This Houston startup is increasing access to marketing for other startups and small businesses

"We're here for the founders and the little guys," Alfredo Arvide says about his new venture that's redefining marketing for small businesses and startups. Photo courtesy of MAP360

A new Houston organization is working to redefine the way startups set up their marketing strategy — focusing on specific projects tailored to the client's goals at a significantly cheaper price than a normal marketing agency.

MAP360, also known as The Marketing Acceleration Program, is collaborating one-on-one with clients to learn their particular needs and goals for individual projects. Unlike traditional marketing agencies, they do not work on retainer, instead they focus on small contracts to increase efficiency and affordability for startups and small businesses.

"There is a great opportunity in Houston with the accelerating innovation ecosystem," says Alfredo Arvide, CEO and co-founder. "When my co-founder and I were brainstorming ideas, we saw the need for a marketing program tailored specifically for startups or small businesses."

Arvide's new marketing acceleration program has always been one of his goals as a budding entrepreneur, previously founding Pushr an app that manages multiple social profiles across all platforms. However, it was his layoff from Accenture last month, a result of the ongoing impact of coronavirus on the economy, that spurred him into action with his business partner, Jacqueline Levine, who has taken on the role of chief marketing officer.

The two have combined decades of experience in the marketing world — most recently Arvide was the prototyping center director within the Houston Accenture Innovation Hub.

"Usually in a startup, the entrepreneur wears a lot of different hats," says Arvide. "They have the responsibility to market the business and manage financials, this is a lot of pressure. We wanted to provide a different sphere of the marketing spectrum at an affordable price."

MAP360 touts a 50 percent or fewer costs of an agency with the same agency-quality talent. The services they offer range from branding, storytelling, design, to consulting. They also offer tiers or packages aimed for startups, funded or growing businesses, and established businesses. Each package has a different time frame and helps the client's marketing goals with the most efficiency.

For example, a startup has a need for pitch materials and setting up basic brand guidelines, unlike a growing client who perhaps needs a marketing distribution plan or social media engagement plan more urgently.

"We are able to focus on affordability and the needs of our clients because of our strategic nature," says Arvide. "We are going to provide our clients with campaigns that are very specific to their audience while providing them a plan and metrics for success."

MAP360 strategy of upfront costs and marketing plans cut to size added another benefit for clients' bang for their buck with their proprietary approach to data. The psychographic data allows businesses to measure and meet their target metrics using a profile of their customer's interests and values.

"We use a partner firm that uses demographic and psychographic data," says Arvide. "Then we can analyze the firm's target audience at the highest probability. We are not casting a huge net, rather fishing for the very specific fish willing to bite."

A startup itself, MAP360 has its own plans and metrics for its own success, aiming to add 10 to 15 new clients before the end of the year and expect that figure to double in the next year to 20 to 30 clients. They also plan to use local marketing professionals and freelancers to expand their pool of specialists.

"We're here for the founders and the little guys," says Arvide. "We want to help them be better and partner with local talent to make Houston first in the innovation sphere."

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When it comes to setting up a marketing budget for your startup, considering every angle is important. Getty Images

Houston expert shares her advice on how much startups should spend on marketing

Is the price right?

Industry research suggests spending 5 percent to 12 percent of total revenue on an annual marketing budget. At Integrate Agency, we believe marketing spend should be determined from key data points, versus current size. We shepherd our clients through a five-step process to calculate how much they should spend on marketing to maximize their ROI.

1. Know your goals

You can't manage what you can't measure. Before you start spending, you must first set SMART goals. Challenging, but realistic, short-term goals may include:

  • Sales/revenue growth
  • Customer count
  • Consumer ratings improvement

Integrate updated Delmar Systems' website with the goal of increasing traffic that would generate leads. By having a clear goal at the forefront, Integrate created a conversion-focused website and calculated an ROI for the company (including 631.9 percent increase in new visitors and 23.9 percent increase in qualified leads).

Your goals should set a strong baseline of expectations and establish clear guidelines for the budgeting strategies to reach those goals.

