August 11, 2000
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*** MarketingToWebMarketers.com ***
Practical Marketing News & Tips for
Suppliers to the Web Marketing and Ad Biz
August 11, 2000 - Vol. I, Issue 11
PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR PALS -- THANKS!!!
1. News: Cool LA Party, Site Reviews
2. More Headlines
3. Case Study: How YesMail Tripled Revenues
4. Exclusive Interview: Click2Net's Adam Simpson on Building
and Marketing a Successful Online Ad Network
5. Reader Letter: eMarketer Explains All
* Are you reading a pass-along copy? Get your own
FREE subscription today at:
http://www.marketingtowebmarketers.com
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NEWS:
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* Editorial Note: We would like to thank the INS for
allowing our Intern Izabela of-the-unspellable-last-name
back into the country after she was so unexpectedly
deported to Poland a couple of weeks ago. She's incredibly
hard working and has that fun accent to boot.
* PARTY REVIEW: Target Market Interactive's Party in LA
OK, some marketers die and go to heaven before they have a
chance to attend wing dings like TMi's open house July
31st. About 300 lucky clients, friends and reporters got
in, and one of them phoned us with ALL the details
(Thanks!)
Food: Four food stations were set up, each specializing in
a different international cuisine - Indian, Mexican, Asian
and Middle Eastern. The most popular? The one nearest the
bar of course!
Dress: California Web Biz Casual. For you New Yorkers that
means khakis and black shirts for men, and pretty much the
same thing for women "only much more body fitting." TMi's
VP Marketing Jeremy Braud broke all the rules by showing up
in black pants and a "fabulously shocking turquoise shirt
made of fibers not found in nature." Wahooo!
Signage: As you faithful MarketingtoWebMarketers.com
readers know, the biggest bone we have to pick with most
parties is conspicuous lack of sponsor signage. Not a
problem here, in fact little green "Martian" footsteps on
the trendy concrete floors led partygoers through an entire
office tour. Plus fun signs shaped like thought bubbles in
cartoons festooned various offices and areas. Our
favorites:
"We've used our old doors to construct the conference table
... and we pass the savings on to you!"
"Client Conference Room: Otherwise known as the "Yes, sure,
you betcha, of course," room."
Coolest Decoration: TMi's CEO Michael Rice littered the
place with "antique" video games, including Space Invaders,
Asteroids, Frogger and pinball machines. Then he broke to
the news to his staff mid-party that these goodies were
staying permanently! (Admit it, you're jealous.)
Last-but-not-least: as folks left, TMi staffers handed them
shiny black goody bags full of branded tchotchkes and
Hersheys Kisses. Sweet!
Editorial Note: we think this party pretty much raises the
bar for agency parties everywhere on this planet. Will TMi
lose any of their clients in the coming year? Nooo, we
don't think so. Been to a cool (or rotten) party recently?
Email us the scoop at editor@marketingtowebmarketers.com
http://www.tmi-la.com
* SITE REVIEWS: BrandEra.com, iLux & Betty Bowers
Whoa. Last week when we asked, "Does your company have a
home page we should heap praise on?" we didn't expect so
many answers! (It's August, aren't you on vacation?)
Here are three of the best that responded:
BrandEra.com http://www.brandera.com
Gotta LOVE that logo!
iLux http://www.ilux.com
Super photo gives 3-d style depth to site
Betty Bowers http://www.bettybowers.com
Yes a drag queen IS America’s Best Christian
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CASE STUDY:
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* How YesMail (nee WebPromote) Grabbed Email Marketer’s
Accounts By Going For Consumers’ Hearts
CHALLENGE
In early 1999, WebPromote, an opt-in email list
creator and broker, needed to stand out and grab marketers’
accounts in a marketplace that was growing more crowded
daily. Instead of immediately spending lots of marketing
dollars on glitzy campaigns and aggressive sales reps, they
stepped back back and hired the strategy experts at agency
closerlook to help them position themselves to win.
closerlook CEO Dave Ormesher shared the details with us.
