What an awesome way to share a company’s culture with others. This video has been around for a couple of months and has almost a million views.
How could someone not want to work at Connected Ventures after watching this video? Great job guys!
Recently I received an email from someone asking about our re-branding and the planning and steps that went into the process. I thought I’d share my response here as well.
“Hi, thanks for the email. As part of the process I’d definitely bring in an expert for advice. Our process began at the executive level where we discussed everything from acquiring the domain, potential trademark issues, and customer impact. In making the decision to transition our brand from IntelliContact to iContact we had to think about our current customers (about 8,500 at the beginning of the process and over 11,000 now) but also consider the impact on those who’ve never heard of us (ie: future customers). At the beginning of this process we laid out the risks involved and conclusions our customers may come to because of the fact that we’re changing our name. For example; some companies change their name because they are struggling, have merged with another company, or under new management. We went into this with clear communication to our customers that the same great team is behind the application and we let them know that we’re continuing to be innovative and adding more features to our software that would help them market their business. You have to go into the process with confidence, letting your customers know that ‘this is what you’re doing and why you’re doing it’. If during the process there’s any uncertainty from management, customers can lose confidence and question your motives. Also, I’m not sure how large of a company you have, but we have about 50 employees currently and it is of equal importance to “market” the transition internally as well. We took a representative from each department (could not be a manager or exec) and assembled a team of Brand Champions. This group met and got the scoop on what was going on during the transition and could communicate this to the rest of their team. This helped to build a level of excitement around the transition and towards the future of the brand and company. We also put together Employee Packs that consisted of a branded backpack filled with items such as branded pen, lapel pin, travel mug, iContact collateral, t-shirt, and polo. We included a note to each employee thanking them for their hard work and for being a part of the family. They were very excited about this and we surprised them with the packs the day before the launch. That helped us hit the ground running and morale was high.
In this process there was also a lot of hard work we had to do in Marketing and in Development. Myself and the CTO worked very closely, checking in on a weekly basis, laying out a time line and breaking down who was working on what. It took about six months in all to make this happen and a lot of planning prior to starting the process. In re-branding definitely speak with a professional to ensure all important questions have been answered and think about the impact on your employees, current customers, and your future customers.”
I’m excited to announce that we secured an additional round of funding this morning.
Here’s the release in its entirety:
iContact Secures $5.35 Million in Funding
Online communications software company will fuel already phenomenal growth and expand reach of world-class web-based communications platform
Durham, NC June 29, 2007 iContact, provider of the leading email marketing and blogging application, today announced it has secured $5.35 million in funding to increase its marketing and customer acquisition efforts. The funding round was led by Updata Partners with participation from North Carolina-based venture firm IDEA Fund Partners. The company recently changed the name of its service to iContact and its corporate name to iContact Corporation.
iContact will use the new funds to expand marketing initiatives, increase customer acquisition, and support product development efforts. The company currently employs 58 people in the Raleigh-Durham area and expects that number to grow to over 100 in the next 18 months.
iContact is the first application in the world to allow businesses to manage all their online communications in one central web application. iContact allows its 11,500 customers and over 90,000 users to easily create email newsletters, blogs, RSS feeds, surveys, and autoresponders.
Commensurate with the funding, Carter H. Griffin of Updata Partners, has joined the iContact Board of Directors.
“iContact is an established leader and innovator in areas where we see tremendous growth and opportunity, serving small-to-medium sized businesses with sophisticated, integrated online marketing solutions in an on-demand delivery platform,” said Griffin. “We look forward to working with the dynamic team at iContact to rapidly scale the company.”
“This funding will allow iContact to move to the next level,” said Ryan Allis, CEO and Co-founder of iContact. “Our rockstar team has built an amazing company over the past four years. We have worked hard to bring the best email marketing, blogging, and RSS feed web application in the world to our customers. It is our mission to be the leading worldwide provider of on-demand software that makes online communication easy. With this capital infusion, we can move even more quickly.”
Aaron Houghton, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder of iContact added: “Our philosophy is to invest in innovative product development ahead of the market to ensure that iContact leads the world of online communication. With partners like Updata and IDEA Fund Partners, we will be able to solidify iContacts standing as the worlds leading all-in-one online communications platform.”
There will be a celebration of the new funding at the iContact offices in Durham, NC. on July 20, 2007 from 5-7 p.m. RSVP here
About Updata Partners
Based in Reston, Virginia and Edison, New Jersey, Updata Partners is a leading venture capital firm that invests in growth stage information technology companies with innovative intellectual property enabling market-leading products and services. Led by an investment team averaging more than 20 years of operational and private equity experience in the technology industry, we seek investments where the combination of our financial backing and operating expertise will accelerate growth. With over $400 million under management, the firm also selectively provides recapitalization and management buyout financing. For more information, please visit www.updatapartners.com.
About iContact
With more than 11,500 customers, iContact is the first on-demand application in the world to allow businesses to manage all their online communications in one central platform. iContact allows for easy creation of email newsletters, blogs, RSS feeds, surveys, and autoresponders. Market leaders like Bank of America, Ford, Intuit, Vonage, Symantec, International Paper, LG Electronics, ReMax, United Colors of Benetton, and Centex Homes, use iContact to build stronger relationships with their customers and prospects at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods. iContact, designed for the SMB market and iContact Enterprise, designed for mid-sized to large organizations, are both available at www.icontact.com.
For media inquiries, including free software reviews, contact Chuck Hester, APR, Director of Corporate Communications, chuck@icontact.com or (919) 459-1451.
The conference was great! We didn’t return until Saturday afternoon because of the FAA’s computer glitch affecting most of the east coast, but hey I can’t think of a better place to be stuck than NYC.
First of all, congrats to the entire team at Carson Systems for choosing a great venue. Gotham Hall was very nice! Kim Malone (from Google) spoke of some interesting recent and future releases from Google including rich media advertising on a CPC-based model and ad placements within online video. There was also a lot of stress placed on the importance of testing your creative. There was one example shown where the firm tested two ads: one showed the product earlier and the other showed the product a few frames later in the ad. The ad that showed the product sooner (exact same ad) had 20% more conversions.
No surprise, but I think we’re going to see FeedBurner’s stats improve greatly as Google incorporates Google Analytics, in some capacity, with FeedBurner. I’m looking forward to that.
Drew Schutte, from WIRED, spoke about mixing online and offline advertising effectively. He gave a great example of how they allowed their subscribers to be on the cover of WIRED. The first 5,000 to respond were allowed to upload their photo and when the issue arrived in the mail it would have their face on the cover. This was obviously expensive so anyone else who would like their face on the cover was allowed to visit Wired.com and create a custom cover they could then print out. I thought this was a great promotion that blended online and offline advertising. It’s such a challenge to blend these two effectively and find the right mix. Online advertising is such an attractive option given the ability to track every penny invested and know exactly how many impressions your ad is receiving. You don’t always have that luxury with offline advertising. With that said, putting together a campaign that can blend, or complement, the two can be very powerful.
Thanks Ryan, and the team at Carson Systems, for putting together a great conference!
Tomorrow morning I’m heading to New York to the Future of Online Advertising conference. There will be speakers from Yahoo, FeedBurner, Wired, Digg,Agency.com, and Ogilvy, to name a few.
The topics that sound most interesting to me include:
Looks to be a great conference!
This morning we officially launched the brand transition from IntelliContact to iContact - whew! With iContact you can now create, publish and track email newsletters, blogs, RSS feeds, surveys and autoresponders.
Here’s a photo taken this morning during the launch that includes a few members of the development team:
