Challenge
On March 13, 2020 most businesses, organizations and institutions shut their brick and mortar buildings and went remote. This posed a new challenge to Dunn Rush & Co. LLC (“Dunn Rush” or the “Firm”), a sell-side M&A advisory firm who conducted existing assignments and marketing for new business mostly through in-person meetings and networking events. At these meetings with business owners or referral sources such as lawyers, accountants, private wealth managers and other trusted business advisors, Dunn Rush would typically discuss the prospects, preparation for and ideal timing of a potential sale of a business.
Confronted by the challenges presented by the outbreak of COVID-19, most business owners turned their attention and focus to addressing the critical needs of employees and customers. Activity in the M&A market generally came to an abrupt halt and faced months of uncertainty, and Dunn Rush needed a new way of keeping their business relevant and top of mind.
Solution
Dunn Rush needed to position itself as a helpful resource for referral sources and their business owner clients during a particularly challenging time. The Firm needed to emphasize and demonstrate the commitment of Dunn Rush leadership to providing unbiased and honest advice for business owners; to maintain relevance by collecting and summarizing real-time feedback from the Firm’s broad network of relationships; and to help business owners understand how to use this information to prepare for and evaluate when and how to potentially launch a transaction process in this environment.
JJM and Dunn Rush identified and surveyed a wide range of buyers and sellers of businesses, primarily in the private equity community, to collect insights on trends impacting Mergers & Acquisitions. Through a mix of closed and open-ended questions, the survey focused on gathering group opinions and then reported on the findings using graphs, charts and a written conclusion containing themes and synthesized findings.
The first phase of the project was designed to engage with the Firm’s existing universe of contacts by email, driving them to the landing page on the Dunn Rush website where the results of the survey were revealed. The second phase expanded out to selected social media groups to share the content driving to an authentication form to access the results. These new connections were then further engaged with other useful content by the team.
Results
- The survey participants were eager to share their insights and opinions with our team.
- The email produced a 24% open rate and 10.3% click through rate – both well above average metrics (industry benchmark is under 1% click through rate)
- The sponsored content campaign on social media presenting the survey results produced over 7,000 impressions, 150 website visits and 11 new connections
Dunn Rush & Co. was founded in 2009 to provide high quality mergers and acquisition advisory services to middle market companies valued between $20 million and $250 million. The Firm specializes in working with the owners of private companies who are looking to sell their business. Dunn Rush & Co. has significant expertise in the following industry sectors: Business Services; Consumer; Defense & Security; Healthy Living; Instrumentation; Manufacturing & Distribution; Medical Technology & Services; and Technology, Software & Data Services.