By Allan Maurer
CHARLOTTE, NC—The arrays of wide-screen TVs scrolling sales figures and Internet traffic information make Red Ventures’ office look like a NASA space mission control room, but the busy atmosphere is not just for show. The company, named the 17th fastest growing private firm in America on the latest Inc. magazine list, lands customers for its brand name clients using high-tech lead generation techniques, charging only when it succeeds.
The 500-employee company has increased its revenue 60-fold in three years and now has seven offices globally. According to Inc., it had revenue of $104 million last year and expects to make $250 million by 2010.
The company, which has 250 employees in Charlotte, is hiring in all areas, including technology, marketing and at its sales call centers, says Dale Lancaster, chief technology officer. “It’s our biggest barrier to growth,” he says.
Nevertheless, the company is particular about who joins the team, he says. “People have to be a good culture fit in our rapidly changing, unstructured environment. They need to be self-managed with high energy and lots of initiative.”
Red Ventures, self-funded, evolved from a previous company, Red F, started by its founders in 2000. It began switching gears from Red F’s marketing agency business to the new business model after DirecTV suggested they become a dealer for its products.
Its recipe for success is to partner with name brands “where we feel we can go out and generate customer acquisition,” says Lancaster. “We acquire customers and take all the risk. They pay no up front money.”
Its customers include Durham-based email marketing company iContact, which it has helped add about 500 new customers a month.
The company builds sales Web sites for each partner and uses a variety of lead generation techniques such as Search Engine Optimization and paid search to drive potential customers to call an 800 number where a sales person answers questions and closes the sale if possible.
“We capture the sale and send it electronically to our partner,” says Lancaster. “Then we move on. We catch it, they skin it,” he says.
Each of its partners is treated as a separate business within Red Ventures, and although the various units share ideas and techniques, they work independently.
Lancaster says the company has duplicated that recipe many times, but points out that the experience its people have gained at each step continually refines the process.
If there is a secret to the company’s success, it may be that “We’re maniacal about many things,” Lancaster suggests.
“We measure everything,” he notes. “We measure and tweak, measure and tweak our SEO and purchased ads.” The company has a vast database of metrics on every step of its process.
They measure sales and “After we get to a certain point, X, we ask, how can we get X plus 1?”
That, says Marshall Reiffsteck, corporate communications director, fosters “a friendly competitive spirit.”
Lancaster says Red Ventures has diversified its lead generation channels. “Because we’re good at it, we’ve added several channels,” he says. They include partnerships with other online and print marketers, a private affiliate network, and using distributed work forces, such as satellite TV installers, to sell products.
In addition to its 20,000-square-foot offices in Charlotte, it has offices in New York, Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and Guatemala.
On the Web: www.redventures.com
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