2. Know your data

You can only track your goals, and tweak your spend accordingly, if you have the specific data to tell you what's working and what isn't. Some of our favorite tools include:

  • Google Analytics for visitors, bounce rate, and time on site
  • Site Checker for SEO performance
  • Conductor for content efficacy
  • Sprout Social for social media metrics

One of our clients wanted to increase its qualified leads, but before we added more dollars to the equation, a full audit of the company's digital efforts uncovered significant spend inefficiencies. The data uncovered a new strategy that led to a full revamp of its PPC campaign. This helped them save $8,000 per month and led to a 63.9 percent year-over-year decrease in cost-per-click cost and 42.3 percent year-over-year increase in click through rate.

3. Know your audience

If you have a strong concept of your customer base, you'll know where, when, and how you can best connect with them.

To this end, we are hyper-aware of our clients' seasonality and when their audience is most likely to buy (and for B2B clients, when budget review season is) so we can target their marketing budget accordingly.

Six Flags Hurricane Harbor Splashtown operates on a seasonal basis, by its very nature. Each summer, Integrate focuses on a concentrated marketing approach and last year garnered over 540 million traditional media impressions in just four months.

This activity has ensured they're top-of-mind when it matters most, versus spending dollars when their customers are not considering this purchase.

4. Know your competition

Regardless of market share, it's important to keep up with what competitors are doing. We recommend beginning your competitor research with:

  • SEM Rush for SEO keyword research
  • Majestic SEO for linking statistics
  • Ahrefs for backlink strategy
  • Moz for rank tracking

When Escalante's sought to outmaneuver its competition with digital tactics, Integrate's competitive data revealed that none of its competitors in a specific neighborhood were being overly aggressive online.

By focusing on geo-targeting and ad scheduling to ensure ads displayed to the preferred audience at the right time, the restaurant has been able to capitalize on specific traffic without a large budget.

5. Know your capabilities

A question will often come up about in-house vs. outsourced marketing. In-house gives you maximum control. But, to be most effective with your spend (and often attune to the latest, best-in-class, industry techniques), you must fully commit to your marketing efforts, which an agency, or outside partner, can provide.

As one client — Arthritis Relief Centers — grew, their staff no longer had the time to devote to marketing. By making the decision to work with Integrate, the company had more time to devote to patient care. This led to an over 100 percent increase in clicks to digital ads and a 56 percent decrease in cost-per-click because the client trusted the agency's digital marketing expertise.

The biggest upside to outsourcing your marketing: letting your team focus on servicing customers and improving your products.

As we stated earlier, the experts tell you that your marketing spend should normally live between 5 and 12 percent of your gross revenue, but we believe your marketing budget, and the integrated mix of how that budget is implemented, should be tied to growth needs and goals.

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Allie Danziger is the founder and president of Houston-based Integrate Agency, which focuses on digital marketing and public relations.

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Houston-based Fervo Energy bumps up IPO target to $1.82 billion

IPO update

Houston-based geothermal power company Fervo Energy is now eyeing an IPO that would raise $1.75 billion to $1.82 billion, up from the previous target of $1.33 billion.

In paperwork filed Monday, May 11 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Fervo says it plans to sell 70 million shares of Class A common stock at $25 to $26 per share.

In addition, Fervo expects to grant underwriters 30-day options to buy up to 8.33 million additional shares of Class A common stock. This could raise nearly $200 million.

When it announced the IPO on May 4, Fervo aimed to sell 55.56 million shares at $21 to $24 per share, which would have raised $1.17 billion to $1.33 billion. The initial valuation target was $6.5 billion.

A date for the IPO hasn’t been scheduled. Fervo’s stock will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol FRVO.

Fervo, founded in 2017, has attracted about $1.5 billion in funding from investors such as Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Google, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Devon Energy (which is moving its headquarters to Houston), Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, CalSTRS, Liberty Mutual Investments, AllianceBernstein, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

Fervo’s marquee project is Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah, the world’s largest EGS (enhanced geothermal system) project. The first phase will deliver 100 megawatts of baseload clean power, with the second phase adding another 400 megawatts. The site can accommodate 2 gigawatts of geothermal energy. Fervo holds more than 595,000 leased acres for potential expansion.

