Sean McCormick started his business this past September, but is already looking ahead five years when he hopes its revenues top $25 million. Then he’ll sell it and start a new business - although he doesn’t know what that one will be quite yet. “Six years from now I’ll have another idea,” he said. “There’s so much developing in the interactive space every day that the next thing isn’t close to being created yet.”

Norwalk, CT January 24, 2008 — Sean McCormick started his business this past September, but is already looking ahead five years when he hopes its revenues top $25 million. Then he’ll sell it and start a new business - although he doesn’t know what that one will be quite yet. “Six years from now I’ll have another idea,” he said. “There’s so much developing in the interactive space every day that the next thing isn’t close to being created yet.”

Right now, mobile marketing - sending text messages to cell phones - “is kind of a buzz word when it comes to a marketing strategy,” he said. “I think that in the next five years it won’t be just a buzz word, but will be a mature industry. And it might be the next thing for me to get into after this business.”

His idea for his current business came last summer when “I started reading articles and saw that a lot of companies being purchased by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo were performance-based marketing companies,” he said. “I saw a large rift in the marketplace for mid-level companies - companies from $5 million to $30 million in sales. The companies Microsoft and Google bought were only servicing the Fortune 500 companies, which left a huge rift in the marketplace for small- and medium-sized businesses to engage in online performance marketing.”

That’s where he’s focusing his 4-month-old business that, he said, achieved profitability at the end of December, just three months after he started. “My goal was to break even within the first year and have 10 employees to service our clients, but I’ll have 15 to 20 employees by then,” he said. “My goal was to have revenues around $2.5 million the first year, but we’re on pace to surpass that - it’s hard to say by how much right now.”

The 26-year-old McCormick calls his company Ifficient because, he said, he’s ensuring his clients’ Internet advertising budgets work in the interactive space (the “I”) efficiently. “Companies are buying banner advertising without optimizing their marketing campaign to ensure the highest click-through rate,” he said. “Everything we do has a performance initiative behind it, and if our clients aren’t happy with the results, they’re able to cancel the campaign at any moment.”
So far, none of McCormick’s 35 clients have canceled their Internet marketing campaigns, he said. Those clients range from online universities to consumer package goods to clothing retailers. “We’re helping them increase their prospect database by putting targeted campaigns on Web sites that allow a user to request more information about a product.”

To do that, McCormick has merged online marketing with some spiffy technology that he said does two things. “The first is that it monetizes Web sites, which means Web sites can earn additional income by partnering with us to integrate our ad serving into their Web page,” he said. “The second thing is that the technology validates the user that signs up for one of our advertising offers. It checks the e-mail address to make sure it’s valid, matches up with the USPS database to ensure the address is valid, and validates the telephone number to make sure it’s a real number.”

Competitors “are doing this, but not the extent that we are,” he said. “We have a bunch of different databases that we subscribe to that allows us to check e-mail addresses, addresses and phone numbers.”

Lifestyle business
McCormick grew up in Wilton, working in his parent’s small chain of pet stores in New Canaan, Darien and Stamford “doing anything from cleaning fish tanks to closing the books at the end of the day to managing a staff of seven employees in the Darien store.” What the experience taught him was that “I didn’t want to be in retail,” he said. “It’s really hard to build a franchise when you’re competing with large department stores. I would prefer to build something that’s unique and really provides a service to clients.”

He got a taste of that while he was attending the University of Rhode Island and started two small summer businesses with friends. “One was an odd-jobs company here in Fairfield County, raking leaves, making dump runs, doing cleaning-up projects.” The business was called The 25th Hour, “that last hour you wish you had in the day to get everything done.”
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Be sure to tune in to WebmasterRadio.FM Tuesday, January 24 at 3 :00 pm EST to hear the premier of “Affiliate Marketing Insider,” a brand new show with host Linda Woods, who tells us, “With Affiliate Marketing Insider, we’re creating a forum for discussion and debate about an industry that is always changing.”

Fort Lauderdale, FL January 23, 2008 — WebmasterRadio.FM, the premier free, 24/7 Internet business radio network focused on the B2B marketplace, is proud the announce the launch of a new show called “Affiliate Marketing Insider” premiering Thursday, January 24 at 3:00 pm EST. Affiliate Marketing Insider will be hosted by Linda Woods, a sought-after consultant and recognized expert in the areas of e-commerce and affiliate marketing who has helped scores of companies and individuals find success in the competitive, ever-changing Internet landscape.

“We are so proud to welcome Linda Woods to our radio network,” says WebmasterRadio.FM Vice President of Marketing Brandy Shapiro-Babin. “Linda has been involved with affiliate marketing practically since its inception”.

Linda Woods is a sought-after consultant and recognized expert in the areas of e-commerce and affiliate marketing who has helped scores of companies and individuals find success in the competitive, ever-changing Internet landscape. Her company, PartnerCentric, employs the most experienced team of affiliate program management professionals in the industry.

