Today we (Updata Partners) held our annual LP meeting in Reston, VA. In addition to the typical performance and portfolio review, our investors had the chance to see presentations from a several of our CEOs. One particular segment, a panel on the evolution of Marketing on the Web, was particularly compelling. Mark Walsh, formerly of AOL, VerticalNet, and Air America Radio, did a great job moderating. As a firm we've spent a considerable amount of time getting to know and investing in the online marketing stack, and collectively and individually our CEOs from this segment represent the best of what's happening there. Ryan Allis (iContact), Anand Subramanian (ContextWeb), and Larry Freed (ForeSee Results) participated on the panel. These three cut a wide swath across the online marketing spectrum, from advertising to on-demand communications, to online customer satisfaction management. And they serve a diverse set of customers, too--from enterprise to the "S" in SMB. Each is a thought leader in his segment and I value their opinions very highly; getting them together made for an education mind-meld. Despite their playing in separate pieces of the same value chain and in separate customer pools, all three were impressively in synch, delivering a compelling macro message that underlines why their broad market is an attractive one. That is, in today's web-enabled world, the customer is in charge and connected (or at least is very well informed and highly measurable). That may not be earth-shatteringly new news, but it's an approach that has been validated by the success of these three companies in three distinct portions of the online marketing world. In a nutshell, today's message was that information is everywhere, transparency happens whether suppliers want it or not, and the social aspects of the web can provide a layer of trust/validation that might have been missing from early review or recommendation sites. Perhaps more importantly, to a great extent customers can pick when, where, why, and how they will interact with a supplier. URLs, RSS feeds, opt-in emails, and pop-up blockers are all examples of how we can initiate or terminate interaction with a supplier at will. However, the same technologies that give consumers that power give marketers new and substantial power too. As we visit sites, subscribe to feeds, join forums, and subscribe to email lists, marketers get the ability to measure, track, correlate, and analyze everything. Ultimately this creates a win-win for both sides of the consumer/supplier equation. Of course consumers get a greater amount of control...at the same time suppliers can better target their focus and messaging. This in turn means they can give consumers what they what, when it's wanted, versus giving them what you think they want, or (yikes) want them to want. In the end what you get is dramatically more efficient interactions aimed squarely toward developing deeper and more meaningful relationships with constituents/customers. To paraphrase Larry Freed on the panel today, this is somewhat contrary to what you'd expect on the web, where switching costs are low and barriers for new competition are relatively small. It's funny, but it occurred to me that in a lot of ways what we have here is the technical instantiation of commerce before the Big Box model boomed, before malls, back when Main Street ruled. Commerce was local..your neighbor's recommendation meant as much as 100 glossy ads or roadside billboards...the regular feedback loop was a face to face discussion with the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, etc, when the customer was always right and merchants acted like it... |
