This is even more impressive when one considers the typical lifespan of a small business; 44% don't make it to 48 months[1]. I wonder if Constant Contact manages to attract more successful businesses, or if businesses that seek out and engage in such marketing opportunities are just more successful.<p>[1] - www.nbcnews.com/id/16872553/
This is eye-opening:<p>"Goodman credits the company's success to--get this--in person seminars through Chambers of Commerce across the country."<p>The problem is most startups targeting SMBs have neither of the following - the numbers just aren't there and they have no idea how to get there:<p>"If you're a SaaS startup targeting the SMB market, you'd better either have an awesome freemium offering, or you'd better have a average customer lifetime of around 45 months."
2004 - "<i>There's no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I'll tell you why. The minute you charge more than $1000 you need to get serious corporate signoffs.</i>"
<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...</a><p>It amazing how the payment/delivery medium sets prices in software. There are a lot of SASS products where a substantial number of customers pay that much. Apple's App store opening the $1 end of the spectrum is another great example.
I'm surprised they are still in business. I had to add them to my email server blocklists due to the sheer volume of spam. It was typically being added to mailing lists that had nothing to do with me.
My conclusion from the numbers provided by the OP are that CC is still in business because they actually know the cost to acquire a customer and that customer's life-time value. It also helps that the life-time value is higher than the acquisition cost (by quite a bit).