Cape Station has secured power purchase agreements for the entire 500-megawatt capacity. Customers include Houston-based Shell Energy North America and Southern California Edison.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Texas university's new flight academy opens at Houston Spaceport

cleared for takeoff

The vehicles may not have “student driver” stickers on them, but Texas Southern University has moved a dozen planes into its new training facility at the Houston Spaceport, opening the way for student flyers to use the facility.

TSU previously reached a deal with Houston Airports and the City of Houston in 2023 to house its prospective Flight Academy at Ellington Field. At the time, TSU had a small fleet of nine planes for student use, but a $5.5 million investment from the city greatly expanded the space available.

The Flight Academy includes a 20,000-square-foot hangar that serves as a TSU satellite campus. The school now has a fleet of 12 Cirrus SR20 aircraft that were acquired last year through state and alumni funding. An additional 4,500 square feet is used as classroom and office space. An 8,000-gallon fuel tank will support flight training operations.

TSU first launched its Aviation Science Management program in 1986 and added a professional pilot program in 2016. The school is now part of the United Airlines pipeline program and has also forged relationships with Delta and Southwest.

“I want to commend Texas Southern University and Houston Airports for their leadership and partnership in advancing aviation education right here in our city,” Houston City Councilwoman Dr. Carolyn Evans-Shabazz in a press release.

“It connects our students to high-paying, high-demand careers in aviation and aerospace. This is how we grow a city in the right way—by investing in workforce development, aligning education with industry and making sure our residents are prepared to lead in the industries of tomorrow. Houston is already a global leader in aerospace and projects like this strengthen that position even further, especially here at Ellington, where innovation and opportunity continue to take flight.”

The City of Houston signed an agreement to continue funding the academy for five years.

Amazon launches ultrafast, 30-minute delivery service across Houston

Amazon Now

More than 20 years after it redefined fast shipping, Amazon is preparing to raise the bar on consumer expectations again by offering to fulfill customers' most urgent product needs in Houston and other parts of the world in a half-hour or less for an extra fee.

The company, which revolutionized online shopping in 2005 with two-day deliveries for Prime members, is rapidly opening small order-processing hubs in dozens of U.S. and foreign cities to cater to shoppers who can't or don't want to wait for cough medicine to relieve flu symptoms or tomatoes for tonight's dinner salad.

The ultrafast service, called Amazon Now, first launched in India last June. Amazon says 30-minute deliveries now are also available in urban areas of the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom.

The mini-warehouses devoted to Amazon Now are about the size of a CVS drugstore. They stock about 3,500 products for expedited delivery, including beer, diapers, pet food, meat, nonprescription medications, playing cards and cellphone charging cables.

“We know that customers love speed and always have,” Beryl Tomay, Amazon’s head of transportation, told The Associated Press on Monday. “What we see customers doing, when we offer faster speeds, are they purchase more from Amazon. And Amazon becomes more top of mind for that or other types of items as well.”

In the U.S., the company first tested Amazon Now in Seattle, the home of its headquarters, and in Philadelphia. Most residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth area and Atlanta now have access as well. The service is also live in Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Orlando, and dozens of other cities, Amazon said, with New York City and others expected by year-end.

The service charges for Amazon Now start at $3.99 for Prime members, who pay an annual fee of $139, and $13.99 for non-members. A $1.99 small basket fee applies to orders under $15, Amazon said.

The company's bet on a need for speed also comes as some consumers are rebelling against rushed deliveries as they weigh the potential impact on the environment and the workers tasked with preparing orders at a rapid rate.

Amazon’s approach
A relentless focus on speed helped Amazon build a logistics and e-commerce empire. After it made two days the new delivery time normal, Amazon moved into one-day and same-day deliveries for its Prime members. This spring, the company began making 90,000 products available in one hour or three hours at an extra cost.

