Online Marketer Goes After LGBT Market
Terrence Smalley, a longtime online marketing executive, has formed Outonthenet.com, a loyalty-marketing firm catering to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) market.
From its launch in November, the site is offering online advertising, information, and products and services in travel, health, finance, technology, entertainment and apparel, — provided those companies can demonstrate they support LGBT social causes, “and are not just after the gay dollar,” Smalley asserts.
The company, which gives subscribers points for online shopping, only offers products and services approved by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT civil rights group.
“The HRC approval is the gay ‘good housekeeping seal of approval’ for business that respect LGBT consumers and treat fairly their LGBT employees,” said Smalley.
When people join the site, they fill out an online questionnaire about their product likes and dislikes to help determine what kinds of offers to send them.
As part of its mission, outonthenet.com plans to donate a percentage of its quarterly profits to the National Aids Fund and in to various breast cancer research and advocacy programs.
So far, the company has put together an e-mail list of nearly three million, which Smalley says he garnered from his prior business relationships and activities. He plans to communicate with them as often as once a week.
In January, Smalley also plans to launch a postcard campaign to the same audience promoting the site.
Outonthrenet.com plans to make money through selling banner, text and other sorts of advertising.
To recruit merchants, outonthenet.com has already has hired a few salespeople and looks to increase that number in the next month or two, says Smalley.
The LGBT market is estimated at $644 billion. Overall, the firm is targeting LGBT persons between the ages of 30 and 45, Smalley says.
