Website Closers® presents a Direct Mail B2B Subscription Model Company that has been operating for many years and founded by a renowned industry expert. The business offers a high level market research service as an automated SaaS platform.
The database is built by a network of freelance panelists who scan all direct mail advertisements they receive. The platform deduplicates them via image recognition, extracts text to allow text searches, and appends company and contact details. It publishes the scans and data for clients who use the platform for competitive or sales opportunity research.
Subscription Plans
The business has two primary use cases and services. The first provides sales leads to direct mail services vendors, while the second offers creative inspiration and competitive monitoring. A range of price plans are available, but the majority of sales are either single-seat licenses or enterprise licenses. The former annual fees are approximately $3,500 for competitive monitoring and $5,500 for sales leads. The latter are $9,900 and $14,900 respectively. Competitive monitoring represents about 70% of revenue; the remainder is derived from sales leads clients. The aim is to sell annual subscriptions, but monthly payments are accessible, if necessary, at higher rates.
Valuation Points & Assets
A key valuation point of the business is its incredibly high barriers to entry. Replicating their special-purpose software platform would be an expensive effort requiring advanced development skills and building a network of panelists that takes years. Even if executed, there would be no historical data, of which this company boasts over 40 years’ worth. Additionally, building a historical archive takes years of investment before the assets can be monetized.
The company primarily serves the small to medium-sized market across all industries. In contrast, the competition only operates in limited industries and only for high-priced enterprise-level plans that are 3 to 10 times more expensive. This value for money can be evidenced by the regular flow of clients moving across from rivals.
Another notable asset is the vast PDF image archive. More than 265,000 direct mail pieces have been digitized–dating back to 1978–and thousands more are added monthly. All are passed through proprietary image recognition and OCR software, enabling them to be searchable by keywords, brand names, and marketer names. They are also aggregated into frequent mailer categories of Controls and Grand Controls to determine which have worked over the long term.
Similarly, data is invaluable, and marketer names are extracted via entity recognition and enhanced with business type, address, and URL. More than 36,000 marketers have been identified. The business boasts automated look-up capabilities to identify decision-makers and their contact details, including phone numbers, email addresses, LinkedIn profiles, and social media IDs. More than 100,000 contacts are available, categorized by format, originating location, industry, and mailer size. This is the most comprehensive directory of industry practitioners and vendors available.
The brand stands as well-known and iconic. Given its longevity and modernized systems, it achieves strong and mature SEO positioning, with most direct mail-related searches leading to the company on the top page of search results.
Leadership continuously has a well-established pool of panelists who receive and scan mail. A systemized process is utilized to rotate and recruit new contributors as needed. Refreshing panelists lead to new mailers being identified and optimized results. These sophisticated and automated workflow processes deduplicate, classify, and publish scans. At the same time, leading tech teams are outsourced to maintain and improve systems.
Marketing & Lead Generation
Numerous approaches, paid and organic, generate leads.
Paid efforts include:
- Google and Bing Search campaigns
- A result-generating LinkedIn presence focused on custom audiences and retargeting
- A trained and outsourced Tele-Prospecting team
Organic methods involve:
- A free look-up tool designed to drive trials and, subsequently, subscriptions
- A mature, well-read, and current blog that generates significant traffic
- Referrals and recommendations based on the company’s outstanding reputation
- Recommendations in articles and copywriting textbooks
- Contacting the extensive database of prospects, such as past free trial users and industry professionals
Team
The manager focuses primarily on sales and works with the production team to maintain the platform as necessary. Approximately 100 to 120 contributors work for the business at any given time, supported by another 5 or 6 freelancers who process and publish scans. One dedicated sales support member evaluates website visitors, assists with outreach to free trial registrants, quotes requesters, and provides service support to enterprise clients.
This acquisition opportunity can add enormous value as a bolt-on to an existing business or to a buyer with experience, credibility, and relationships in the direct mail marketing industry. It is a straightforward operation to manage and has tremendous scale potential.
