Innovative Smart Zones Program Attains the Impossible

Client: EyeMed Vision Care

How do you market a tailored message to a highly specialized audience segment when you don’t have a customer or prospect list?    

When EyeMed Vision Care approached Responsory with this seemingly impossible task, the vision insurer wanted to inform recent retirees of a select employer that they were now eligible for EyeMed vision benefits. The catch? EyeMed did not have access to any identifying information – no names, mailing addresses or IP addresses. . . nothing. All we knew about the audience was the name of their previous employer and their employment status (recent retiree).

We knew this was a job for Smart Zones, Responsory’s programmatic, digital advertising platform. But to get this right, we had to overcome several challenges.

1. Find (and build) our target audience: Since we didn’t have a customer list or access to mailing or IP addresses, we had to build an audience from scratch. Responsory analyzed data to hone in on optimal age, geographic location, life stage and income of the retiree audience.
2. Reach them when they’re most likely to respond: Our Media Zones technology enables Responsory to optimize every digital campaign before a single impression is served. We made sure that our digital banner ads would appear on websites that our audience was most likely to visit, and at times when they were most likely to be online.
3. Create compelling creative and prove we’re reaching the right people:Without a prospect list, Responsory had to find innovative ways to ensure we were reaching the right people. Our banner ads were designed to speak to the unique needs/concerns of our target audience, and featured a prominent “ATTN: RETIREE” headline that addressed them directly. We also used a self-select tactic on the landing page. When a prospect clicked on one of our ads, they were asked to confirm if they were a retiree of the select company. If they answered yes, they were taken to a unique landing page with campaign messaging. If they answered no, they were taken to a generic page.

RESULTS: During our 8-week campaign, 64% of ad clickers confirmed their retiree status with the participating company. This outstanding result confirmed without a doubt that our innovative prospecting method, combined with the cookie-free Smart Zones digital advertising platform uncovered and reached the right audiences.