Alterian posts strong first half financial results

Alterian posts strong first half financial performance

Over 150 new end user organisations adopt Alterian technology and further new products to be released shortly

London - 4 November 09 - Alterian (LSE:ALN), the leading international integrated marketing platform provider, today announced a strong first half of their financial year with revenues up 40% to £14.4m from £10.3m for the same period last year. The successful acquisition of Social Media Monitoring software company Techrigy Inc and integration of its SM2 software coupled with the company's continued investment in new products have helped Alterian broaden its product platform and contributed to the Company's strong results.  

Alterian also announces today that WebJourney is entering the final phases of testing and is expected to be made generally available early in 2010.  This new web analytics product provides the ability to bring web behaviour on an organisation's website into their core marketing database, and use that information to provide more relevant and timely communications to individuals.

David Eldridge, Chief Executive Officer of Alterian, said, "We are pleased with our performance for the first half, both in terms of the financial performance of the business and progress against our strategic objectives.

We were particularly pleased to see North American growth back at significant levels. This year we have seen 44% growth, up from 19% a year before and strong performance across the globe with 37% revenue growth in the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific. This growth has seen the addition of 150 new end users across a wide range of vertical markets and geographies. We have also added 17 new partners, including marketing agencies and systems integrators as well as marketing services providers, taking the total number of Alterian partners to approximately 180.

Looking to the second half, the combination of the Company's market position, a strong pipeline, the broadening of our products and distribution together with our strong recurring revenue model and sound financial characteristics leaves us well placed for continued success."

Much of Alterian's success is due to their vision in the marketing space around the death of traditional marketing approaches. Every organisation faces significant challenges in responding to the rapidly changing expectations of their customers and ability of those customers to choose how they will interact with organisations.

New channels have significantly increased the control afforded to the consumer.  For example:

" Consumers can get information when they want information rather than waiting to be provided with it, often by searching on the internet.
" If they do not like the way an organisation is communicating with them, or find the information provided irrelevant, they can block further communications by registering on do not contact lists, unsubscribing from communications, or classifying emails as spam. 
" Social media channels give consumers the ability to share information - positive or negative - very rapidly and effectively, and consumers tend to have more confidence in information from peers, more than information provided by organisations.

Overall, there is a much higher expectation that communications from organisations should be relevant and a much lower tolerance of interruption.
 
Marketers must respond to these changes.  They need to move from mass marketing activities to methods of recognising and communicating with individuals in a relevant way, based on their needs and interests. 

Alterian believes that this transition is at an early stage, with many marketers experimenting with analysing social media and beginning the process of transforming their web sites from static brochure type sites to dynamic engaging sites.  This represents a significant opportunity for marketers to create competitive differentiation for their organisation and for providers of software and services, to marketers, to create solutions that enable the transition. 
The addition of Techrigy to the Alterian platform further strengthens the company's ability to facilitate this transition. This gives marketers an overall view of social media, which can be applied to their entire marketing mix, and a set of tools to help strengthen the relationship their organisation has with its customers through integration with the rest of the Alterian platform.
Eldridge continues, "Alterian has seen a very positive reaction to the Techrigy acquisition from customers and partners.  Adoption by Alterian partners has already begun as evidenced by the recent selection of Alterian SM2 by one of our long standing North American partners.  Additional developers have also been employed to accelerate future development of the SM2 product and deliver its integration with the Alterian platform."

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About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) empowers organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their audience that help build value and reinforce commitment to their brand, through the use of the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform. Alterian drives the transformation of marketing and communications, making it practical and cost-effective for companies to orchestrate multichannel engagement with the individual.

Alterian's unprecedented integration of analytics, content and execution through industry leading tools, such as the Dynamic Messenger email platform, SM2 Social Media Monitoring platform and the award winning Content Management solutions, enables companies to build integrated communication strategies which create a true picture of the individual.
Alterian works with marketing services partners, system integrators and agencies who recognize the need to plan and deliver coordinated customer engagement services in partnership with their clients. For more information about Alterian, products within the Alterian Integrated Marketing Platform or Alterian's Partner Network, visit www.alterian.com or the Alterian blog at www.engagingtimes.com.