Background

	“We are a small company that makes conservative decisions regarding our marketing dollars. There have been few better uses than the hiring of DialogWorks. Their program allows us to communicate regularly with both established customers and prospects. Traffic to our website triples every time we broadcast an email message, resulting in numerous qualified business opportunities.” Steve McConnell VP Marketing TriCN

TriCN is a leading developer of semiconductor intellectual property (IP.) TriCN's IP provides the means to move data on and off of computer chips. The interface designs are incorporated into the overall chip design prior to sending the chip out for production.

TriCN's customers range from startup to established fabless semiconductor and systems companies, including Philips, MIPS Technologies, SGI, IBM, and Intel. While in business since 1997, the company functions as a startup with fewer than 30 employees, limited marketing staff and budget.

Email Program Goals

• Build and strengthen awareness about TriCN and its products with potential customers, employees, analysts, and investors via a steady, consistent stream of marketing outreach initiatives.
• Build a clean and reliable database of prospective and current customer email addresses.
• Complement and support other marketing efforts: website, conferences, whitepapers, and press releases.
• Turn prospects into customers.
• Avoid even the perception of spam; strengthen rather than diminish relationships with customers and prospects.
• Minimize staff time and budget required to implement and operate the email program.

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Solution

DialogWorks developed a monthly email newsletter program for TriCN. The content for the newsletter is product announcements, articles on interface IP technology, announcements about conferences at which TriCN will have a presence, and client announcements.

Each message has typically 3 short paragraphs, which each summarize a content point, such as a product announcement or article written by or about TriCN. Links back to the TriCN site allow recipients to read the full information.

The newsletter has a simple, non-flashy html design that appeals to TriCN's technical audience.

An email registration page allows new users to sign up for the program and existing users to update their email address and preferences.

The program puts subscribers in control of their email profile information, clearly state in each message why the recipient received the message, and provide a straightforward unsubscribe mechanism in the message footer - all email marketing best practices.

Results

• Increase in specific request for product information following each email delivery.
  
• Dramatic increase in website traffic from average following each email delivery.
  
• Overall unsubscribe rate, across all messages, is less than 1.5%. Zero spam complaints.
  
• Access to a web based reporting tool so TriCN staff can view campaign status and results at any time.
  
• All operational processes associated with the email program, including data management, message configuration, and message testing, are optimized and typically take 2 hours or less per month.
  
• An ancillary but important benefit to the program is in building awareness and urgency around marketing communications internally at TriCN. Having a monthly email content requirement provides a helpful deadline for both marketing and technical staff, for completing product descriptions, articles, and press releases.
  

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