Background
DuplicationQuotes.com is an online service for individuals and companies seeking quotes for CD, DVD, video and cassette duplication/replication services. Quote requests are sold to duplication vendors as leads. The duplication services market is highly-competitive and thus vendors are eager to find new prospective customers. A quick survey for keywords such as âcd duplicationâ on AdWords demonstrates the number of vendors in the market and the prices some are paying for AdWords and other PPC programs is quite amazing, thus making a service where these vendors can obtain qualified leads with real contact information very appealing. Approximately 50 duplication firms signed up to participate in DuplicationQuotes.com. Many of them have made at least one purchase.
How It Works
1. An individual places a quote request through DuplicationQuotes.com.
2. Once the administrator approves the lead, it is available to the participating vendors. An opt-in alerts system allows participating vendors to be notified by email when new leads come in. Because the person requesting a quote can specify a maximum number of quotes they want to receive, most vendors like to receive alerts to ensure they get first crack at a hot lead before it has the chance to "sell out." Leads expire after a period of time selected by the requestor. Typically we would verify each new lead with a quick phone call to the requestor (this eliminates bogus leads that would result in refund issues).
3. Vendors interested in providing a quote for a lead can purchase it several ways (see below for more details). The vendor then gains access to the contact information for the lead and is able to deal directly with the prospective customer.
Lead purchasing is done in one of three ways:
1. Direct purchases. The pricing is: 1-2 leads for $5/lead, 3-4 leads for $4.50/lead, 5-6 leads for $4/lead, 7+ leads for $3.50/lead.
2. Credits. The vendor pre-pays for 10 leads at $3/lead. They receive 10 credits and each credit can be redeemed for 1 lead at any time. This was by far the most popular purchasing option.
3. Subscription. For $11.99/month, vendors can get unlimited access to leads that require less than 1,000 CDs/DVDs to be duplicated. This purchasing option was added because these lower run leads would not typically sell as well.
The Application
DuplicationQuotes.com is a custom application developed with PHP and MySQL. I can provide demo accounts to serious potential buyers. There are two main parts of the application: the consumer-oriented site where quote requests are made and the service provider site where participating vendors view and purchase leads.
Additionally, an affiliate program component was developed, as our plan was to partner up with musician-related websites that wanted to refer their users and to get a share of revenues based upon leads their users generated. We never got around to making the business development effort to recruit affiliates, but the affiliate program component is tested, working and ready to go.
Backend administration of the service (approval of leads, etc.) was always handled through phpMyAdmin due to the fact that it was easy to use and I never got around to building an administration area. This would be very easy to build, and an arrangement to develop this could be worked out if the buyer desired.
Revenues & Expenses
DuplicationQuotes.com launched in early 2004 and sold its first lead in March of that year. In mid-2006, I became involved with some other ventures and stopped promoting it altogether. Since that time, it has basically become dormant. Between its launch and mid-2006, the service generated approximately $3,325 in sales from 295 leads that were purchased one or more times by participating vendors. The only major operating cost during this time was Google AdWords advertising. Approximately $925 was spent on this.
Time demands for running the service were extremely minimal. Very little real marketing effort was made and AdWords was put on auto-pilot. When new leads came in, verification was done. This typically consisted of a phone call to the person requesting a quote. While this may not be necessary, we decided to take five minutes to verify in this fashion to avoid any issues with having to refund for bad leads.
Potential
Due to my company's focus on other ventures, DuplicationQuotes.com was never taken to the level that it could have been. A qualified buyer would be in a position to do this. Some potential avenues for larger success:
1. An increased marketing effort and recruitment of affiliates, which provide a marketing platform where the affiliate makes money only when you do.
2. Further recruitment of new vendors. We have not done a recruitment drive in well over a year and since that time, given the competitive nature of the duplication services market, I expect there are a considerable number of new vendors. Additionally, by no means did we cover the entire market with the several recruitment drives we did engage in.
3. An updated business model where vendors are automatically sent leads that meet their criteria. I believe a number of other lead generation services automatically send qualified leads to their participating vendors and bill them for them at the end of the month. Vendors are able to set a budget controlling their spend. If my recollection is correct, on average, approximately 1 in 5 of the clicks we received on AdWords converted to a lead. Our all-time average CPC was $0.54, giving an average CPA of $2.70. Assuming a model where vendors are automatically purchasing leads at $3/lead, and each lead is sent to a maximum of 5 vendors, profits per lead would be $12.30 if our historical averages were maintained. Given the fact that a number of lead generation services use this or a similar model, I don't doubt that the economics work in this fashion, but obviously real-world testing would be required to prove out the actual costs and profitability.
4. With a little development work, the DuplicationQuotes.com application could be extended to other markets where vendors are eager to obtain quality leads.
Offers
I have toyed with the possibility of revitalizing the service and potentially hiring somebody to run it for us but would like to explore the possibility of selling it or partnering with a qualified individual or company that provides a compelling value proposition for their involvement. As such, I am willing to consider all offers for an outright purchase or partnership. If proposing a partnership, I require a brief pitch as to how you are uniquely positioned to deliver on the potential of this service.
