Barnhart Generates Millions in New Leads with Pitney Bowes’ Digital Technologies

Company uses interactive personalized video with direct mail marketing to reduce sales cycle and enhance customer experience

Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI), a global technology company that provides innovative products and solutions to power commerce, today announced that Barnhart Crane & Rigging Co. has successfully reduced their typical sales cycle by merging the physical and digital worlds using Pitney Bowes’ EngageOne Video, in conjunction with direct mail marketing campaigns. EngageOne Video has generated approximately $85 million in sales opportunities for Barnhart by using video as a way to transform the way it communicates with its customers.

Barnhart is a U.S.-based, privately held business and one of America's leading lifting and logistics contractors. With a national network of almost 40 facilities, Barnhart provides operated crane rental, lifting and rigging services, outage planning, industrial storage and national project cargo logistics, and their engineered solutions serve multiple industries like Nuclear, Petroleum Refining, Chemical Process, Accelerated Bridge, Power Generation and Wind Maintenance. Because of the complex engineered solutions they provide, and the diverse industries Barnhart supports, the company’s business development representatives traditionally spent a great deal of time cultivating and qualifying prospective customers with the intent of organizing on-location presentations to highlight Barnhart’s unique range of capabilities. The process required a tremendous amount of persistence and coordination of resources to facilitate meetings that were relevant for both the customer and Barnhart.

Barnhart partnered with Pitney Bowes to deploy EngageOne Video, an interactive and personalized video solution that enables Barnhart to present company information and relevant case studies by job function and industry to a customer through a human-like experience. Customers who receive an EngageOne Video are greeted by name and then prompted to select their industry, job function and type of component replacement. The viewer is then served content specific to their areas of interest, which they can access through compatible mobile devices, personal computers or smart televisions.

“As a specialized engineering-driven organization, we have to be as efficient as possible, without losing the personal relationship with customers that we are best known for,” says Chris Teague, Director of Marketing, Barnhart. “EngageOne Video allows us to uncover customers’ needs and efficiently maintain a strong relationship with a customer, while maintaining the interactivity of an onsite capabilities presentation.”

After their initial deployment of EngageOne Video, Barnhart took the customer experience a step further to leverage direct mail marketing campaigns as a way to share this video experience. Promotional items like coffee mugs and “BBQ kits” were used to engage their audience, coupled with personalized URLs that recipients could visit to instantly view the personalized capabilities presentation designed specifically for them.

“Barnhart is a longstanding client of Pitney Bowes and have set the stage for innovation with EngageOne Video,” says David Schwartz, Vice President of Software Solutions, Pitney Bowes. “By executing traditional physical mail campaigns with personalized URLs to enhance customer engagement, Barnhart has hit a sweet spot that has returned world class engagement, routinely measured in excess of 15 minutes per session. This self-serve approach enables their prospective customers to pull desired information and capabilities presentations often resulting in an accelerated sales cycle.”

EngageOne Video has generated approximately $85 million in sales opportunities for Barnhart, stemming from over 7,000 video views from prospective customers. Viewers have spent an average of 4.5 minutes watching a video, with 66 percent of viewers having watched a video to completion. To date, Barnhart has received over 500 positive comments from viewers, such as:

“This is the first time that I have ever seen this type of presentation. Very good information and not pushing the hard sell of what ‘you think’ I need.”

“A great simple presentation I could view during lunch or at my leisure.”

” Excellent presentation. Very good coverage of a lot of subject matter and abilities. Very nice job with the interactive portion of the video.”

“Very unique video. I've never seen anything like this. Very well done.”

To learn more about EngageOne Video visit: http://www.pitneybowes.com/us/customer-engagement-marketing/synchronized-communications-execution/engageone-video-for-real-time-content.html

About Pitney Bowes

Pitney Bowes is a global technology company offering innovative products and solutions that enable commerce in the areas of customer information management, location intelligence, customer engagement, shipping and mailing, and global ecommerce. More than 1.5 million clients in approximately 100 countries around the world rely on products, solutions and services from Pitney Bowes. For additional information, visit Pitney Bowes at www.pitneybowes.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160322005128/en/

Pitney Bowes Inc.Emily Simmons, 843-467-1071Manager External [e-mail]