The scaled down and sped up microhubs that are designed to handle 30-minute orders represent another step in Amazon's pursuit.

Only a handful of people prepare orders from aisles of shelves in the 5,000- to 10,000-square-foot facilities, unlike the sprawling fulfillment centers storing millions of items where Amazon employs a mix of human workers and robotics to pick and pack orders.

Amazon tailors the product inventory to each location and uses artificial intelligence and other technology to analyze what customers buy, as well as when and how often. The most popular U.S. purchases so far include soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, toilet plungers, bananas, limes and wireless earbuds, Amazon said.

The competition
Amazon’s attempt to up the instant gratification ante provides direct competition to on-demand food delivery platforms like Instacart, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, which don't have the scale of the e-commerce titan, according to independent retail analyst Bruce Winder.

“What Amazon brings is their prowess in supply chain,” Winder said.

These smaller companies said they don't see Amazon as a threat, though, citing the hundreds of thousands of items they are able to deliver to users' doorsteps by partnering with various merchants and restaurants.

“DoorDash has a mission to empower grocers and retailers and augment their existing footprint, not to replace them,” DoorDash spokesperson Ali Musa said in an emailed statement. “We win only when they win, which is how we can offer over half a million grocery and retail items in under an hour across the country.”

Amazon also is in a race with Walmart to become the retailer that reliably gets orders to online shoppers in under an hour.

For an additional $10 on top of standard delivery charges, shoppers can place Walmart Express Delivery orders from among more than 100,000 products that are guaranteed to arrive in an hour. Many customers, however, are receiving the items under 30 minutes, Walmart CEO John Furner told analysts in February.

Domino's cautionary tale
Companies have promised deliveries in 30 minutes or less before, but the landscape also is littered with failed attempts to break the speed barrier.

The COVID-19 pandemic produced a flurry of companies that promised 10- to 15-minute grocery deliveries from microwarehouses in dense neighborhoods, according to Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at market research firm Forrester Research.

But soaring operating costs, low customer loyalty and the drying up of investor money ultimately caused most to fail before the pandemic was over, analysts said.

Domino’s in 1984 pushed a guarantee that customers would receive their pizzas for free if they weren't delivered in under a half-hour. The company amended the “30 minutes or it’s free” policy after two years, providing only a $3 discount for late deliveries.

The promotion helped Domino’s win market share, but it ended up tarnishing the company's reputation. It dropped the guarantee in December 1993 after a string of crashes and lawsuits involving drivers racing to meet the deadline.

Brad Jashinsky, a retail analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner, said he thinks Amazon should take the pizza chain's experience as a cautionary tale.

“You get in trouble when you start overpromising something like that,” he said.

Amazon won't be making any time guarantees and instead plans to keep customers who chose the 30-minute delivery option updated on the progress of their orders, Tomay said.

“There's no rushing either in our building workers or the gig workers,” she said.

Taking it slow
Kodali thinks Amazon will need a lot of people placing orders around the same time from the same or adjacent apartment buildings for the 30-minute service to be cost-effective.

Consumers may appreciate rapid receipt of products like toilet paper and batteries, but retailers and logistics experts said they also see some online shoppers, especially members of Generation Z, choosing no-rush shipping for products they don't need in a hurry.

Amazon for several years has invited customers to skip one- or two-day delivery and to receive their orders on the same day in as few parcels as possible. Consolidating orders into fewer packages by electing to have them delivered at the same time cuts down on boxes, shipping envelopes and fuel use, analysts said.

“The millennials who came to age in an era that was on fast delivery came to expect it de facto, whereas ... Gen Z is more accepting of a slower speed than previous generations before them,” said Darby Meegan, a general manager at Flexport, a supply chain and logistics company that fulfills orders for thousands of online merchants.

Still, Amazon executives have cited positive early results for Amazon Now in India, where they said Prime members tripled their requests for 30-minute deliveries once they started using the service.

Amazon Now also is attracting more repeat American customers, Tomay said.

“It’s in early days and time will tell,” she said. “I think that it will be interesting to see how it evolves.”

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