MySoftware, Palo Alto, CA, is building an affiliate network of Web sites and expanding its product offerings to capture a greater share of what it estimates to be a $1.1 billion market of small businesses seeking targeted marketing solutions.
The company signed its largest affiliate agreements to date last week with Netscape and Intuit to promote and provide links to the online list building tool, www.MyProspects.com, on their Web sites. The agreements involve revenue-sharing for driving traffic to MyProspects, but specific details were not disclosed.
MyProspects will be available in March as a value-added service to small business customers on the Netscape small business channel within the Netcenter site and to Netcenter’s more than 10 million members. Intuit will make MyProspects available this month on its small business Quicken.com site (www.quickenbiz.com).
“Our focus has always been on the small business market,” said MySoftware vice president of marketing Robin Goldberg. “We will never get to all 22 million small businesses on our own, so we really rely on [partners] to drive a lot of traffic to our site.”
The site has existing partnerships with Pitney Bowes and Sir Speedy and is actively seeking affiliates with a small business bent that want to provide value-added services to their user bases.
MySoftware also is marketing MyProspects to a customer base of more than 1 million registered users through e-mail, fax and direct mail programs. The site has been running a promotional offer of 200 free names since its launch in December. Goldberg said the promotion will last at least another three months.
“It’s important for businesses to try the site and see what kind of value they can get from it,” she said.
Online visitors can register for e-mail updates on new products and site improvements without making a list purchase.
MyProspects enables users to enter a target profile and download mailing lists in small quantities from consumer and business databases licensed by Polk and Experian. It is part of a suite of MySoftware products that builds a database, populates it with names, creates marketing materials and mails them. The company has introduced MyBusinessPublisher and MyBusiness E-Mailer to aid in the last two functions.
MyBusinessPublisher software supplies customizable templates and a database of images and photos to build printed materials and Web pages. It also can import logos and graphics and performs automatic mail merge. MyBusiness E-Mailer provides the ability to personalize and broadcast e-mail messages. The software can track e-mail delivery, sort messages and create e-mail lists.
