The Netpreneur Program

Building the Tech Entrepreneurial Community in the Greater Washington, DC Region

How do you develop awareness for your organization when the people you most want to reach are working 24x7 trying to start businesses of their own?

Visit the Netpreneur Website at http://netpreneur.org

That was the dilemma faced by the Netpreneur Program when it launched in 1996. The Morino Institute created the Netpreneur Program to be a virtual and offline business community supporting technology entrepreneurs in and around the Greater Washington D.C. area. During its seven-years of operation, Netpreneur became the most formidable organization of its type and a model for similar programs around the world. The Washington Business Journal called Netpreneur "One of the region's most successful programs for cultivating the tech entrepreneur community."

Mitch Arnowitz was part of the founding team of the Netpreneur Program and a key architect of its highly respected online communications strategy.

"Mitch played a key role in the Morino Institute's Netpreneur Program. He has a compelling understanding of online communications and has demonstrated the ability to reach AND serve clients that, in turn, cultivate an affinity and loyalty back to Mitch and what he represents."

— Mario Morino: Chairman and Managing Partner, VPP and Chairman, Morino Institute

Innovations in Marketing and Communications

Netpreneur's initial communication and marketing challenges were to identify individuals in its target audience, to communicate its mission, and to build lasting relationships with the people, businesses, and organizations it served. To achieve those goals, they instituted a communications program that was based heavily upon online media integrated with face-to-face and traditional channels, including:

  • Newsletters to provide a communications vehicle for staying in front of targeted audiences.
  • Websites and Communities for aggregating and posting member generated content.
  • Discussion lists for learning, making connections, and growing the business.
  • Events for balance with online efforts and to reach people who still prefer face-to-face contact.

Because Netpreneur serviced the technology community, the organization decided to rely heavily upon Internet tools to fulfill these goals and to involve the community. Arnowitz realized early that he could market Netpreneur by targeting the program's most passionate supporters. These supporters created powerful word-of-mouth marketing pass-along messaging. Grassroots email marketing campaigns were used to create program awareness incorporating email newsletters, advertising programs, and online PR to build the program's reputation and credibility. Recipients responded to endorsements from familiar and trusted sources.

Newsletters — targeted communications

Netpreneur established several focused communication vehicles including newsletter broadcasts that were used to inform and help targeted audiences. For example, the Netpreneur News email newsletter included information about regional funding deals. ActionNet, included job related announcements and strategic opportunities.

superSonic BOOM, a personalized music start-up, credits its success in meeting key business and financial contacts directly to Netpreneur's newsletters. Following the sale of the company to music retailer CDNow, founder Melissa MacKinnon commented: "The Netpreneur organization was instrumental to our success."

Websites and Communities — creating content

Netpreneur created a website to communicate with its supporters, to serve as a virtual meeting place, and to be a source of high-value information. While this seems very commonplace today, in 1996 Netpreneur was breaking new ground in using a website as the primary vehicle to communicate with one's customers, audience, and constituency. Netpreneur even took this idea one step further. To engage the community, the organization populated the website with content created by program members such as Sharon Tucci of Sling Shot Media. Tucci contributed content that became part of Netpreneur's award winning Email Marketing Products Guide. The result was high use by the community and tremendous word-of-mouth promotion by participants. As Washington Techway wrote, "If there's a community for Internet entrepreneurs in this region, the town square is http://netpreneur.org."

Another community building effort created by Arnowitz was the LeadersLounge Network. LeadersLounge began as an email broadcast and grew to include a network of over two hundred groups and 10,000 individuals. The network identified likely audiences, built marketing relationships, and disseminated program information to regional technology groups. Throughout the life of the Netpreneur Program, LeadersLounge drove over 10,000 subscribers to various Netpreneur email lists and broadcasts.

Discussion lists — the learning centers

Netpreneur created many email discussion groups, and its most successful was the AdMarketing list. Arnowitz created the AdMarketing discussion group as a place for entrepreneurs to discuss advertising, marketing, and business opportunities. The list started in 1997 and grew to over 1,500 subscribers from around the world to become one of the Internet's most vibrant and respected online marketing communities.

As AdMarketing grew in size and influence, Arnowitz was able to leverage the community to drive website traffic, create valuable member generated content, and facilitate connections between subscribers. AdMarketing grew with ancillary products that included email newsletters, reader guides, a list of more than 200 community generated resources, meetings, and special events.

AdMarketing's testament to success is that it continues to be a vibrant, member run community long after the Netpreneur Program ended. Subscribers continue to find job opportunities and seek marketing help from the community. You can join AdMarketing or find its content on the website.

Events — evangelists getting together

Traditional events combined with online community-building activities made participants into more than just members, they became Netpreneur evangelists. One of the most popular events was the monthly Coffee & DoughNets networking series which featured presentations and discussion on topics central to the community‹from email marketing to startup funding. Before the events, Netpreneur's newsletters and online discussions were used to promote attendance. Virtual conversations after the events produced valuable content and generated interest in future events. Employing online efforts to promote offline events became a critical marketing and PR strategy.

Online, grassroots, and viral marketing efforts were used to drive traffic and spark excitement for these and other Netpreneur events, both small and large. The larger events would typically draw over 1,200 enthusiastic supporters, many of whom were just learning about the program through event promotions. Through email marketing efforts, Netpreneur was able to, over a seven-year period; bring 32,000 people to its events. More about the many Netpreneur events can be found in the organization's event archive.

Lessons learned

Online marketing efforts blazed by Netpreneur have since become textbook examples of innovative communications strategies used to engage supporters.

  • Branding sticks. You need a well-defined identity to build a community.
  • All people are busy, but will respond to value. Marketing noise might get people's attention for a brief moment, but true value sustains attention and turns it into loyalty.
  • Integrated campaigns build solid relationships. Combining traditional and online marketing efforts builds deep relationships which can then be leveraged for marketing opportunities.
  • When building a community, bring the community into the fold. In other words, get the community engaged whenever possible.
  • Every market is different, but the marketing process isn't. Good online marketing must first be good marketing.

Over the seven-year life span of the Netpreneur Program's active existence, over 150 articles were published about the program in traditional and new media press. Without a doubt, Netpreneur's overall success came from developing channels of communication to form an infrastructure that entrepreneurs used to find partners, customers, funding, and knowledge.

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Achieving Similar Success

For information on how you can put a Tuvel Communications program to work for your company, organization, product, service or event, please contact us.