Can a brick attract new companies? That’s what PEI was banking on, and it paid off big time in a recent Health IT attraction campaign. The innovative campaign combined direct mail, email and website measurement to close the loop on prospecting companies at the HIMMS conference in Chicago last month.
The team responsible for the brick campaign – investPEI, Summerside Regional Development Corporation and the City of Summerside – were eager to come up with something that would set them apart with prospective tenants for their new Health IT facility. What they came up with yielded results that were unprecedented compared to previous tradeshow outreach.
“For the first time, we weren’t blindly sending out brochures or emails and wondering who read them,” explains Mike Thususka, Director of Economic Development for the City of Summerside, PEI. “We had a coordinated campaign that gave us feedback about who was receiving the packages and clicking through to a focused website designed just for this campaign. When we got to the trade show we knew exactly who to meet with.”
And it all started with a single brick.
“Some were skeptical at first when we suggested the idea of mailing prospective companies an actual brick,” recalls Heather Ciere of On Three Communication Design. “We had been touring the new Health IT facility and passed a pile of bricks that had been collected from the redevelopment of the property. We got to thinking about what the bricks represented beyond the multi-million dollar investment in the building. They represented the ‘building’ of a vision for Health IT too. Why not use something tangible like a brick to represent PEI’s vision and ambitions?”
Prospective companies received a brick in the mail explaining what it represented and introducing the opportunity. They were directed to a special website: investpei.ca/healthIT to learn more. This allowed the team to track the effectiveness of the packages. This was followed by a peer-to-peer email campaign from ambassadors like Dave Perry of Carestream Health – a Health IT firm already operating in the facility. Using email links and tracking software, the team was able to pinpoint exactly who clicked through to the site and how many links they clicked – a great measure of interest.
“Generally, direct mail campaigns have a terrible ROI,” says Jim McGimpsey of On Three, “They usually end up in the recycling bin before they are ever opened. But when you mail a package with a brick inside, it makes people stop and take notice. Even if the reaction is one of confusion, it still ensures that the receiver looks further at the materials to make sense of this strange delivery.”
By pairing this unique mailing with the best of email and web metrics, the campaign allowed the PEI team to start conversations with people they knew were interested. “People remembered us as the city that sent them a brick – the city that took a chance and worked hard to get their attention,” says Thususka.
Prince Edward Island was ranked 4th worldwide for Advanced Software Development by KPMG. It is aggressively pursuing this sector as an area of growth. The brick campaign will play a significant role in this attraction strategy. For more information, visit investpei.ca/healthIT.
Tags: brick campaign, Email Marketing, Health IT, Summerside, tradeshow marketing