ROI Direct - Press Room

FABRIK COMMUNICATIONS, INC. BECOMES ROI DIRECT.COM

Company Offers Mid-Sized Business Direct Marketing Services to Better Compete vs. Rivals Online.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Michael Tinkler
Director, Public Relations
415-439-6690
mtinkler@roidirect.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 1, 1999) -- Fabrik Communications, Inc., today announced that it has changed its name to ROI Direct.com, to reflect the company’s rapidly growing business as an application services provider (ASP) of Internet direct marketing solutions. The new name combines ROI, or "return on investment", the fundamental metric of direct marketing, and the ".com" domain suffix of all Internet businesses to better represent the role that the company fulfills for its mid-sized business clients.

In announcing the change, the company described its service offerings as focusing on the huge and largely under-served category of mid-sized businesses: those with revenues between $5 million and $250 million.

"Our company has always had tremendous success in the middle market," said W.R. "Butch" Winters, ROI Direct’s Chairman and CEO, "and the response that we’ve received from mid-tier companies tells us that these services fill a significant need." Since announcing its direct marketing services in the second quarter of 1999, the company has signed on more than forty mid-tier clients.

"Companies are recognizing that a substantial portion of their future growth is going to be online," said David A. Williams, ROI Direct’s Vice President of Marketing. "For large companies, e-commerce involves expensive e-consulting projects and high-end site development. Smaller companies are generally focused on the freebie sites like Yahoo. We see a huge opportunity in supporting the middle tier – companies who can’t afford to spend $2 million on an e-commerce project, but who also need to support the same features and branding as their larger competitors."

ROI Direct.com offers database marketing, e-mail marketing, and e-commerce services to a variety of mid-tier businesses, including catalog merchants, publishers, and e-retailers. In addition, the company’s CustomResponse customer service applications help companies to cost-effectively respond to high volumes of inbound customer e-mail.

"There’s no doubt that direct marketers, publishers and retailers have come to recognize the importance of e-mail and the Web to the future of their businesses," said Jeff Clayton, the company’s Vice President of Sales. "These solutions are designed to take mid-tier companies to the next level, both in terms of building new business, and for building customer loyalty. It costs businesses a lot more to secure new customers than it does to increase sales to their current ones. And we recognize the importance of customer service to success online. Our customer service applications can cut online support costs by up to 80 percent."

By focusing on both the inbound and outbound elements of a client’s online marketing programs, ROI Direct.com assists companies in creating highly efficient, "closed loop" marketing systems.

About ROI Direct.com

Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver and New York, ROI Direct.com. develops and integrates Web, messaging, and database technologies to assist client companies in customer acquisition and retention, and in making their customer relationships more profitable. In addition to its direct marketing and customer support services, the company owns and supports the Web’s Catalogs2GO.com catalog portal site. ROI Direct.com is a privately held company with investment support from Accel Partners, Crosspoint Venture Partners, Vanguard Venture Partners, and HarbourVest Partners.

For more information about ROI Direct.com, visit www.roidirect.com; e-mail info@roidirect.com; or call 1-800-420-4224.