Case Study: Marketing Program Development

Company: $50 million e-commerce provider seeking rapid growth

Situation: Metiom’s business model depended on driving transactions through its client-sponsored e-Marketplaces. For each purchase order generated through an e-Marketplace, Metiom would split a supplier commission fee with the sponsor. However, Metiom had very little direct control over the resources its sponsors would spend on driving awareness and adoption of the e-Marketplaces. Furthermore, e-Marketplaces were relatively new and demanded a new level of marketing expertise and insight into customer behavior, which many client sponsors had not established.

Solution: Based on extensive research of e-Marketplaces and the e-commerce demographics and psychographics of small businesses, my team developed a comprehensive co-marketing program, known as the e-Marketplace MarketBuilder Kit, which provided client-sponsors a foundation for successfully driving adoption of their sites. The MarketBuilder Kit included:

  • Effective branding and messaging templates
  • Syndicated customer research, the SME Research Profiler, to identify purchasing habits and e-commerce behaviors of small businesses
  • Direct mail and online banner ad templates
  • 1-to-1 e-mail marketing templates, including pre-negotiated promo offers, e-mail newsletters and e-coupons
  • Merchandising templates and interactive kiosks stocked with e-commerce starter kits for small businesses
  • Supplier Seminar templates to help recruit suppliers into the e-Marketplace
  • Marketing programs methodology and ROI calculator to determine the appropriate level of spend, as well as the media mix
  • Co-op plan that provided matching funding for marketing programs
  • Contract agreement template to incorporate sponsor marketing spend into the initial license agreement

The MarketBuilder Kit programs were adopted by several of our client-sponsors and provided a key differentiator for Metiom. Whereas our competitors were only focused on the technology, Metiom was focused on both the technology and the programs that helped drive adoption.