Ever tried talking about your work to someone you just met at a big, crowded party somewhere? More often than not, you’ll have to repeat yourself two or three times, while the other person squints and leans in, trying to hear you over the noise that only a throng of 100-plus people in an enclosed space can produce. Sooner or later, your conversation buddy changes the subject or wanders away in search of more drinks.
Now multiply the noise several thousand times, and that’s you trying to talk about your work to the internet. Only the people you’re trying to reach are already constantly bombarded with unrelenting volleys of information. So how do you get through?
Singapore-based Ematic thinks it has a solution for your voice to rise above the din. The three-year-old startup provides applications and insights on email marketing, specializing in ecommerce. Its products are aimed at marketers who want to increase their company’s visibility and attract more customers, by streamlining their marketing methods.
Channeling the message
Paul Tenney, Ematic founder and CEO
“The way I look at marketing technology, it’s between campaign and channel,” Paul Tenney, founder and CEO of Ematic, tells Tech in Asia, talking about the methods available to marketers for reaching their intended customers. “There are tools that are great for campaigns and tools that are great for managing channels, and there have been attempts to do both with the same product. I don’t think that works very well.”
Paul founded Ematic in 2012, after coming to Singapore as the Asia-Pacific person for Silicon Valley email marketing firm Yesmail. The Stanford graduate had previously been a director for the company’s California-based business, working with clients like Hewlett-Packard, Macy’s, and eBay.
Once in Asia, Paul noticed that existing digital marketing solutions for local companies couldn’t work the same way as in the US; they were expensive and complicated, and took too long to implement. Paul wanted to start his own company to provide a better way to Asian businesses. Being in this space since 2004, he had considerable experience to bring to the table, as well as the help and expertise of a lot of his former colleagues. And so Ematic was born.
Hello, see you again soon
Ematic’s solution is a set of software tools that can plug into a company’s chosen campaign management method or its website. For example, a company may be using Mailchimp for its marketing needs. Ematic’s tools connect to it and provide recommendations and actions based on machine learning and artificial intelligence.
There are currently two apps made by Ematic that tackle different sides of its mission.
HiIQ is a tool that suggests when is best to say hi, and to whom. The system works with the user’s database to determine when to fire off emails and to which addresses, targeting (hopefully) the right people with the right message. This results in less time and energy wasted by the marketer, and less noise for the people the message is trying to reach.
ByeIQ is a piece of software that determines what messages and calls to action to display to a user about to leave your website, and when. The idea is to get the user to either subscribe to the website’s mailing list or to become a customer and make a purchase. Paul says this is done in a way that’s seamless and does not interrupt the user’s experience.
Image credit: Ematic Solutions
“We basically boil down email marketing to a three-metric approach,” Paul explains. “How many new subscribers you can add to your database, how much engagement you are able to drive, and how many conversions you are able to drive.”
Raising money
Ematic announced today it has raised S$1.5 million (US$1.07 million) in a seed round led by venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners. 500 Startups and Convergence Ventures also joined in. The startup says it’s continuing to seek additional investment in this round.
Most of the funding will be put toward product development, Paul explains. The rest will be used for “strategic growth” within Southeast Asia. Other markets will follow later through subsequent funding rounds, as Ematic aims for more territories around the world.
Paul is pretty happy with these particular investors. Wavemaker has the desired expertise on how to help a business-to-business-focused company like Ematic, he explains. As for 500 Startups and Convergence, he finds there is a strong culture fit with the startup, while the latter offers a valuable local contact when it comes to partnerships within Indonesia.
The startup won’t disclose numbers, but Paul says it is ahead of its targets in terms of revenue at the moment. It has cleared the 50-customer mark throughout Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, boasting clients like cosmetics ecommerce website Luxola.
Editing by J.T. Quigley and Terence Lee
This startup raised funding to better tell you when and where to send your newsletters