Today PartnerCentric’s team manages more than 30 affiliate programs. Linda is a frequent speaker at affiliate-related events and has been featured in many publications, including Revenue magazine. She lives in paradise, also known as Santa Barbara, California, along with her 11-year-old son.

Affiliate Marketing Insider will air Thursdays at 3:00 pm EST. All WebmasterRadio.FM programs are available in podcast, mobilecast and archived format at www.WebmasterRadio.FM.
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Since its launch in 2003, the annual “Thumbnail Media Planner” has filled a void in making key marketing and media information available, including ad media rates for all major national and local media, to those who need it fast. The updated 2008 edition of the “Thumbnail Media Planner” boasts more content, a pocket book size convenient for the pocket or purse, and can be ordered online in hard copy or download formats.

Detroit, MI January 21, 2008 — The new Thumbnail Media Planner has filled a void in the advertising and media planning business by synthesizing the most important marketing and media facts and costs into a great pocket sized reference.

We interviewed the publisher, Ron Geskey, CEO of 2020:Marketing Communications LLC, to gain his insights into this unique publication.

Q: What exactly is the Thumbnail Media Planner?

A: The Thumbnail Media Planner is a 104-page pocket sized marketing-media reference focused on thousands of the most important facts about market and media trends, media availabilities, media reach, the 2008 media market/cost outlook, 2008 media pricing forecasts. It also includes demographics and major media costs for each of the top 100 markets, non traditional media, and even a different analysis of media effectiveness. The Planner even includes reach and frequency tables and a glossary.

Q: For whom is the Planner published?

A: The Thumbnail Media Planner is published for anyone involved with planning or approving advertising and media campaigns — ad agencies, advertisers, media, consultants, entrepreneurs, students and professors. The Planner is especially helpful to agency presidents, account and media people (many of whom order copies for their staffs) in the largest as well as smaller agencies and design firms.

Q: How can the Planner help “a planner”?

A. There are many ways this Planner can help individuals and their companies improve quality, productivity, and client perceptions. One is that a Thumbnail Media Planner is a really great reference tool in meetings. When a client asks you, “How much would it cost to run this newspaper ad in the top 50 markets?” Or, “How many markets could we add?” now you can say, “Just a minute, Ill give you a rough estimate… “instead of ‘Let me get back to you…then having somebody spend hours answering a question that could have been eliminated in 30 seconds…’ It’s ideal for quick media research and estimating the cost of advertising media plans. Anyone needing fast access to media data and costs for network or spot television, magazines, radio, newspapers, the internet — or even many non traditional media– would find the Planner invaluable.
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15 world-class marketers share their favorite strategies proven to attract more customers, get more bang from every advertising dollar and generate revenue windfalls for online and offline business owners.

Lowell, IN January 21, 2008 — In today’s business environment there is a lot of advice about how to increase bottom line revenue. The question is: Which of these methods (if any) actually works in the real world?

Business growth expert, Bob Serling, interviewed 15 top marketers about their favorite marketing techniques. These are the same techniques used in their own business and with clients. The simple and practical ideas presented in these brief 10-minute interviews can help any business produce better marketing results and increased profits.

The experts interviewed include: Bob Bly, John Carlton, Sean D’Souza, Randy Gage, David Garfinkel, Shel Horowitz, John Jantsch, Clayton Makepeace, Perry Marshall, Paul Myers, Bob Scheinfeld, Yanik Silver, Joe Vitale, Jeff Walker and Bob Serling himself.

Some of what the free 10-minute marketing success interviews reveal include…

• How to get more prospects and website traffic quickly and easily.
• How to multiply sales by 10% by making a simple 15-minute change to the offer.
• A no-cost way to land more clients by using a free Internet tool.
• The secret of pre-selling prospects before making contact with them.
• How to position any company - even a brand new one - as an industry leader.
• Offline direct marketing fundamentals critical to online success.
• How to build a virtual sales army that works 24 hours a day to bring in orders.
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Innovative online marketing provider ends open beta period and releases more than 2,000 customizable designs to the general public.

Scottsdale, AZ January 18, 2008 — BizCard.com (www.bizcard.com), an up and coming online marketing provider, announces its official rollout today. With a catalog of over two thousand customizable, high-quality designs, BizCard.com makes it easy for anyone from entrepreneurs, start ups and small business owners to develop professional looking, full color marketing collateral at an affordable price.

Until now, the website and its advanced application had been operating in open beta and gathering feedback from users to assist in an effort to further development of its online document creation tools.

BizCard’s powerful proprietary technology allows customers to create unique marketing collateral either from one of the company’s prepared designs, a customer’s own artwork, or a combination of both. Customers can create:

- Business cards
- Postcards
- Invitations
- Announcements
- Thank You Cards
- Note Cards
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