iContact Celebrates Reaching One Million Users for Its Email and Social Media …

body .displaytickersn{ *float:left }
]]>

Company Marks Continued Growth Across Its User Base, Revenue and Feature Set to Help Small and Medium Sized Businesses and Organizations Grow and Succeed

Download image

RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — iContact Corp., a leading email marketing and social media marketing company, today announced its one millionth user has signed up for an account.  Since the company’s founding in 2003, iContact has grown its user base and revenue at a double-digit pace year-over-year while continuing to enhance its feature set.  The company’s one millionth user comes on the heels of recent key announcements including enhancements to social media tools within iContact for users to easily engage with subscribers and fans via Facebook and Twitter.  iContact also recently launched iContact Free Edition, a no-cost version of its flagship email marketing and social media marketing tool.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110413/CL82281LOGO-b)

iContact’s co-founders met as students at the University of North Carolina and joined forces to re-launch an existing email marketing system into what is now iContact.  Their first client, Mountain Brook Cottages, came to iContact looking for an easy way to communicate with prior and potential new guests for its vacation cottages.  Eight years later, the company has continued to meet and exceed customer expectations with its award-winning email and social media marketing tools.

“As the first iContact user, I am very excited to see how the company has grown from two entrepreneurial students to a global organization with one million users,” said Michele McMahon, owner, Mountain Brook Cottages. “iContact has been there for me since the beginning to help Mountain Brook Cottages grow and keep in touch with our guests. I look forward to seeing the company’s continued success as it adds many more millions of users.”

iContact Co-Founder and Chairman, Aaron Houghton, added, “It is a pleasure to work with great entrepreneurs like Michele at Mountain Brook Cottages. As a company, we’ve tried to keep a laser focus on helping our customers succeed by making online marketing easy and we’re proud to have earned the trust of customers such as Michele for nearly a decade.”

iContact received a $40 million Series B strategic growth investment from JMI Equity in 2010 and has built out capabilities across its product and resources to foster continued growth and expansion.  The company’s user base spans multiple countries and industries from retail and professional services to non-profit organizations, banks and technology providers.  During this time of high growth, iContact continues to help customers succeed by making online marketing easy.  The company also leads the movement for how businesses can contribute to social good in the world as a certified B Corporation, awarded to companies that meet stringent environmental and social standards.

“We are proud of how our products and services help companies and causes succeed online,” said Ryan Allis, Co-Founder and CEO, iContact. “With an enhanced offering including robust social media tools and services, we look forward to continued growth through 2011 and beyond and expanding our footprint as one of the leading providers of email and social media marketing.”

To learn more about iContact and sign up for a free trial account, please visit www.icontact.com and follow iContact’s blog at blog.icontact.com.

About iContact

Based in Raleigh, NC, iContact is a purpose-driven company making email marketing and social media marketing easy for small and midsized companies and causes to grow and succeed. More than one million users have iContact accounts and the company maintains B Corporation status, a certification awarded to companies meeting comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards. As part of its ongoing social mission, iContact applies the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Model, donating 1 percent from each of its payroll, equity, product and employee time to its local and global community. Visit us online at iContact.com, on Twitter @iContact, at iContact LinkedIn Group, and on our Facebook Fan page.

For media inquiries, contact Davida Dinerman or Michael McDonough, Schwartz Communications,
781-684-0770, icontact@schwartzcomm.com.

SOURCE iContact Corp.

Back to top

RELATED LINKS
http://www.icontact.com

Share and Enjoy

The Deals Space: It’s Easy to Start, But Not to Grow

Back in June, Mary Song, CEO of Yuupon, gave WebProNews the following predictions for the deals space:

1. Facebook Deals will not be a major contender as is.  Why? Facebook Deals is a self-serve platform and like ad-words is unlikely to be directly adopted by merchants.  Instead, it will likely foster a community of agencies that help companies get their deals on Facebook. Currently lacks mass to make this happen.
 
2. The daily deals space will mature and the flexibility that merchants may see today will disappear or become commoditized.  Why? Daily deals / flash deals are still in infancy and a lot of trial and error/learning is still taking place. As the space matures a lot of this will be figured out and will become much more cookie cutter.  This works, this doesn’t, want to run a deal? Here are the parameters… The early adopters will get to play a role in shaping how flash deals operate.
 
3. Major shift to mobile delivery and fulfillment – where we’ll no longer need to use paper vouchers.  Why? Let’s face it, printing a paper voucher and bringing it with you seems so 1990, the larger sites already offer some mobile delivery and fulfillment - expect to see major developments on the mobile front. Instant and Now are two examples.
 
4. More partnerships between players – Ebay is already in the daily deal space, and with their acquisition of Where, they made a strong move into the mobile hyperlocal space; however they are going to make a major move into the local deals space with their acquisition of Magento ecommerce software.

We may see some additional acquisitions from Ebay.
 
5. Groupon Getaways/Expedia is not a slam dunk but does validate the travel voucher model. Existing issues between OTAs, bait and switch with deal pricing, etc… may stand in the way of being the dominant player in the travel deal vertical.
 
6. Multiple players will exist and thrive in flash travel ddeal vertical – possibly as many as ten.

Now, Facebook has already announced that it is shutting down its Deals product (though its Check-in deals will remain). Number one has already come true.

“Facebook deals relied heavily on inbound sales which even for someone with as large a user base as Facebook that clearly missed the mark,” Song tells WebProNews now. “Daily deals are not as easy to source as Groupon and LivingSocial make it appear. Additionally Facebook users belong to Facebook primarily to keep in touch with friends and family, people didn’t join Facebook to receive marketing messages. There are so many deals available today that people opt to receive that getting them to dig to find Facebook deals is easy to see in hindsight was not a winning strategy.”

Song does think Facebook’s Check-in Deals will be successful as time goes on.

“This is quite different as it allows merchants to engage consumers while they are on property for example a hotel could offer 2 for 1 drinks in the bar shortly after someone checks into the hotel or make a game of it with rewards for the most checkins during a stay (for destination resorts) rewarding guests for using the spa, restaurant or other services with discounts on future stays or discounts on additional services during their current stay.”

“Hyper local or deals near me will play a large role in the deals space however I think as the deals space matures it will be one of many offerings that merchants can choose,” she adds.

As previously reported, Hitwise finds that Groupon traffic is down and LivingSocial traffic is up.

“There has been a lot of speculation about this – Groupon and LivingSocial have very different selling methods – Groupon is primarily call center and LivingSocial is primarily boots on the street,” says Song. “No doubt about it when you are in a market you definitely will know your market better and which merchants to work with and which ones to steer clear of perhaps allowing Livingsocial to provide a better user experience overall and a more loyal following.”

“It could also be a result of a shift of spending marketing dollars. Livingsocial has been perhaps marketing more aggressively or creatively,” she adds. “Groupon as the 800 lb gorilla has gotten beaten up quite a bit by the media and stumbled with it’s Super Bowl ad whereas Livingsocial has TV ads that are still running and is probably enjoying benefits of it’s relationship with Amazon that may not be available to Groupon.”

When asked if Groupon be worried, Song simply says, “No.”

“While it’s easy to get into the daily deal marketplace it’s much harder to grow and sustain a daily deal business,” Song tells us. “At this point if you don’t already have a subscriber base and a marketing arm you’re better off partnering with an existing daily deal site rather than try and enter the fray.”

And I’ll leave you with that.

Share and Enjoy