Directors' report

The directors present their report with the financial statements of the company for the year ended 30 April 2008.

To download a PDF of our latest audited accounts, click here.

CHANGE OF NAME

The company passed a special resolution on 23 April 2008 changing its name from Ellipsis Media Limited to Dotmailer Limited.

PRINCIPAL ACTIVITY

The principal activity of the company in the year under review was that of digital marketing.

REVIEW OF BUSINESS

The results for the year and financial position of the company are as shown in the annexed financial statements. In the past twelve months ended 30th April 2008 dotMailer has built on its nine year history of success within the digital marketing space, by achieving an increase in annual turnover of 97% to £2.47m and pre tax profits of £747,383 - an increase of 118%.

The Company has maintained a strong balance sheet throughout the year and ended the period with cash of £684,493, trade debtors standing at approximately 37 days average time to pay and minimal bank loans of £6,939.

GROWTH STRATEGY

dotMailer's recent success has been achieved through a comprehensive growth strategy designed to fully exploit the opportunities presented by the rapidly growing market for email broadcast services. The strategy also focussed on exploiting the market's increasing need to integrate email marketing communications into broader business and marketing strategies.

During 2007/08 dotMailer's strategy has focused on building brand awareness, new customer acquisition and product development alongside the introduction of strategic online marketing and creative services, targeted at its growing customer base as well as new, high-value customers. The company's innovative and scalable business model, built around its core email broadcast and online content services means that approximately 50% of revenues are recurring every month.

In April 2008 the company was renamed from Ellipsis Media Limited to dotMailer Limited as part of the broader strategy to promote the full range of digital marketing services (including SEO, website design and microsite development and strategic consultancy) to the increasing majority of existing customers who have dealt with the business under the trading name dotMailer.

MARKETING AND PR

The company has invested in marketing and PR activity to build a high level of brand awareness; its Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy has consistently achieved top of page ranking in Google organic searches for the keyword 'email marketing', generating an average of approximately 400 new trial accounts each month.

To further support its growth strategy, dotMailer has promoted its "white label" email marketing service to marketing and digital agencies enabling them to offer it to their customers under their own brand, creating a very cost-effective route-to-market for both parties.

dotMailer has established an industry thought leadership position by championing greater understanding of best practice in relevant targeted email communication as a key component of the marketing mix; its recent retail email marketing benchmark study was lauded as a ground-breaking report for the industry and received extensive press and online coverage.dotMailer is represented on the Email Marketing Council at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and the E- communications Council at the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Product innovation lies at the heart of dotMailer's growth strategy. During 2007-08 the directors committed significant resources to research and development to facilitate new product launches that are critical to the future growth of the business.

dotMailer v4 - significant R&D was an essential element in the ground up redevelopment of the company's email marketing platform. The latest version of the dotMailer email management system takes email marketing to the next level. New features include triggered emails, a microsite builder and CRM integration. The development team has an organic approach to development so that new features can be added all the time without having to wait for big releases.

This is possible due to the way the architecture is constructed and helps to facilitate and encourage innovation. The product also includes social network bookmarking links so that email recipients can post an email message they find interesting to a social network profile - for example Facebook or Delicious. At its heart is dotMailer's comprehensive reporting suite, allowing email campaigns to be analysed, assessed and future campaigns improved as a result. dotMailer has worked with leading ISPs including Hotmail to ensure that deliverability targets constantly exceed industry averages.

dotMailer Lite - With the launch of v4, dotMailer also announced dotMailer Lite - a scaled-down entry level version of the email marketing system designed for small companies who need a cost effective but efficient way of sending marketing messages with full reporting capabilities. This is clearly aimed at the lucrative SME market and because the product is fully scalable it allows for seamless upgrading to other dotMailer email products.

Survey Builder - Survey builder is an innovative product that allows online surveys. The unique feature with this product is the integration with dotMailer v4 as it allows the email mailing list to be automatically populated with the data from the survey.

Lead Vision - A product that enables B2B marketers to get the details of those that visit their websites so that they can be targeted for lead generation purposes.

dotMailer Shop - dotMailer's first off-the-shelf e-commerce product is a quick and easy way for small businesses to open their own online shop.

dotMailer v4, dotMailer Lite and Survey Builder were launched at internet world in April 2008, Lead Vision was launched in August 2008 and dotMailer Shop is scheduled for launch in the Autumn of 2008.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

Although media reports have shown that businesses across the UK are feeling the pinch of the credit crunch, research suggests that budgets and demand for online marketing and email marketing continues to grow due to its effectiveness and ROI accountability, compared to other forms of marketing.

dotMailer's client base is well spread across all sectors and sizes of business and so far has not seen a downturn in demand from either new or existing clients. Indeed a recent survey showed that more than half of SMEs polled expect their businesses to expand over the next 12 months, and many of them don't feel that the market slowdown will directly impact their plans for growth

Over the next 12 months, dotMailer plans to consolidate the position the company has achieved to date whilst continuing to prudently move forwards and develop. The company has a number of major new product announcements scheduled for Autumn 2008.

