1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2010: LOGOPremiums

By guest author Praveen Kumar

How much of a consumer’s decision to click on a URL is based on domain name? Domain name plays a big part, says Jeff Levine, and is testing his hypothesis through his company LOGOpremiums, a network of B2B e-catalogs that sells promotional items in which each e-catalog website uses a product-specific keyword domain name such as Logoteeshirts.com or Logocups.com. The company manufactures custom logo products and imports and distributes stock logo products.

The Mt. Kisco, New York–based company was founded in 1998. Levine, who has many years of experience in SEO management, promotional marketing, 3D holographic design, and manufacturing, was vice president at AD 2000 Holographic, Inc, where he was responsible for developing new business, designing detailed interactive 3D holograms, and managing the manufacturing of custom promotional marketing campaigns, trade show displays, corporate event logo items, and business gifts featuring interactive 3D graphics and 3D logos. He is also the owner of another company, MesMerized Graphics, where he is responsible for developing a new client base with focus on the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and medical device industries and designing 3D holographic marketing programs. Levine got the idea for his current venture after conducting his first Google search and becoming interested in the intersection of keywords and e-commerce. He believes that 95% of all sales for products sold on the Internet are generated from specific organic search results. Products span a variety of categories, including business gifts, employee rewards gifts, and promotional items. T-shirts, calculators, portfolios, duffel bags, pens and pencils, Post-its, MP3 players, and umbrellas are just a few of the products the company makes or distributes.

Levine founded the LOGOpremiums.com website with a focus on the $18 billion–dollar promotional marketing industry. His goal is for each of his e-catalogs to capture a significant market share of the online sale of promotional logo products. To accomplish this, Levine wants to develop the best possible association between the search engine, the searcher and the company. He says that the design of a pertinent search-engine-friendly and consumer-friendly website using keyword specific domain name e-catalog URLs can be a deciding factor by consumers in clicking on one URL over another. He has bought a dozen high-traffic keyword-based URLs thus far and is working to develop full e-catalogs for all of them.

Some of the company’s clients for promotional products include Adecco, Bank of America, Carl Zeiss, ConocoPhillips, Honeywell, Tyco, Morgan Stanley, Moss-Adams, Novartis, Pfizer, and Ziff Davis.

LOGOpremiums entered the market when the Internet was pretty new, and Levine used his background in database management, computer technology, and promotional marketing to gain traction. There are numerous competitors, including Deal Radar company ThreadLogic, which makes custom merchandise; LogoSurfing; Overture Premiums and Promotions, Print My Logo, and PromotionalMerchandise.com. [sm: there are much bigger ones like CafePress, Zazzle, etc. as well] A different kind of competitor for one market, employee incentive gifts, I Love Rewards, which enables employees to earn points for things they want. See the recommended readings for more information.

From 2004, the company’s sales grew 88% to reach $300,000 in annual revenue at present. LOGOpremiums is self-financed and has been profitable for the past five to six years. The company is still undecided on financing from outside but will be looking for an investor to complete the creation of all of its twelve e-catalogs.

LOGOpremiums presented at Sramana’s 1M/1M roundtable on August 26, 2010. The recording of the session is here. You can also find Sramana’s recap here. Sramana advised Levine to validate the assumption with one search term/URL combination, derive the traffic metrics, conversion rates, and revenue numbers, and then go out to raise money, since it will be much easier to assess the business potential with that validation in place.

Recommended Readings
Deal Radar 2010: I Love Rewards
Deal Radar 2010: ThreadLogic

This segment is a part in the series : 1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2010