Maddux Report - Tampa Bay's Business, Finance and Development Magazine

Lost Your Keys? Laptop? Key Watchdog to the Rescue

Just when you thought everything’s been done on the Internet, along comes a Tampa company with a novel approach to retrieving lost items for consumers – free. The company, 365 Direct Marketing Co., actually uses three technologies – Internet, e-mail, and telephone voice mail – to help people recover lost items such as laptops, cell phone chargers, cell phones, cameras. But nothing’s free, right? Actually, from the consumer’s view, the Key Watchdog recovery system is gratis. It is handed out by companies as a promotion, much the same way a business might give away pens, pencils, matchbooks, mouse pads, and so on. But, unlike those other promotions, Key Watchdog provides companies with a tried-and-true way for building a permission-based e-mail database. That’s because for Key Watchdog to work effectively, each consumer must first register his or her specific lost-and-found Watchdog code using an e-mail address for correspondence. In doing so, the consumer agrees to receive promotions and other e-mail correspondence from the specific company that gave away the Key Watchdog system. That kind of specific database can become very valuable for a company. So, while the company has to pay for Key Watchdog, the same way they pay for other promotions, they get more than just a little advertising. They get the database.

Here’s how it works: An automobile dealership might buy a number of Key Watchdog sets from 365 Direct Marketing, for about the same price they’d pay for give-away ink pens or key chains, says Deanie Gregory, Direct Marketing’s executive vice president and co-founder. The dealership then proceeds to hand out the promotions to potential customers. It might even decide to enter the potential customers’ names in a computer before handing them the gift. Either way, the dealership begins to build a significant database of potential customers – people who may not have bought a car on the spot, but who might be interested in promotions down the road. So, the dealership gets a venue for targeting a specific audience. And, it has the customers’ permission to send e-mail promotions.

"That’s why it’s called permission-based e-mail marketing," Gregory says. "This system is a natural for car dealerships. But it also works very well for pharmaceutical companies, hotels, alumni associations – almost any firm or association that has customers or memberships." She should know about dealerships. Gregory hails from the car-selling industry. She has more than a decade of experience in dealerships and served her last eight years as business manager for Dependable Dodge in Los Angeles, Calif. The benefit for consumers is obvious, Gregory says. They get lost stuff back. At least the chances of recovering lost goods improve. The Watchdog labels carry an 800 number that allows people who find lost stuff to call the number and leave the consumer a voice mail message saying they’ve found their stuff. An automated e-mail is delivered to the consumer, based on the voice mail. Get more information at: www.365directmarketing.com or www.keywatchdog.com.

Turn Your Computer into a File Cabinet

They say you can find almost anything on the Internet. But what about all those papers in your company’s file cabinets? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could sort through those on your computer? A Winter Haven company, Doculex, makes a business out of converting paper documents into searchable electronic images. It develops software that is used to convert paper into several different file formats, including PDF, or portable document format, a digital picture file developed by Adobe Systems Inc. Doculex President Carl Strang III says companies can save a bundle on paper storage – as much as $8,000 to $10,000 a year – by using digital storage. Apparently a lot of clients agree. Doculex recently was ranked 19th among the Deloitte & Touche Florida High Tech Corridor Technology Fast 50 list. The firm had 543 percent growth from 1996 to 2000. Strang believes the company’s revenues will reach between $3.5 million and $4 million by Dec. 31.

Tech F.Y.I

DotInfoCentral.com offers registration for Internet domain names that end in dot-info (.info) instead of dot-com. Dot-com remains the prestigious domain name, as the company’s own name attests (www.dotinfocentral.com). Other new-economy frontiers include domain names ending in .biz and .pro ... ShoeSpot.com is an online storefront with roots in Tampa that sells designer shoes at bargain prices. You can save as much as 80 percent off retail in some cases, the company claims ... A new service from Verizon lets people with Caller ID block unwanted calls such as from telephone salesmen. The service, Call Intercept, lets you know by a distinctive ring that the incoming call is from an unwanted source. You get a pin code with the service that you can hand out to friends and relatives to bypass the blocking feature when they are calling from say, a payphone.

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