Last week was a very exciting time at Radish Towers: we found out that we’ve been nominated as finalists in two categories for the 2015 B2B Marketing Awards.
We are thrilled that we were selected as finalists for two categories out of 562 entries to the awards.
Our campaign for Unity ‘From gaming to architecture: Launching Unity into a new market’ was nominated for both Best Product Launch Campaign and Best Limited-Budget Campaign.
The lead generation campaign to help Unity launch into the architectural market integrated direct mail with digital augmented reality features to deliver a successful conversion rate of 1:6.
The Challenge
Unity is one of the world’s most popular gaming development platforms, possessing 45% of the full-feature game engine market with 1 million monthly active game developers utilising Unity tools.
Already dominating nearly half of the game engine market, Unity was looking to expand its customer base and product offering beyond the gaming world.
Unity launched its real-time visualisation software for architectural market. The immersive and interactive visualisations allow architects to communicate their designs to clients and colleagues at an elevated level of detail.
Solution and strategy
Based on quantitative and qualitative research, an aggressive go-to-market product launch was built, taking a multi-channel approach to carefully engage and break into this new market. The campaign was highly targeted to the top 200 UK architects with a turn over of £5 million with the aim of creating talkability, high engagement and awareness within the architectural community.
What better way to promote this software than by literally putting it in the hands of potential customers? Digital Radish’s highly targeted direct mail campaign delivered an interactive, augmented reality experience by way of a QR code, to bring a map of London within a moleskin diary to life. Fusing old school direct mail techniques with new digital techniques delivered maximum impact.
From face-to-face interviews and survey of over 1000 architects, in-depth persona on the personality traits and needs of architects were built, shaping a focused campaign that would truly resonate with the architecture audience.
Research found that the most successful architectural agencies were using high-end technology to develop their designs, moving away from old school sketch techniques. Architects are extremely sensitive to visuals, sounds and smells and will often try and encapsulate this into their work. They tend to visualise their ideas rather than write them.
Taking this persona into account, the campaign used high-impact visuals, limited marketing jargon and strong visual call to actions. Technology was combined with old school direct mail and handwritten elements.
The theme of the campaign was based around the senses playing to the architects’ sensitivity around visualisation. Each drop had a call to action, which was integrated into the theme of each mailer:
Drop 1: SCAN ME:
A moleskin diary, coupled with a hand written ‘post it note’ encouraged the recipient to download a QR code to their mobile phone and scan a map within the moleskin diary which unveiled an augmented version of The Shard building, which was built using Unity.
Drop 2: TAP ME:
A stylus pen, which directed the recipient to a unique landing page with videos and information on how the product worked.
Drop 3: EXPERIENCE ME:
An email and direct mail invitation to the Millbank Tower where Unity and leading architects Zaha Hadid were showcasing their work and presenting their thoughts on the industry, the future of visualisation and how Unity fits with this.
The campaign was sent to the top 200 architects, three contacts per company (a decision maker and two influencers). The direct mail campaign was followed up by a tele-qualification sales team who booked demonstration meetings for the Unity sales team.
Results
The campaign achieved a 54% direct mail engagement rate safely exceeding the target of 15% and significantly above the industry standard of 2%.
The overall results show that 289 BANT qualified leads were generated over a four-month period.
The tele-qualification is still on-going however in the first phase of the activity 12 meetings were booked from 66 calls, giving a conversion rate of 1:6 exceeding the original target of 1:60.
“Augmented Reality is typically used in B2C marketing, but we wanted to create a campaign that really captured our audience attention. To do this we had to think outside the box and get creative with content. I think we achieved this as it was reflected in the results we achieved.” Dorthe Hietala, Unity Technologies Marketing Director.