Re: Internet Affinity Marketing

Kristine Loosley (kris_at_cris.com)
Tue, 27 Aug 1996 10:04:10 -0700

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At 10:42 AM 8/27/96 -0400, Rodney Jordan wrote:
>
>Does anyone have any suggestion for or expreience with acquiring Internet
>Dial-Up Affinity programs with National ISPs?
>
>Rodney Jordan
>

Hi Rodney. As the person in charge of finding "strategic marketing
partnerships" for a national ISP (Concentric Network Corporation), I can
tell you the kinds of things I can provide and the kinds of things I am
looking for in partnerships. I define "affinity groups" as large groups of
people with a common interest (example: Baltimore Oriole fans, members of an
alumni group) tied together by an organization (a fan club or alumni
organization, for example) that wants to drive their memberships to an
online experience for shared communication, sales or other purposes. I also
have a strong desire to bring my customer base to high-quality content
areas, and will direct customers there through a variety of mechanisms for a
share of advertising revenue, for a reduced subscription price for my
customers or for some other reason.

Here's how I look at it. We're in the business of delivering online services
(Internet and intranet access) but we are NOT in the business of creating
content. Content providers, on the other hand, are experts at providing
online destinations, but are NOT in the business of building and maintaining
nationwide and international data networks, software vendor relationships,
etc. Though I know there are many content providers who double as Internet
providers, I think it's obvious (and I'm obviously biased! :) that national
providers like Concentric can do the job of providing dial-up access less
expensively and with better overall quality of service (including 24 hour
customer support) than most content providers. This is the heart of our
relationship with Intuit, for example. Intuit provides quality content in
the form of the Quicken Financial Network (www.qfn.com), and we connect all
their customers TO the QFN for them -- turnkey. I think it's a good model.

Concentric provides affinity groups a mechanism for group members to get
online. We can provide custom software defaulting to your site, a startup
demo price and some form of bounty/ongoing commission for the affinity
group. We are focusing on large groups naturally, but there is room for some
level of referral fees for smaller groups. Groups that have membership
spread nationwide especially like using a national ISP like Concentric
because we can provide a common, shared mechanism for getting people online
at a single price point, common software, etc.

I'd love to start a dialogue with any large affinity group or any quality
content provider.

Kristine

Kristine Loosley
Director of Online Strategy
Concentric Network Corporation
kris_at_concentric.net
408 342 2808

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