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To promote a new wireless security system, RSA Security Inc. began a direct mailing last month to information technology executives at nearly 50,000 Fortune 100 firms.
The names came from magazine and Web site lists of IT managers and higher ranking employees in companies with at least 1,000 employees, said senior marketing manager Maida Kelly.
Later this month, she added, the firm will send out a 50,000-piece e-mailing, largely to existing customers. The budget for these campaigns is about $100,000.
RSA has a database of 90,000 names, of which some 60,000 have given permission to receive e-mail.
An online campaign last summer resulted in a 3.5% response for the firm's SecurID wireless local-area network (LAN) security system. In that effort, run for RSA by TechTarget, a total of 634 corporate security executives from a specialized database of 180,000 found on www.searchsecurity.com requested information about the product.
Other parts of the campaign included posting a white paper on the company's site, a Webcast on wireless LANs and banner ads on SearchSecurity.com's home page. All this work has cost RSA about $40 per lead to date.
SecurID runs approximately $100 for each installation. The system works by overlaying a special token over a user's computer password that gives the user a unique personal identification number and a separate six-digit number that changes every 60 seconds to discourage unauthorized use from, say, people looking over one's shoulder, Kelly said.
Once RSA got all the qualified leads in hand it began passing them onto its resellers. RSA uses about 800 resellers nationwide. At press time, RSA had not reported any conversions.
The sales process can take as little as a month for smaller firms and up to a year or two for larger ones, Kelly said.
A challenge RSA faces over time is how to find the most effective mix of postal and e-mail.
“After anthrax it was all e-mail for a while, but now people are getting burned out on the amount of e-mail they receive,” said Kelly. “It's a serious problem and we're trying to strike a balance.”
Next year, RSA intends to market its wireless LAN security systems to smaller companies.
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