Grad Profiles highlight the personal and professional stories of Founder Institute Graduates from across the globe.
This profile on ClientMagnet, a Graduate of the Silicon Valley Founder Institute, was written by Emma Tzeng. Founded in 2011 by Jeff Shood, ClientMagnet is a business application that helps SMBs predict their customers' needs, and respond with high conversion email marketing campaigns.
Applications to the Summer 2012 Silicon Valley Program, which will be led by Adeo Ressi, are open now. Early Applications are due by this Sunday, May 13th - click here to apply now. Early applicants get the best chance of acceptance, and don't have to pay the Admissions Test processing fee.
Business owners have a lot on their plates. Amidst the responsibilities of forming a business plan, generating revenue, hiring productive employees, budgeting company expenses, and consistently delivering quality products and experiences, managers also face the ongoing pressure of customer acquisition. After all, what is a business without its customers?
ClientMagnet helps these owners juggle the demands of running a successful enterprise by assisting with the latter.
“We’re going to make it easy for any small business to understand the needs of their customers and respond with targeted marketing,” CEO and Founder Jeff Shood explains in an introductory video.
More specifically, ClientMagnet analyzes businesses’ Quickbooks data, which provides insight into customers’ purchasing patterns, and syncs this information into an analytics engine to pinpoint key marketing opportunities. It then aggregates this information into an intuitive dashboard that business owners can access to receive insight into their customers’ buying patterns.
Furthermore, ClientMagnet handles all the direct marketing for SMB owners by placing clients on a pre-billed marketing campaign specific to their industry. After a personalized campaign is selected and agreed upon, ClientMagnet automates and customizes the email marketing, direct mail, social media, and phone follow-up processes according to each customer’s unique preferences.
Opportunity looms large for ClientMagnet to penetrate the SMB market. Statistics show that five million small service and retail businesses use Quickbooks, signifying a $3.1 billion opportunity. In addition, the total North American SMB market represents a $16 billion opportunity.
Of this market, ClientMagnet plans to initially target 2.2 million service businesses, 750 thousand business professionals, and 800 thousand retail companies.
SMBs can try the ClientMagnet dashboard free of charge from the Intuit app center, which provides the analytics for owners to better understand their customers’ purchasing patterns. Satisfied users can then take their membership to the next level by purchasing personalized monthly marketing plans, which range from $25 to $99 depending on that organization’s scope and level of customization. Therefore, business owners can leverage ClientMagnet’s expertise and technology to cut time costs and sustain strategic, highly targeted relationships with consumers.
Shood teamed up with David Buckler, now CTO and VP of Development for ClientMagnet, and founded the startup out of a desire to help small businesses better market themselves using data-driven technology and industry expertise. Both founders possess a combined 17 years of experience in marketing automation, CRM, client analytics, and programming.
ClientMagnet’s dashboard is currently still in private beta, though the startup plans to activate over 25,000 dashboard users and begin paid conversions later on this year.
As ClientMagnet continues its quest to remap the SMB landscape, we can expect to witness bolder, bigger developments in the industry as more independent business owners adopt advanced technologies to assist with business and marketing.
To learn more about Client Magnet:
