About the client
NCR is a leader in technologies that help businesses interact and transact with their customers. Its products and services include online banking, point-of-sale systems, mobile payments, and omni-channel retail. In its over 130-year history, NCR has appeared more than 20 times in the Fortune 500.
The company planned to launch NCR Silver Quantum®, an all-in-one version of its mobile point-of-sale solution. Like other Silver products, the platform aimed to improve customer check-out times, support brand awareness and customer retention, and provide actionable business data. It also featured an integrated customer screen, payment device, and loyalty program scanner.
Goals and challenges
NCR planned a 30-day promotional push for the Quantum system. During this period, its goals were to grow awareness and generate leads among its audience.
The campaign presented several hurdles:
- The short timeframe for the promotion and NCR’s national reach meant that the media buy had to be as targeted and effective as possible.
- NCR set a goal of 5,000 leads, a sizeable number given the promotion’s specifications.
- Because of the short timeframe, the campaign needed to focus on digital media buying and could not make use of traditional media as well.
CMS’ strategy
NCR selected Capitol Media Solutions to lead its campaign. Based on the client’s goals, CMS performed research into the media habits of the target audience: small business owners in industries that would benefit from an all-in-one POS system. To promote awareness of the Quantum system, CMS focused on digital media that would garner a large number of impressions.
While the timeframe for achieving NCR’s goals was tight, CMS recognized that the media buy would need to be tested and improved continually so that every dollar was spent efficiently. For this reason, CMS evaluated several digital platforms before committing the campaign’s full budget. These included:
- Facebook and LinkedIn. CMS used an ad format that auto-populated customer information, speeding up the lead generation process.
- Google’s Display & Video 360 (previously known as DoubleClick Bid Manager). This platform allowed CMS to target small businesses programmatically with ads displayed throughout the internet.
- Pandora. The campaign included an advertisement played on digital radio to select audiences.
Capitol Media Solutions also tested advertising through digital outdoor billboards. It bought this ad space programmatically to ensure a cost-effective investment.
Once the campaign launched, CMS’ team reviewed leads and impressions on a daily basis through reports from each medium. It reported on its findings frequently so that it could help NCR pivot its strategy if needed.
Results
Within 15 days of the 30-day timeframe, Capitol Media Solutions established that Facebook was the most successful of its targeted media, followed by LinkedIn, Pandora, and Google’s Display & Video 360. At this point, the campaign had generated only half of the leads required, but the team now had the data it needed.