CAMPAIGN
closerlook began with intensive marketplace
research, “We wrestled at the beginning with who is really
our ultimate customer here?” Ormesher says, “with whom do
we have fiduciary responsibility: the advertiser or the
consumer? The short-term approach pointed to the
advertisers, but it became clear that our real asset here
is the relationship with the consumer. Once we focus on
that asset, there are different ways to monetize it.”
Ormesher says this may seem obvious in mid-2000, but 18
months ago, “it was radical in that period. Most people
were spamming. Even some of the competitors who weren’t
spamming were still spam-like. It was not targeted. It
was not easy to opt-out completely or change your profile.”
So, WebPromote decided to position themselves to the
consumer marketplace as the best, spam-free, opt-in site by
building a consumer-friendly system and changing their name
to YesMail.
The next step in the campaign was to convince marketers
these were the best names to rent. YesMail decided to
distinguish themselves from the competition by creating
expensive, glossy, die-cut, art-directed-out-the-wazoo
promotional materials. Ormesher explains, “The competitors
at that time were essentially mom and pop list owners.
They kind of worked on a shoestring, their Web sites’
design was poor, their brand was clunky. They kind of all
looked like mom and pop garage operations, you never knew
what was going on behind the scenes. That’s a scary
thought for a Madison Avenue account exec who’s managing
five million dollar accounts. They thought, ‘I’ve known
all my other vendors -- TV, radio, magazines-- for years,
we go to the same parties, etc. And then here’s this mom
and pop and we’re planning to spend a million or two with
them? I don’t think so.’ So the strategy behind
YesMail’s marketing material’s high production values was
to say, ‘This is for real. We’ve got the technology, we
are a serious place to put your ad dollars and you’re not
going to get a mimeographed hand-out from us.’”
RESULTS
To this day an average of million new consumers
opt-in to the YesMail system every month. The company’s
1999 revenues more than tripled from the year before.
YesMail.com was acquired by CMGI in March 2000.
http://www.yesmail.com
http://www.closerlook.com
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Click2Net's Adam Simpson
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* Click2Net’s Adam Simpson on Building a 50,000 Site Strong
Online Ad Network & Expanding Overseas
CEO Adam Simpson was only 18 when he launched online ad
network Click2Net in May 1998 with a couple of thousand
dollars from his parents. By the end of his first month in
business, the network had signed up 300 little sites and
was serving about 30,000 ads a day. These days Click2Net
has alliances with more than 50,000 sites and serves up
about 900 million ads a month. And Adam says, “Now I feel
like I’m 30 years old.”
We called up this old guy last week at his headquarters
outside Toronto.
Q: 50,000 sites! How did you get so many sites signed up
for your network? Are they all teeny?
Simpson: We compete in the mid-range market -- we rep the
up and coming ones. Fitness.com, Interview.com and
Waterski.com…. We don’t have exclusive arrangements with
sites, you use us at your will wherever you want.
They like us because of the fact that we’re non-exclusive
and we have useful technology. They can block ads they
don’t want on their site all by themselves. They can see
what ads are doing well on their site. They can see what
operating systems and browsers are doing well on their
site. We provide a wealth of information to them.
Being around for two years helps. Sites know that we pay.
They know we aren’t going to go away. That our software
works and it’s reliable (some others are flaky.)
Unreliable software can deter a potential customer, they
think, “How do I know I’m actually getting paid for what I
should be? How do I know you weren’t down when I was
sleeping last night?” With our system, you can see hourly
reports. You can check counts for last night at 2am if you
want.
We haven’t done much active outbound recruiting in over a
year-- we don’t have to anymore. Our site recruiters get
like 20 calls a day.
We have started recruiting sites to add to some of our
categories. For example, someone came to us with an ad
they wanted to run on gay and lesbian web sites. We didn’t
have many in the network so the AE walked over to
development people and said ‘Guys I need these sites’ and
they said ‘ok, we’ll have them for you in a week.’ We
never did that until 3 months ago, but it’s getting more
competitively out there.
Q: Let’s talk trade shows. Your competitors are spending
substantial sums marketing at them. What are you doing at
trade shows to market yourself?
