storability late last month e-mailed more than 70,000 people about a Webcast called “Seize Control of Your Storage.” The webcast is being used to promote Storability's new turnkey system called Assured Storage Management System.
The webcast was developed by ITworld.com, a producer of broadband interactive marketing solutions, for the data storage company.
According to Diana Eastty, director of marketing communications at Storability, Southborough, MA, the idea for using the webcast was in place before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She thinks that because businesses are cutting back on travel for budgetary and safety reasons, many more prospects have been willing to take part in the webcast than the company had imagined.
“We actually delayed the announcement a week in light of what happened,” she said, referring to the terrorist attacks. “Everyone was so distracted, and the significance of what happened was overpowering. And we just didn't think it would be appropriate to launch a campaign at that time and felt it would be best if we gave people some time to regroup.
“As a result of the attacks, the timing may be perfect to use this particular type of medium for a marketing campaign,” she said. “There is a chance that it will be received with an added level of interest that we never anticipated.”
To date Storability has had 160 people register for and view the webcast. The company described a number of those viewers as good leads.
Eastty thinks the attacks will raise interest in Storability's product and marketing method for two reasons. First, there is a heightened awareness among companies about the need to manage and store data, and people may be apprehensive about flying to a business meeting.
“This way they can view the product right on their desktop,” Eastty said.
According to ITworld, traffic and viewership of its sponsored Webcasts have gone up 20 percent since Sept. 11. It is currently running 20 webcasts for a variety of companies promoting different products.
The webcast for Storability went live Sept. 26. The company sent 500 e-mails to its own database or prospects and current customers a day earlier. It devoted its entire quarterly newsletter to ASMS and the webcast.
The webcast highlights specific benefits of using quality technology to reduce storage management costs, increase use, improve efficiency and provide better-quality service. According to the two companies, specific questions are addressed during the Webcast about Storability's new ASMS.
Storability primarily works with Fortune 1,000 companies in the financial services, telecommunications and health services industry, but Eastty said ASMS can help any type of company that deals with a lot of data and needs it stored.
ITworld also compiled a list of 60,000 to 70,000 prospects that it sent out an e-mail notification to the day before the webcast. Those names were compiled from several sources, including its e-newsletter subscription list as well as subscription lists from IT-oriented magazines.
Everyone targeted was from those three verticals, with most from telecommunication companies.
Eastty said there are no plans to launch a direct mail campaign to promote the product or the webcast, which is scheduled to run for three months, but would not rule it out.
“Hopefully this campaign will help create a large database that we can use for future direct mail campaigns,” she said.
