

The number that explains Constant Contact's success - chrisyeh
http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-one-number-45-that-explains.html

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standeven
This is even more impressive when one considers the typical lifespan of a
small business; 44% don't make it to 48 months[1]. I wonder if Constant
Contact manages to attract more successful businesses, or if businesses that
seek out and engage in such marketing opportunities are just more successful.

[1] - www.nbcnews.com/id/16872553/

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jrs235
If they are finding their customers at chamber of conference gatherings (or at
least targeting chamber of commerce members), perhaps one could see if
businesses that see the value in belonging to a chamber of commerce (and the
marketing and networking benefits of such) have a higher success rate? And/or
perhaps businesses that join chambers tend to have been successful long enough
to get over the early failures and are profitable enough to afford the chamber
fees. To me, targeting chamber businesses seems like a great way to find an
ideal target customer base assuming the thoughts I poised above.

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tyang
This is eye-opening:

"Goodman credits the company's success to--get this--in person seminars
through Chambers of Commerce across the country."

The problem is most startups targeting SMBs have neither of the following -
the numbers just aren't there and they have no idea how to get there:

"If you're a SaaS startup targeting the SMB market, you'd better either have
an awesome freemium offering, or you'd better have a average customer lifetime
of around 45 months."

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orangethirty
It's not really eye opening. People here tend to believe that startups should
only be marketed online. When reality is just the opposite. With so much
online marketing going on these days it's easier to go offline and get
customers that way. In the age of online mrketing those who master the offine
variant will be king.

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netcan
2004 - " _There's no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I'll tell you
why. The minute you charge more than $1000 you need to get serious corporate
signoffs._ "
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html)

It amazing how the payment/delivery medium sets prices in software. There are
a lot of SASS products where a substantial number of customers pay that much.
Apple's App store opening the $1 end of the spectrum is another great example.

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manuelflara
Definitely. SaaS can be ridiculously profitable if you provide enough value
that customers stay with you for a long time. I wouldn't have paid "$100 for
life" when I signed up to Basecamp, but I picked the (old) $12/mo plan.
Considering I've been happily using it for 6 years, I've spent close to a
thousand dollars already. Pretty crazy.

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jaggederest
Maybe I'm crazy, but when I see people offering a service for a fixed lifetime
subscription, I buy the hell out of it. Like guaranteees on car batteries and
mufflers, it's usually a bad deal for the person providing it, with the
proviso _that you remember to use it_.

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lutusp
Consider this -- if they're offering it and they've been in business more than
15 minutes, it must be to their advantage and not yours. It's like electronic
extended warranties and service plans -- retailers offer them because they're
money machines.

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corry
This is true, but for most startups the 'advantage' is that cash now is much
more valuable than cash later (since it can be plowed back into growth).

It's not that it's more profitable for us to strike sweetheart lifetime deals
(it's actually less profitable overall), but by having the money up-front we
can grow more quickly.

My $0.02

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rogerbinns
I'm surprised they are still in business. I had to add them to my email server
blocklists due to the sheer volume of spam. It was typically being added to
mailing lists that had nothing to do with me.

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dizzystar
They are actually pretty good at making sure businesses don't get blocked. I
have my own opinions on the company, but they are widely respected by
companies in their space. As far as a "general purpose" email marketing
company, they are probably the best at what they do. I would definitely work
with industry-specific marketing companies over constant contact if that
option is available, but I wouldn't fault a business for choosing CC instead.

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smoyer
My conclusion from the numbers provided by the OP are that CC is still in
business because they actually know the cost to acquire a customer and that
customer's life-time value. It also helps that the life-time value is higher
than the acquisition cost (by quite a bit).

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jonknee
I have recently started seeing a decent number of Constant Contact TV
commercials which I thought was interesting.

