BatchBook Customer Profile: Gourmet Ads

Name: Benjamin Christie
Company: Gourmet Ads www.gourmetads.com

Tell us a little bit about what your company does and what services you provide. Gourmet Ads is a global vertical advertising network with offices in America, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Gourmet Ads represents quality food, wine and beer websites throughout the world, aggregating and managing advertising across these highly relevant websites and blogs. We focus on delivering branding campaigns which drive sales and customer acquisition.

How did you get started? We started originally in Australia, but demand from both advertisers and publishers in North America allowed us to start international operations. Now we have solid businesses in four countries (America, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia) and growing rapidly into new countries.

How long have you been in business? We started in May 2007.

Who is your target audience? Our clients vary greatly, in terms of the industries that they are from. We work with all sorts of food and wine companies, plus additionally we work with financial, automotive, travel companies and many more. The common goal for all our clients is they want to reach our unique online audience of female 27-55 years old who are commonly the the household grocery buyer.

How does your company stay connected with clients and your business community? We stay connected with clients mostly via email and phone. The ability for BatchBook to sit in between our email server tracking all incoming and outgoing email communications is essential for client communication. Being able to look at client cards and see previous discussions has been one of the reasons we switched to BatchBook from our previous CRM provider.

Any advice for anyone else looking to start their own company?

1. Be open to change with client demand. Many of our standard products now are far from what we originally developed. Many packages have been crafted because of clients who have wanted to do different things.

2. Invest in a website from day one, ensure it has a blog where you can talk about products, industry happening etc. It continues to be our greatest inbound avenue for client enquiry.

3. Have an outbound strategy for business development. Many companies sit back and wait for clients to knock on the door. You need to go and hunt them down and communicate with them often.