These new products, when added to the existing portfolio, give dotMailer the ability to supply an online business a comprehensive range of online marketing tools from lead generation and relationship management through to SEO, point of sale, site design and post-sale follow-up.

dotMailer also plans to maximise its white-label service by starting a concerted marketing and sales effort aimed at UK digital agencies. This will be supported by marketing and PR campaigns.
As part of the commitment to providing first class customer service and building close, long term relationships with customers, dotMailer is planning to expand into new offices across the UK. In July 2008 the company opened its first regional office in Manchester's up and coming "Media Village".
To deliver this strategy staff numbers have been increased to 45 by July 2008 and we expect to continue to recruit further additional sales, support and technical staff during the year.

For 2008/09 the board have agreed challenging but prudent financial goals and we aim to continue with the growth strategy through a commitment to refresh the product line with new, exciting and innovative developments that add value for our customers whilst excersicing financial control over costs and continuing to focus on regular reviews of our financial plans.

DIRECTORS

The directors shown below have held office during the whole of the period from 1 May 2007 to the date of this report.

I Taylor
D Ivy
S Bird

Other changes in directors holding office are as follows:

P A Simmonds - appointed 1 April 2008

COMPANY'S POLICY ON PAYMENT OF CREDITORS

The company does not have a formal code that it follows with regard to payments to suppliers. It agrees payments terms with its suppliers at the time it enters in the binding purchasing contracts for the supply of goods and services. The company seeks to abide by these payment terms whenever if is satisfied that the supplier has provided the goods or services in accordance with agreed terms and conditions. The average days credit for the year is 18 days.

EMPLOYEES

The company's employment provides equal opportunities for all employees regardless of sex, race, religion or marital status. The same criteria for training, career development and promotion apply to disabled persons as to any other employee.

The company is committed to the further development of employee information and consultation ensuring at all times that employees are informed of developments affecting the company.
A commitment to attracting the very best talent in to the Company has put dotMailer in a strong position to capitalise on the rapid growth of digital marketing channels. Staff levels have increased from 25 to 38 in the financial year in order to service the growing number of clients, including many well known major corporates.

dotMailer positions itself as an IT company with real, friendly people who are always available. This position has been our cornerstone throughout the history of the company and is dependent on high quality staff, 100% engaged with the aims, ambitions and aspirations of the management team.

dotMailer therefore believes that recruiting the very best marketing, sales, technical and support staff is central to achieving its growth strategies. dotMailer places a very high emphasis on the quality and togetherness of its staff. Building a team that supports the work of the key management team has been central to the successful growth achieved to date and is paramount in continuing this success in the future.

dotMailer has an innovative approach to staff development. The management team aims to give each employee the space in which to grow and the leadership ethos is very much about giving employees the opportunities to develop and become leaders themselves. With this is mind, dotMailer aims to share the success of the company with the staff and, by being open and transparent, ensuring that every employee is bought into the overall growth strategy.

The founders strive to maintain the 'entrepreneurial spirit' that was fundamental in the early days of the company. This is particularly important in the 'product development' aspect of the company's growth strategy. Allowing developers to explore and execute their own ideas allows an organic approach to software development. Outside the technical teams too, this is encouraged, with brainstorming and development of 'ideas' a crucial stage in planning any product, service or
activity.

In order to meet these objectives and continue the growth of the company, dotMailer places significant importance on recruiting the very best talent in order to ensure that it maintains its industry leading position. Every potential employee is given practical tasks to perform in their interview so that key skills can be properly assessed. This allows the company to select applicants that not only have the talent to succeed and add value to the company, but that will fit in well with the dotMailer 'culture' and working environment.

dotMailer prides itself on employee loyalty and aims to promote from within wherever possible. In addition to this, financial rewards are closely aligned to the overall success of the company. Bonuses for the staff as a whole and commissions for the dotMailer sales team are aligned with the company's growth objectives in order to promote 'team' as well as individual successes.

Each year the Company undertakes a survey of employee satisfaction and attitudes about a wide range of subjects and issues.

In 2007/08 the survey indicated that:

22 out of 25 agreed or strongly agreed with the statement I feel proud to work at Ellipsis or dotMailer
24 out of 25 agreed or strongly agreed with the statement Ellipsis/dotMailer is a socially responsible business
25 out of 25 agreed or strongly agreed with the statement Ellipsis/dotMailer is a good place to work

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

dotMailer is committed to being a socially responsible company and this is embodied in a series of important strategic and tactical initiatives. The UK charity sector has always been a key focus for the business. dotMailer has a pre-determined pricing model for registered charities and has worked with some of the country's leading charities including Fairtrade, Wateraid and WRC.

dotMailer is committed to providing the very highest possible services and quality products to charities at an affordable rate. dotMailer has been quick to accentuate the environmentally friendly role of digital marketing in its thought leadership and media outreach. As the online answer to direct mail, email is quickly being seen as an environmentally-friendly alternative. dotMailer has worked with both the DMA and IAB to promote this message.

dotMailer was conceived, founded and continues to operate in the borough of Croydon. The company continues to work closely with local communities and sees its role as a leading business in the area to encourage and promote corporate growth. In terms of recruitment, local talent is always a focus.
dotMailer is also committed to talent development through its work experience and graduate recruitment schemes. The company has complied with all applicable legislation and has not been subject to sanctions or fines for environmental, health and safety or other infringemets.


dotMailer audited accounts April 2008 (65.59KB)