Simpson: We do about 19 trade shows a year. InternetWorld
2000, all the AdTechs, the DMA’s NetMarketing conference in
Sept … all the major industry trade shows. We create a
lot of business that way.
I find those huge gigantic booths with four levels that
people spent a ½ million on crazy. Ridiculous! Attendees
going by figure there’s 50 people standing here who are all
making $6 hour and ‘how can these people know enough to
help me?’ When I go to a show I stand in our booth and
people come up and say ‘Oh you’re the CEO, rather than some
Joe Schmoe who has absolutely no idea what goes on day-to-
day at Click2Net.”
Q: What do you do when you run into your competitors at
shows?
Simpson: I talk to the CEOs, ask them ‘What’s working with
you guys?” I think there will be a lot of consolidation
going on in the next few years; so, we’re all friendly to
each other because who knows what’s going to happen?
Q: Has anyone tried to buy you?
Simpson: We’ve a lot of people approach us. None of them
have panned out. There are some we have sitting on the
list … we’ll talk more in a few months sort of thing.
We’re trying to go out on our own right now because we see
so much potential. It’s a big market out there. I kind of
relate it to the software industry of 1980s there were
millions of small 5-20 people companies building all kinds
of software; and then companies like Microsoft came along
began acquiring companies with niche products. A lot of
our competitors don’t deliver what they say they’re going
to. I don’t think they are all in it for the long haul.
Q: Your network’s only option is CPC. Why don’t you offer
CPM?
Simpson: We don’t offer CPM right now, because we have so
many small sites. Marketers don’t want to say, ‘Let’s do
40,000 at this CPM rate and half a million there at this
CPM.’ They say, ‘I have a budget. It’s $10,000. I want
to reach people who are into online videogames.’ We’ll
guarantee you those clicks during this time period.
Q: We’ve heard you’re expanding into the Far East. What’s
up there?
Simpson: When we were at the Singapore Communication 2000
show, we did an hour- long call-in radio show on how to
market yourself on the Internet … how to take a traditional
company online successfully. There was a lot of interest.
So we used a recruitment firm based in San Francisco and
Asia to hire someone to lead the Asian business. It was
tough, it took 3-4 months and we went through a lot of
candidates before we found her.
You have to realize we’ve been international from the
start. Canada was never a focus for us. At the time we
started, the US was everything for us. Now Europe and Asia
are the next focus. Canada’s still behind the States but
it’s been catching up in past year or so.
We have account managers here who work from 12am-8am to
work with other time zones. Our tech people are on call
all the time with wireless emailers.
Q: Are you considering starting an affiliate program to get
more media buying accounts?
Simpson: We’re adding a referral program for sites. We
already do that a lot when talking to big sites, we say,
‘tell your friends to come too.’ But I don’t think
referrals work well with advertisers. They’re more if it
works they tell their friends. They’re at a bar and they
tell people, it just kind of snowballs. That’s this
business.
http://www.click2net.com
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READER LETTER
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"In some ways I agree with your assessment in the above
article. ["Surveying Web Marketers: The Good, The Weird &
The Ugly"
http://www.marketingtowebmarketers.com/sample.cfm?contentID=635]
Our Newsletter Subscriber Survey was a bit weird. I have to
admit that eMarketer did not compose the survey. Cybereps,
the folks who sell our advertising, put it together and
asked us to post it.
Though it may have seemed strange, there were lots of ad
sales questions because eMarketer has an extremely rigorous
Privacy Policy
http://www.emarketer.com/aboutus/privacy.html (There
should have been 2 links to this on the survey and the
programmers are getting grief for this as I write this.)
Since we share no customer or subscriber information EVER -
- even with Cybereps -- they had to ask a few somewhat
strange questions in a very obvious way. Unlike many ad
sales, ad serving or ad revenue based companies, eMarketer
doesn't track or collect personal information about our
users. This often puts us in weird positions; but, in the
end, our customers' and users' security is worth it.
Thanks for your consideration."
Jennifer Marino, VP Marketing
eMarketer
Editor's Note: Got something to say? Email us at
editor@marketingtowebmarketers.com
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