Case Studies

Reselling to a niche market: Meet Scoutmailer

ScoutMailer is a brilliant example of rebranding Campaign Monitor and pitching it as a specialized product to a niche market. Chris Monnat explains how he pulled it off, and the lessons learned on the way.

We love the idea of targeting Campaign Monitor at a niche market. What made you choose the Scout industry?

"This market deals a lot with volunteers who aren't tech savvy. Campaign Monitor removes most of those barriers."

I'm an Eagle Scout and as I became more familiar with the Internet and web development I saw a number of opportunities as to how the web could serve the scouting industry nicely.

This particular market deals a lot with volunteers who aren't necessarily tech savvy which poses an interesting challenge when trying to explain/sell something like an e-mail marketing/mailing list management app. But, Campaign Monitor removes most of these barriers so the biggest challenge is just selling the concept.

Did you have to pitch the software a certain way for this audience?

Scouts don't do "e-mail marketing" so I needed to present Campaign Monitor as a more generic tool to help them communicate with their members using e-mail (which they are all familiar with). So I pitch ScoutMailer as a mailing list management program and play up the ease of use and list management features while playing down the more business/marketing specific features like certain reports and such.

"To make the sale you really need to put things in the customer's perspective."

The thing with my market is there are a number of smaller groups/markets within the industry and each one does things a little differently. I'm promoting ScoutMailer to scout camps, councils, troops and crews and the selling points are a little different for each.

That's why I created the Resources section of the site. I like the top 10 format so I posted an article for the "10 Ways Your Camp Can Use ScoutMailer" and linked it from the homepage. I intend to do other top 10 lists for the other mini-markets and link them from the homepage as well. To make the sale you really need to put things in the customer's perspective which is what I'm attempting to do.

We love the ScoutMailer site, talk us through your approach.

The ScoutMailer site is pretty standard among Campaign Monitor resellers... at least as far as the content is concerned. I took the standard feature content and molded it for my target audience, again playing down the marketing and business aspects and playing up the overall program features. The design is fun, simple and follows the standard scout colors.

What are your future plans for ScoutMailer?

"I'm excited to see what I can accomplish with the Campaign Monitor API."

I have another scout specific product, called BadgeTracker, which helps summer camps manage registration and scheduling. I've struggled for the last couple of years implementing reliable mass mail functionality with that program. So I'm excited to see what I can accomplish now with the Campaign Monitor API. It's just what the programmer ordered to accomplish what my users are looking for.

I also need to build out the Resources section of the site a bit. I have plans for some ScoutMailer specific documentation for how my users specifically can use the program. Maybe some videos if time permits. The more customer "hand holding" you can accomplish using documentation and other aids the happier the customer will be.

Any tips for other designers considering reselling?

To web workers, e-mail marketing and mass mailing is a somewhat straight forward concept (although complex). But to our customers they don't necessarily understand what's involved and why they can't just put 100 addresses in the To: field of MS Outlook.

The big thing to selling e-mail marketing apps is to make it easy for the customer to understand. Answer the question: "what does this do for me? Focus on what makes Campaign Monitor great (which may be different for each niche) and you will do fine.