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Digital ImpactDigital Impact (NASDAQ:DIGI) is the premier provider of online direct marketing solutions for enterprises, including market leaders such as Victoria’s Secret, Marriott, Citibank, Dell, MasterCard and Hewlett-Packard.
For more information, visit digitalimpact.com.IndustryAs a responsible service provider, Digital Impact helps the world’s leading marketers create and deliver permission-based email marketing campaigns. Digital Impact’s solutions—Customer Marketing, full service or self-managed using IMPACT™, and Customer Acquisition—enable corporations to create and deliver highly successful email marketing programs that drive revenue, influence behavior and deepen customer relationships. Digital Impact acts as an agent for clients who communicate with their customers online. Clients own their customers’ data, including email addresses, which are gathered via permission-based processes at the clients’ Web sites or other online and offline sources. Business Challenge- In 1997, Digital Impact emerged on the scene as the first outsourced online direct marketing provider. As a new company in a new category, the first challenge was to prove the value of online direct marketing and build out the category.
- By 1998, Digital Impact had won the favor of an impressive list of new economy clients. As the category was brimming with new competitors, Digital Impact needed to distinguish itself as a leader in preparation for its initial public offering.
- In 1999, Digital Impact’s customers began to fall prey to the failing economy. With new analytic functionality and a strong value proposition, Digital Impact needed to transition from an email marketer for dotcoms to an enterprise partner for Fortune 500 companies.
- In 2002, as the spotlight started to dim on email marketing, the scourge of spam began to overtake the category. With new legislation threatening steep penalties for any company that imposed email on its constituents and hundreds of flavors of filtering technology that blocked even legitimate messages, Digital Impact faced its biggest challenges yet. If online direct marketing was to survive, it must be universally viewed as legitimate and desirable, and each message would need to be able to navigate the perilous network of eager filters.
Schwartz PR Strategy- Whether establishing the category or legitimizing the medium, at all stages Schwartz Communications worked with Digital Impact to define the problem, own the dialog, position for success, and leverage (don’t ignore) current events.
- Schwartz worked closely with Digital Impact to align its brand with the well respected brands of its best customers. Schwartz worked directly with the clients to elicit ROI and anecdotes that illustrated tangible business benefits, such as increased sales and customer retention, as well as softer results, including using email communication to foster a sense of community and to support their strong brands. This strategic use of customer stories allowed Schwartz and Digital Impact to maintain a constant buzz around the success of online direct marketing that carried beyond news announcements and current events.
- Schwartz also worked directly with consumers to prove to the market that people do distinguish between spam and email marketing, that they continue to request email marketing, that they continue to make purchases based on email they receive, and that they are upset or annoyed when an overzealous filter deprives them of this communication. By commissioning an annual survey through Harris Interactive, Digital Impact provides a snapshot of the evolving consumer attitude paired with industry context.
- As proposed spam legislation threatened to topple the category, Schwartz worked with Digital Impact executives to arrange a two-day trip to Washington, D.C., to speak directly with the legislators and officials who were crafting and promoting the bills. This was not a lobbying trip. Digital Impact sought to better understand the motivation behind the bills and to share the potential impact as viewed from the clients’ perspective. Armed with the viewpoints of its numerous Fortune 500 clients, the consumer poll data and a complementary technology plan, Digital Impact spoke with more than 20 different legislators in what is now an annual visit.
- With a triumvirate of perspectives—government, consumer and technology—Schwartz worked with Digital Impact on an aggressive current events campaign. Schwartz helped Digital Impact to cultivate experts on every facet of marketing, deliverability technology and legislation and began a siege on local newspapers, broadcast and national business publications to provide commentary and context for every announcement, bill introduction and infraction that was covered in the day’s news.
Results- Digital Impact continues to be viewed a thought leader and an innovator in every facet of online direct marketing.
- Digital Impact customers such as Hewlett-Packard, Victoria’s Secret and Tower Records have been profiled in leading business and marketing publications like Business 2.0, Time, B to B Magazine and Direct Magazine. Enthusiastic support and irrefutable results like Hewlett-Packards’ quote, “customers who received the newsletters influenced $26 million dollars in revenue per month, or about $100 per subscriber per year,” helped reinforce Digital Impact’s leadership.
- After the first trip to Washington, D.C., and the constant appearance of Digital Impact commentary in the news, Ken Hirshman, executive counsel of Digital Impact, was invited to testify before Congress regarding upcoming proposed spam legislation.
- Digital Impact executives have provided context and commentary for nearly every major newspaper that covers email and spam, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Washington Post, Washington Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, Denver Post, Oakland Tribune, Miami Herald, Atlanta Business Chronicle, and many others, as well as the Commonwealth Club of California, National Public Radio and CNN.
- The recognition and leadership that Schwartz helped Digital Impact create continues to produce new customers and has helped Digital Impact achieve and sustain profitability.
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