Behind a little red door, across from Washington Park, in Over the Rhine Cincinnati, sits a relatively unknown gem, called NaviStone. NaviStone was founded in 2016 by serial entrepreneur and NaviStone CEO, Larry Kavanagh and a team of direct mail, digital advertising, and technology experts.
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NaviStone’s mission is to maximize the value of the site traffic that advertisers have expertly driven to their websites. “This is a real problem in our industry,” says Kavanagh. “Advertisers spend $250 billion dollars annually to drive site traffic, with a relatively small portion of that traffic actually transacting.” Kavanagh continues, “we want to help advertisers drive more value from these site visitors.” The data doesn't lie either, with 5.7% response rates on their retargeting programs, they are doing just that.
As a veteran of the direct mail industry, Kavanagh has seen first hand the connection offline marketing has had on on-line transactions and thought, what about the connection between online browsing activity and direct mail responsiveness.
Their Technology
The NaviStone solution uses their patent-pending double-blind technology to connect website visitors with their postal name and addresses to support retargeting through direct mail. Think digital retargeting, through the most responsive channel, direct mail. Finally, a new marketing channel that bridges the gap between online and offline marketing, “blending ad channels together and leveraging them synergistically”, to drive new customers and maximize demand from existing customers. Brilliant! With the advent of digital ad channels over the past decade, marketers find themselves having to choose between programs. No more.
NaviStone has revolutionized an industry that hasn’t seen innovation since the early 90’s; combining the things that have made direct mail so successful over the years, with newer innovations that have made digital advertising so successful in more recent times. Direct mail is known for its high deliverability rates, its ability to reach the right consumer, and its ability to precisely measure.
Digital advertising is known for its speed, timeliness, and relevancy. NaviStone has figured out how to deliver on all these attributes, through its web-powered direct mail. And, surprisingly to some, in a more cost-effective way than many digital channels.
What Others Say
NaviStone plays an on-going active role in the industry providing innovative solutions and thought leadership. As members of ANA/DMA, The Global Retail Marketing Association (GRMA) partner advisory board, ACMA, and Forbes Agency Council, NaviStone is instrumental in helping to surface “challenges and opportunities within the marketing industry so that care is taken to build programs to address those issues.” 1
In addition to their commitment to the industry and their clients, they have an unabashed passion towards their employees. They not only have developed core values for their business, they live these core values every day. And it shows.
NaviStone was awarded the Best Employers in Ohio award in 2018. Additionally, NaviStone has been recognized by the Cincinnati Business Courier’s Innovation & Technology Awards Program for two years in a row, taking home an award in the Marketing Innovation category in 2018. Most recently they have been named a 2019 Best Employer in Ohio and earned recognition for the 2019 TechOhio Culture Award. “Creating an environment of transparency, innovation and growth for our employees has been key to our success at NaviStone. Companies do not win awards without a great team delivering award-winning results. Our team achieves this by bringing their passion and hard work to our business each day,” says Kavanagh. 2
Chief Revenue Officer Lori Paikin was recently quoted in an interview with Forbes.com stating, “we are successful if our clients are successful. Full stop.” 3
This attitude is what drives the magic behind that little red door.
1 https://www.thegrma.com/partner-advisory-board/
2 https://www.americaninno.com/cincy/cincy-startups/martech-startup-navistone-sees-a-billion-dollar-opportunity-offline/
3 https://forbescouncils.com/2019/09/member-spotlight-lori-paikin-forbes-agency-council
