Business Missions and Business Models

Back in 2005 when FeedBlitz first saw the light of day on a FeedBurner forum, its mission was simple: Be a blog to email system that worked.

Over three years later, that's still our mission.

Between then and now, of course, we've changed a lot. FeedBlitz has grown from serving zero to nearly 7 million active subscriptions. From zero to nearly 73,000 publishers. From zero to over 216,000 lists. FeedBlitz has grown into the leading independent automated email marketing service, routinely and reliably delivering over 60 million automated messages a month directly to subscriber inboxes.

As part of that journey, we've added capabilities like branding, scheduling, newsflashes, autoresponders, surveys, Twitter and instant messenger integration, SPF and DKIM authentication, custom fields, segmentation and personalization, an API, self-modifying subscription centers, an ad network and more. FeedBlitz is the only automated service for bloggers - well, for anyone, actually, including “enterprise grade” email service providers - to offer all these capabilities in a single offering.

Customer expertise and expectations have changed greatly as well. Crucially, what used to be good enough three years ago - or even 12 months ago - isn't any more. As our audience has expanded and grown from those who knew what R.S.S. actually stood for to those who don't even know it exists; from early adopters finding FeedBlitz to be an interesting add-on to email marketers finding it an essential (yet hassle-free) component of their businesses; we've continually invested to keep FeedBlitz up and keep ahead.

But it's not just about the technology and the machines. What's crucial to success is combining these with the business. FeedBlitz has generated revenues since the introduction of our Turbo and Pro upgrades in the Fall of 2005. We have a parallel ad revenue stream. We execute professional services projects. All of which has helped FeedBlitz survive and grow while our rivals have failed. Of these failed competitors, the common factor for them all was a lack of a business model. Not one of them - not one - had a way to generate revenues. And they're no longer around. It's not a coincidence.

Which brings me back, full circle, to our mission. To be the online marketing service that, simply, works.

FeedBlitz needs, then, to keep up and ahead - indeed, you expect us to keep up and ahead - as we scale up to handle hundreds of thousands of publishers, to continue to add features and capabilities, and to be there for you in the future. To fulfill your expectations, FeedBlitz needs to generate commensurate revenues to fund both current services and future plans.

The FeedBlitz business model has ensured our survival and funded our growth so far. Still, to build for the future, starting on January 1st, 2009, we're updating it.

Ready?

• As of January 1st 2009, all new publishers to FeedBlitz will be embarking on a 30-day free trial, instead of a perpetually free service.

That's it. (Mostly).

• If you're publishing a newsletter with us already then nothing changes.
• If you're using our ad-funded, free service, that's not changing either.

There is a little small print to go along with this change:

1. If you're a current premium publisher and your payment bounces or you cancel, you'll then be treated as a new publisher and put on a 30-day grace period so you can re-up.
   
2. If you run an import and it looks like your import will take your lists through 5,000 circulation, you'll be required to upgrade if you're on the ad-funded service.

To clarify item (2), if you already have more than 5,000 subscribers you're OK. If your list grows organically (via opt-in subscriptions) through 5,000 that's OK. An upgrade is only required if an import takes your circulation from under 5,000 to over 5,000.

So that's it. The site and FAQs have changed to reflect these details. Happy New Year, everyone!

   

Terms of Service Change for Lists with more than 5,000 Subscribers

In this post I discussed some of the technical changes we've put in place to monitor potential terms of service violations, and we turned that into a tool for publishers - List Quality Alerts - to help them manage their circulation.

We are also putting in place economic changes to our pricing and policies. Larger lists can cause the most problems from a reputation / quality perspective in one fell swoop. It is also true that "genuine" larger lists are for professional purposes - for a company, an organization, a cause. The majority of larger lists clearly fall into this category and already use one of our premium services, and if they don't then, frankly, they can afford to.

So we are making the following terms of service and policy changes, to go into effect Sunday, August 19, 2007:

1. Lists with an active circulation of 5,000 or more must be on a FeedBlitz premium service (Pro, Turbo or Newsletter Edition).
2. We will insert ads into subscriber emails for lists with circulations of this size until such time as they comply.

If you're running a large list you're doing so for an organization that can afford to pay, so these changes are to encourage you to do just that. After all, the larger lists cost us more to manage, and if you're doing this professionally then it is not unreasonable for FeedBlitz to to be compensated for the work we do on your (or your organization's) behalf, especially since it's affordable to do so. We also believe that abusers will not part with valid payment information (since that's readily traced). Larger lists that fail to comply will therefore be looked at very closely indeed. Our terms of service have been modified to reflect this policy change.