EVEN THE SMALLEST dot-commer should be able to use promotional gimmicks in its marketing. But distributors of these products can’t be bothered with the little guys since they don’t generate enough orders.
Jason Robbins, whose own small company manufactured springy Slinky-like promotional items, believed he could cater to this virtually untapped market over the Web. About two years ago, he founded ePromos.com in New York and began laying the groundwork for reaching nearly 6 million pint-sized businesses.
This market, he says, consists of about 3,800 manufacturers of promotional goods, and 20,000 distributors of these products, who typically sell to larger customers.
“We saw the Net coming and thought this would be the perfect thing for smaller companies that might want to run promotions,” he says.
The site (www.ePromos.com) offers logoed travel bags, holiday gifts, T-shirts, modem-cord kits, CD-ROM business cards and more.
To help publicize the site and its concept, ePromos sent out a 120,000-piece postcard mailing earlier this year to small businesses (mostly online marketers) trying to get them to register. A 4% response rate – double the industry standard, according to Robbins – was the result.
The firm gave away a Palm Pilot Palm V handheld computer as a reward to all those who enrolled.
Robbins says ePromos’ universe includes some 6 million entities. He’s hoping to add to that number through several partnerships, including those with event-planning Web site Event411.com and Digital Works, which does back-end promotion for the likes of America Online and Dell Computer. ePromos pays the partners an unspecified percentage of sales.
On top of that, the promotional firm has tried some “guerrilla” marketing efforts like delivering pizza to 100 or so businesses in New York in boxes displaying its logo.
From all this, ePromos is looking to clear more than $25 million in revenue by the end of next year.
Though conceding that his company’s prices are “competitive” with the rest of the promotional goods industry, Robbins claims ePromos can ship products to customers about 30% to 80% more quickly than conventional distributors, thanks to automated processes afforded by the Web.
Robbins adds that ePromos can provide live customer service through its 15-person telemarketing staff.
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