Backbone Media Wins "The Ultimate Pitch" with presentation
of "Search Engine Optimization and Positioning: A Genuine Solution
to a Spurious Problem."
Savvy Software and Internet Companies Invest Their
Limited Sales and Marketing Dollars in Search Engine Optimization
BOSTON / WALTHAM, MA - April 11, 2002 - Backbone
Media (www.backbonemedia.com)
won "The Ultimate Pitch" today with a "genuine" search
engine optimization and positioning solution to a "spurious"
marketing problem. The Ultimate Pitch was part of an original program
titled, "Money Talks: Where should savvy software and Internet companies
be investing their limited sales and marketing dollars?"
Sponsored by The Massachusetts Software & Internet Council
(www.msicouncil.org),
the standing-room-only event gave both council members and non-members
a chance to really "put your money where your mouth is" when
it comes to marketing. Jeffrey Tarter, the editor and publisher of Soft*letter,
told the audience to act like prospective clients from the "Spurious
Software Company."
Tarter, who has been twice named "Best Industry Analyst"
by the Software Publishers Association, and is widely quoted in the business
and trade press, said, "Let's say that there are NO final versions
of the software yet. Like many startups, we wrote our code first and only
then decided we needed to think about marketing. Being utterly foolish,
we've decided to invite in six marketing experts who will tell us what
they think we should do with our marketing money."
Each member of the audience was given $100 million in play
money from "The .com Edition" of MONOPOLY® and asked to
allocate it based on how convincing each speaker was. This created an
incentive for the panelists to make a "winning case."
The panelists included:
- Backbone Media, who pitched "Search Engine Optimization and
Positioning: A Genuine Solution to a Spurious Problem." (Click
on www.backbonemedia.com/spurious
to see the PowerPoint presentation.)
- Gwyn Thakur, Founder, Effective Marketing (www.effectivemarketinginc.com),
who discussed "The Changing Face of Face to Face."
- Amanda Neal, Business Development Manager, iMakeNews (www.imakenews.com),
who pitched "Permission Marketing Campaigns."
- Kimberly Jackson, Marketing Strategist, King Fish Media (www.kingfish-media.com),
who pitched "Private Media Marketing Solutions."
- John Federman, President and CEO, Newmediary (www.newmediary.com),
who pitched "Getting the Business: Generating Valuable Leads."
- Tony Sapienza, Principal Partner, Topaz Partners (www.topazpartners.com),
who pitched "Strategic Communications: Your 'Air Cover' in the
Battle for T&E Reporting Market Share and Mind Share."
While the votes were being tallied, Tarter presented the
highlights of his latest benchmark survey on how software firms are actually
spending their sales and marketing dollars. The complete benchmark survey,
which breaks out sales and marketing cost ratios for companies focused
on direct sales, reseller channels, Web site/e-commerce, or direct response,
appears in the 3-31-02 issue of Soft*letter (www.softletter.com).
The winners of The Ultimate Pitch were:
- Backbone Media, who received $1.062 billion marketing dollars to
rank first;
- iMakeNews, who received $663 million marketing dollars to rank second;
and
- Topaz Partners, who received $550 million marketing dollars to rank
third.
"I remind you that we had a lot of marketing people
in the audience," reminded Tarter. "Most of them can't figure
out how to make change for bus fare, much less deal with several different
denominations of play money."
He noted, "It's fascinating to see that the big winners
in the shootout - search engine optimization and e-mail newsletters -
are marketing tactics that have only been around for a few years. That's
an indication of how much the Internet has begun to change the dynamics
of technology marketing."
Tarter added, "Of course, some things don't change,
notably the naive belief that public relations - which dates back to pre-human
monkey screaming - has any value at all. You'd think someone would notice
that billions of PR dollars have gone down a rat hole, but apparently
not."
Founded in 1996, Backbone Media (www.backbonemedia.com)
is located in Boston / Waltham, MA. The firm specializes search engine
optimization, e-mail marketing, and Web site promotion. Backbone Media
has both business-to-business and business-to-consumer clients, including:
A Hundred Monkeys (www.ahundredmonkeys.com),
ETL SEMKO (www.etlsemko.com),
International Poster Gallery (www.internationalposter.com),
Netegrity (www.netegrity.com),
Polaroid Corporation (www.polaroid.com),
PressKits (www.presskits.com),
and Rational Software (www.rational.com).
MONOPOLY® is a trademark of Hasbro for its property
trading game.
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For more information, contact:
Stephen Turcotte at 781-899-4050 or stephen@backbonemedia.com
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