DuplicationQuotes.com is an online service for individuals and companies seeking quotes for CD, DVD, video and cassette duplication/replication services. Quote requests are sold to duplication vendors as leads. The duplication services market is highly-competitive and thus vendors are eager to find new prospective customers. A quick survey for keywords such as âcd duplicationâ on AdWords demonstrates the number of vendors in the market and the prices some are paying for AdWords and other PPC programs is quite amazing, thus making a service where these vendors can obtain qualified leads with real contact information very appealing. Approximately 50 duplication firms signed up to participate in DuplicationQuotes.com. Many of them have made at least one purchase.
How It Works
1. An individual places a quote request through DuplicationQuotes.com.
2. Once the administrator approves the lead, it is available to the participating vendors. An opt-in alerts system allows participating vendors to be notified by email when new leads come in. Because the person requesting a quote can specify a maximum number of quotes they want to receive, most vendors like to receive alerts to ensure they get first crack at a hot lead before it has the chance to "sell out." Leads expire after a period of time selected by the requestor. Typically we would verify each new lead with a quick phone call to the requestor (this eliminates bogus leads that would result in refund issues).
3. Vendors interested in providing a quote for a lead can purchase it several ways (see below for more details). The vendor then gains access to the contact information for the lead and is able to deal directly with the prospective customer.
Lead purchasing is done in one of three ways:
1. Direct purchases. The pricing is: 1-2 leads for $5/lead, 3-4 leads for $4.50/lead, 5-6 leads for $4/lead, 7+ leads for $3.50/lead.
2. Credits. The vendor pre-pays for 10 leads at $3/lead. They receive 10 credits and each credit can be redeemed for 1 lead at any time. This was by far the most popular purchasing option.
3. Subscription. For $11.99/month, vendors can get unlimited access to leads that require less than 1,000 CDs/DVDs to be duplicated. This purchasing option was added because these lower run leads would not typically sell as well.
The Application
DuplicationQuotes.com is a custom application developed with PHP and MySQL. I can provide demo accounts to serious potential buyers. There are two main parts of the application: the consumer-oriented site where quote requests are made and the service provider site where participating vendors view and purchase leads.
Additionally, an affiliate program component was developed, as our plan was to partner up with musician-related websites that wanted to refer their users and to get a share of revenues based upon leads their users generated. We never got around to making the business development effort to recruit affiliates, but the affiliate program component is tested, working and ready to go.
Backend administration of the service (approval of leads, etc.) was always handled through phpMyAdmin due to the fact that it was easy to use and I never got around to building an administration area. This would be very easy to build, and an arrangement to develop this could be worked out if the buyer desired.
Revenues & Expenses
DuplicationQuotes.com launched in early 2004 and sold its first lead in March of that year. In mid-2006, I became involved with some other ventures and stopped promoting it altogether. Since that time, it has basically become dormant. Between its launch and mid-2006, the service generated approximately $3,325 in sales from 295 leads that were purchased one or more times by participating vendors. The only major operating cost during this time was Google AdWords advertising. Approximately $925 was spent on this.
Time demands for running the service were extremely minimal. Very little real marketing effort was made and AdWords was put on auto-pilot. When new leads came in, verification was done. This typically consisted of a phone call to the person requesting a quote. While this may not be necessary, we decided to take five minutes to verify in this fashion to avoid any issues with having to refund for bad leads.
Potential
Due to my company's focus on other ventures, DuplicationQuotes.com was never taken to the level that it could have been. A qualified buyer would be in a position to do this. Some potential avenues for larger success:
1. An increased marketing effort and recruitment of affiliates, which provide a marketing platform where the affiliate makes money only when you do.
2. Further recruitment of new vendors. We have not done a recruitment drive in well over a year and since that time, given the competitive nature of the duplication services market, I expect there are a considerable number of new vendors. Additionally, by no means did we cover the entire market with the several recruitment drives we did engage in.
3. An updated business model where vendors are automatically sent leads that meet their criteria. I believe a number of other lead generation services automatically send qualified leads to their participating vendors and bill them for them at the end of the month. Vendors are able to set a budget controlling their spend. If my recollection is correct, on average, approximately 1 in 5 of the clicks we received on AdWords converted to a lead. Our all-time average CPC was $0.54, giving an average CPA of $2.70. Assuming a model where vendors are automatically purchasing leads at $3/lead, and each lead is sent to a maximum of 5 vendors, profits per lead would be $12.30 if our historical averages were maintained. Given the fact that a number of lead generation services use this or a similar model, I don't doubt that the economics work in this fashion, but obviously real-world testing would be required to prove out the actual costs and profitability.
4. With a little development work, the DuplicationQuotes.com application could be extended to other markets where vendors are eager to obtain quality leads.
Offers
I have toyed with the possibility of revitalizing the service and potentially hiring somebody to run it for us but would like to explore the possibility of selling it or partnering with a qualified individual or company that provides a compelling value proposition for their involvement. As such, I am willing to consider all offers for an outright purchase or partnership. If proposing a partnership, I require a brief pitch as to how you are uniquely positioned to deliver on the potential of this service.
