By Allan Maurer
RALEIGH, NC—While still in the investment field, PointMetrix CEO and co-founder, Ramon Rashford saw several search engine marketing firms become very successful. One translated a $100,000 investment into a $2.2 million valuation in six months. So, when the opportunity arose, he and several colleagues decided to take their blueprint for developing a successful SEM company and start their own firm.
“We kept doing deals for others that made them a ton of money,” Rashford tells TechJournal South. They decided to start PointMetrix and see if they couldn’t do the same for themselves.
“We knew how to do it, knew the right people,” says Rashford.
The company started coming together in 2005. The founders deliberately decided to get the new firm to a certain point before seeking or accepting venture capital. “We’ve had offers for venture funding,” says Rashford. “But we’ve done this before. We wanted to bootstrap it, take it to a certain point, then use VC money to grow the company.”
The chief differentiator between PointMetrix and other SEM companies, of which there are many, says Rashford, is “our scientific approach.”
The idea to approach SEM—which helps companies get the maximum value from advertising on search engines—on a scientific basis evolved as the PointMetrix team began putting their new company together. One of the things Rashford thought missing from many SEM approaches was a need to see it as part of an overall marketing mix.
“SEM is all about growing brand recognition,” says Rashford. “Not including it in every part of the marketing mix didn’t make sense to me.”
What the company says it provides clients is measurement of its results pitted against their competitors. Rashford notes that as he met and discussed this with CEOs and executives, he found that what they really wanted to know were metrics such as who was looking at the company’s brand, where did they come from, how did they get there?
While companies frequently throw lots of marketing dollars at brand growth, it is all too often “hit or miss,” says Rashford.
PointMetrix helps companies look at their direct competitors and see exactly what they are doing. “If someone with a retail store is selling iPods and competing with WalMart, Best Buy, and Apple, you want to make sure your brand is there. You take a look at your direct competitors and you can equal or better what they are doing.”
To do that, he says, looking at companies A-G, all ranking high, “You lay out a roadmap so that you are able to measure gains on your competitors. You would look at not only capturing traffic on Father’s Day, but also at capturing traffic from your competitors.
“We take a look at a company’s entire marketing mix, something unusual for SEM firms,” Rashford adds. “One thing we find is that marketing firms are seeing the greatest return on investment from SEM, greater than from radio, TV, or print media.”
The smallest basic PointMetrix package costs a minimum of $3,000 a month.
Rashford says the company has already been approached with an acquisition offer. “We’re not in acquisition mode at this point,” he says.
He said the firm will likely look for venture capital in about six months.
The 15-employee company is hiring, primarily in sales and marketing, and will likely make a senior executive hire soon.
On the Web: www.pointmetrix.com
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