MarketModels
Owners: Brad Mitchell, president; Jeff Wilkins, CEO; all employees have
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Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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Type of Business: Provider of marketing data, data analysis, statistical
models and Web-based marketing services
Location: Wickford (headquarters) and Denver, Colo. (Web development)
Year Founded: 1999
Employees: 33, including 12 in Rhode Island
Say you’re a liquor distributor specializing in fine Italian wines. The old-time
restaurants on Federal Hill have been your loyal customers for decades; so are
the tidy family eateries in Cranston and Johnston.
You know there’s a bigger audience for Italian wines, but how do you reach it? You can’t afford to blanket the state with brochures, so how do you pick your best targets? Should you go for suburban Italian restaurants, or trendy wine bars?
MarketModels is an expert at answering such questions. And in just five years, that expertise has paid off in an eightfold growth in sales, from $980,000 in 2000 to an expected $8 million for 2004.
With the wine dealer, MarketModels might start by analyzing its customers by business type, size, age, location and online presence. It may be able to gauge how much of their wine they’re buying from the dealer. Then there’s the big picture: How much of the local market is the dealer covering? What are his strengths? Whom is he missing?
The analyses work just as well on a larger scale. A major bank might learn how well it’s reaching the college audience, how many of its customers are Web users, or what kinds of business loans it could market most successfully.
Nothing MarketModels does is entirely unique – there are thousands of companies selling consumer data, and scores that specialize in data analysis and targeted marketing. But no one pulls data together from so many sources, said president Brad Mitchell, and no one has such flexible analytical tools or such rapid turnaround.
“We consider ourselves data experts,” Mitchell said. “And we can deliver in a fraction of the time that our competitors do it.”
The proof is the client list that MarketModels has built: Chase Manhattan, Equifax, LendingTree, Sprint, Sun Microsystems, Viacom, Paymentech, Wells Fargo, Amazon.com – along with major fund-raisers, colleges and smaller businesses.
Mitchell started MarketModels in 1999 with Jill Long, a colleague at a company that sold CD-ROM tools for Dun & Bradstreet data. They traveled around the country selling the CD-ROMs to companies looking to analyze their customers and understand their market, and they found many clients wanted unique, customized models.
“We realized there was a market for data platforms that could be customized for the needs of larger organizations,” Mitchell said. “A lot of people also wanted a simple way to score data, so they could target to the best prospects.”
Mitchell and Long designed tools to do that, and simplified the process so it could be done quickly and inexpensively. They started in home offices, but within months, they were ready to expand. Confident that, with a good Internet connection, they could be based anywhere, they chose a former hat store in picturesque Wickford Village.
Step into the second-floor suite at 85 Brown St., or into the office above a nearby toy store that MarketModels has also taken over, and it’s like a flashback to ’90s Seattle: workers in T-shirts and funky jewelry, bare walls, a puppy sleeping in an office.
Stacks of computers in temperature-controlled cabinets hold an ever-growing, continuously updated set of databases. At their workstations, MarketModels staff question clients about their specific marketing needs, tailor utilities to build models for them, and analyze reams of data to produce simple, easy-to-read charts.
The goal is what you might call anti-spam: Instead of spending thousands of dollars blanketing the market to reach potential customers, MarketModels helps clients identify targets likely to not just try their products, but become major customers.
“Most of our applications are for people who, say, sent mailings to 10,000 people,” Mitchell said, “and we show them how they can mail to 2,000 and, if it’s targeted, they’ll get a 90 percent response rate.”
Along with its core data and analysis services, MarketModels also develops Web-based platforms for companies, such as Experian’s experianb2b.com, where businesses can buy customized marketing lists – say, Cumberland businesses with 50-plus employees.
One of MarketModels’ most successful products is AlumniFinder, which allows colleges to look up graduates with as little as a name and city. The service is now used by more than 1,800 clients, including 495 of the top 500 U.S. colleges, Mitchell said.
The latest addition to MarketModels’ roster is CoReg360, launched last year, which allows partners to market to one another’s customers based on information entered on Web registration forms – say, if you’re a woman between the ages of 25 and 45, you might be offered a chance to sign up for a women’s health Web site, or a personal finance site.
Kate Webster, senior statistician at MarketModels, said one of the best things about working there is that the results are tangible: Either the models work, or they don’t.
“There’s no theory – as soon as you do that model, that list gets used,” Webster said. “We test it, and if it isn’t performing, we go back and tweak it. It’s very interactive. Whatever you’ve done, there’s a result in dollars.”
