Edo Interactive Directly Targeting SMBs for Loyalty Services

Loyalty sales (including analytics) are typically associated with large brands such as Hilton and United Airlines. But a number of companies have been also trying to crack the code on SMBs, where the volume is.

This week, Edo Interactive announces it is doubling down on its SMB loyalty efforts, going far beyond what it has previously done since launching in late 2010. The 90+ person company, which has raised a total of $54 Million, has nearly doubled in size since it began building up its Nashville office to head up the SMB initiative, which it is calling “Edo Marketplace.”

Marketplace will have a broad rollout in 2Q, after testing in Chicago and Nashville with 200 local and national partners for the past month. Notably, Edo is moving away from its sole dependence on financial institutions for sales. (It currently works with 140 financial institutions.)

One outside sales partnership is already in place with 2GoMedia. Several additional sales partnerships are in development. The SMB marketplace suffers from “a lot of irrelevancy,” says VP of Marketing & Brand Development Jeff Fagel. “Local campaigns lack data.“

Edo hopes to provide its SMB customers with pay for performance marketing, and a better ability to “find customers, convert and measure” via real time reports that include impressions via Web page views, email, Texts, redemption texts and email. “We want to be able to answer the question: “What does $1,000 buy me?” asks Fagel. “Customers don’t want to pay for 1,000 Facebook likes.”

Edo, of course, is entering into direct competition against a wide range of players that have loyalty and offer components. We have counted more than 18 companies that are vying for this market segment in one form or another.