PermissionCorp
Smart50 rank: 43
Revenue: $15.00 million
Growth: 29.17%
Founders: Bob Cheng, 26
Based: New South Wales
Employees: 50
Industry: Internet
Website: http://www.permissioncorp.com
The mass communication potential of the web and a public cynicism about unsolicited marketing contact has created a lucrative niche for Sydney based business PermissionCorp.
PermissionCorp – known better as EmailCash in Australia – has built large consumer panels by offering participants rewards and prizes in return for their permission to receive email marketing
It then sells access to those panels – currently in Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan – to firms for market research purposes, a service that generated an impressive $15 million revenue in 2007-08, compared with $12 million in 2006-07.
The advantage to the company’s clients of permission-based marketing are twofold; not only are participants more likely to open the targeted messages they receive, but they avoid the reputational odium associated with unwelcome junk email or cold calling.
Established in 1999, PermissionCorp's use of the web to build and monetise consent based communities makes it one of Australia’s leading web 2.0 innovators.