Workplace micro markets are fast becoming a more popular alternative to traditional office vending machines. Micro markets offer a healthier and more diverse selection of food, drinks, and snacks at companies where having a full-service cafeteria or kitchen isn’t an option. They provide businesses and employees better convenience, increased efficiency, and greater wellness benefits.

The Client is looking to capture a bigger slice of the growing demand for micro market solutions, particularly among mid-sized companies in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Its current (mostly inbound) marketing program generates an average of 10 appointments per month, of which 30% become salesqualified. The company’s sales team can close around 40% of these opportunities as new customers.

To achieve its expansion goals, the Client realizes it has to increase the flow of leads and appointments into its pipeline. That’s why the Client wants to complement its inbound marketing initiatives with targeted, outbound prospecting tactics.

But with its in-house marketing team and sales reps already facing hectic workloads, the Client understands it needs to outsource a good deal of top-of-funnel outbound marketing activities, such as prospect research and prequalification.

The Client partnered with Callbox after short-listing a number of third-party marketing agencies. The company says Callbox’s consultative approach at helping the Client narrow down its marketing needs, plus Callbox’s multichannel marketing philosophy, set it apart from the other candidates it was evaluating.

The Callbox team then closely worked with the Client to develop a campaign plan for a three-month pilot program. They agreed on a targeted appointment setting strategy that combined live phone conversations with email touch points in order to:

• Gauge the product fit and buying intent of potential customers for its micro market packages
• Book qualified prospects for a face-to-face meeting with the Client’s reps
• Collect additional prospect information to help the Client nurture leads and opportunities

The effort started out with a thorough analysis of the Client’s ideal customer profile. This consisted of companies operating in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area belonging to any of 8 two-digit SIC groups, with between 250 to 500 employees.

The Client also wanted to prioritize companies with at least 100 employees working at a single location in order for its self-service micro market kiosks to tap into sufficient foot traffic.

The pilot campaign ran for a total of 66 days (22 days per month) and met all its objectives. As with most Callbox multi-touch, multi-channel appointment setting projects, the campaign’s initial phase was spent warming up contacts and refining campaign targets through email outreach, which produced engagement results in line or better than industry benchmarks: delivery rates of up to 98%, open rates of up to 32.8%, and Click-through Rates of up to 13%.

These early touch points paved the way for conversions (booked appointments and completed leads) to start trickling in after the campaign’s third week. Broken down by month, the results of the appointment setting activities are:

• 1st Month: 11 qualified appointments, 17 completed leads
• 2nd Month: 29 qualified appointments, 47 completed leads
• 3rd Month: 41 qualified appointments, 39 completed leads

Using the Client’s current funnel metrics, the 81 qualified appointments potentially translate into an additional 24 new sales-qualified leads, which in turn can be converted into 10 new customers. With an average deal size of $5,000 per month, the Client is looking at an increase of $600,000 in annual sales from the pilot campaign.