Hard times couldn’t be further from the truth for one West Country business which is marking its 10th anniversary this year. Email marketing provider DestiNet has posted 30% growth for the last three years and expects 2008 could be even better.
The Exeter-based business has outperformed most of its rivals in this thriving industry and now ranks among the top five email marketing firms in the UK. It employs 18 people and expects to send out 40 million emails on behalf of more than 700 customers in 2008.
“Turnover for 2008 will be £1 million and we expect to grow this to £1.3 million in 2009,” said managing director Trevor Munday.
“I firmly believe that we will continue to achieve the 30% annual growth we have recorded each year for the last three years. We have just had three record quarters back to back with the third one, which is typically our weakest, equalling both previous quarters. We will have added more than 300 new customers in 2008 and there’s no reason to believe that trend won’t continue.
“Email marketing as an industry should do very well in an economic downturn - better than during a boom time. When everyone is doing well and companies have plenty of money they don’t pay attention to wasted spending. When the economy is in decline, as it is now, every cost has to be justified. Email marketing is a very low-cost way of promoting a business and allows companies to reduce or completely remove spending on more expensive and often less effective forms of marketing. What you’d spend on a small advert in a magazine one month could get you a whole year of email marketing and a much better response rate.”
DestiNet was established 10 years ago as a web design and development agency, while Trevor was still finishing five years of studies at the University of Plymouth Business School, but the road to become one of the UK’s leading email marketing businesses has not always been smooth.
Despite growing rapidly in the first three years, the company suffered with many others in the Dotcom crash, losing more than a third of its turnover in 12 months and forcing a reduction in staff.
The crash had resulted in many web designers starting their own businesses. These new entrants were saturating the market with cheap web design. The company soon moved into a product-orientated business, focusing on the NewZapp email marketing software that had been developed for a particular client and proven to be a huge success.
“It was not at all how we imagined our business would evolve but in hindsight, it was very beneficial. It made us focus on every part of the business model and put effective policies in place. It also helped us to understand our customers better. Six years on, we’ve grown to what we are today, achieving 30% or more annual growth in all areas, employing 18 people and still recruiting.
“We are still 100% privately owned, have no financial debt at all and are well positioned to grab a very significant market share. Over the last three years the business has grown exactly as we forecast it would in financial terms, we’ve had to react to changing markets to keep to our forecasts but as a small business we have the flexibility to react very quickly.”
DestiNet’s success has been based on developing their newzapp product for the past 10 years to meet the requirements of small businesses. The nature of NewZapp also makes it very popular in the public sector including county and district councils, government departments and schools, colleges and universities.
“We have a few FTSE 350 customers – and NewZapp does exactly what some corporate companies want - but we do focus our attention on delivering high value products and services to the small business market. Our product, service and price point are perfect for this. And as a business, we’re happier having 700 small business customers than just a handful of large corporates.
“Part of our unique approach is being totally transparent in everything we do. Most of our competitors don’t publish their pricing and just give ‘customised quotations’. Our products are all inclusive with nothing hidden. All accounts come with professionally designed email templates based on the customer’s precise brief, totally free of charge and just £200 for additional templates, some of our competitors charge up to £800 just for the initial design. Our rigorous testing ensures they get delivered to the recipient’s inbox and display correctly which means our customers get much higher response rates.
“Being a responsible email marketing company we have to look after our reputation at all costs. We only send genuine email marketing to genuine opt-in recipients. We monitor our reputation constantly and when we receive complaints - sending 40 million emails a year is always going to generate a few - we handle them quickly and efficiently. “
The future is rosy for DestiNet but Trevor Munday sees changes in the industry, including consolidation between email marketing companies and mergers with marketing agencies.
“For us, with our focus on the smaller businesses, I don’t see this happening. We will widen our product offering to do more for the small business and I see us not becoming a marketing agency but certainly offering expert marketing advice in other areas. Our customers are already asking for that – like all good business, it comes from trust.”
want to know more?
To find out more about DestiNet's NewZapp email marketing software you can visit the main website or email us.
