Y’all need help rustling up better marketing results?
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Time to dust off your old strategy and wrangle new ideas at Aprimo’s global user conference.

Educate, stimulate, motivate and celebrate with us in San Antonio:

• Get hands-on training from Aprimo subject experts
• Hear the best ideas from the best B2B and B2C marketers
• Learn how to deliver increased visibility on marketing spend, results and value
• Discover how your peers are helping their sales teams succeed
• Take action with the social media and integrated marketing trends shared by industry experts

300 MARKETERS. 50 EXPERTS. 3 DAYS.

Don’t Miss It!

San Antonio, Texas  - February 15-17 2010

Triton Value Partners and TopRight LLC will co-sponsor Goizueta Business School’s eighth annual Venture Capital Investment Competition. The event is scheduled for Saturday, November 21, 2009 at the business school and will be attended by participating teams and local venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Join us for the networking event following the competition, starting at 4:00 pm in the Goizueta Coke Commons.  Anyone interested interested in venture capital and entrepreneurship is welcome.

The VCIC is a one-of-a-kind competition that gives MBA students from top business schools a realistic venture capital experience in a competitive environment. Compared to a traditional business plan competition, where teams participate as entrepreneurs seeking venture capital funding, the VCIC teams assume the role of venture capitalists and evaluate and “fund” investment opportunities.

This year’s presenting companies includes Fusion Sleep, My Shopping Safe, Site Minis, and Urban Planet.

The winning MBA student team will go on to the Southeastern Regional VCIC round, at Georgetown University in February 2010.

The start of the National Football League (NFL) season is a week away and for approximately 20 million people this means the beginning of fantasy football. Once the domain of only the most ardent of sports geeks, fantasy sports participation has grown to greater than 27 million in North America alone according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association. The phenomenon is not relegated to merely the US, as international soccer fantasy leagues also have emerged. Not including wagering, fantasy sports is a $1 billion industry with an estimated economic impact of $3 to 4 billion in the US.

Top Draft Pick, Adrian Peterson

With all this money in play, fantasy sports have become a business battleground, providing an interesting juxtaposition of opposing business viewpoints. Rotisserie baseball was the preeminent fantasy sport through the late 90’s. It was surpassed by football for many reasons including Major League Baseball’s (MLB) stance regarding player statistics on which fantasy games are played. After MLB denied one fantasy company a licensing agreement to purchase statistics its viewpoint was challenged and struck down in court. MLB had claimed that stats were their intellectual property due to a “right of publicity” and they had been steadily increasing licensing fees.

Whereas MLB sought to maximize this non-core revenue stream, the NFL recognized it as a source of attention to their core offering. Said Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, “Everything we see in the NFL, every study we do, any of the stats we see, is that fantasy football is a real plus for the promotion and the interest of the NFL.” “More important than anything, it really creates a focus on who’s on the field, and that’s been very positive.”

Football is now thought to have roughly four to five times the number of participants as fantasy baseball. For MLB, the lure of a potential added revenue stream may have distracted it from recognizing the full benefits brought by added spectator interest and promotion through unaffiliated companies promoting fantasy involvement. The critical lesson is to understand potential impacts of ancillary activities around a core offering including potential network effects. With social networking sites such as Facebook now hosting stand-alone applications involving fantasy sports there seem to be new opportunities to demonstrate lessons learned regarding network effects for those involved in sports. The relatively new media also presents opportunities to create or benefit from potential high-involvement activities involving other products and services about which consumers are passionate. A firm’s most appropriate response will depend on how well it anticipates and measures promotion and consumer interest it can generate through outside networks.

As part of its growth plan for 2009, TopRight officially launched its Chicago office this week.

While many companies are retrenching and/or shrinking, TopRight is expanding geographically and building on their success in Atlanta and the Southeast region.  Two veteran consultants, Brian Goonan and Charlie Wise have joined the firm as Principals and will lead the practice in Chicago.   Brian and Charlie will be cultivating several opportunities for TopRight in the Chicago metro area and Midwest region:

• Identifying new accounts, closing business and managing engagements across the region
• Supporting TopRight’s partnerships with Aprimo and MarketSphere in the Midwest region
• Bringing TopRight’s successful SQUAREtable to senior-level marketers in the Chicago market
• Refining and further building out TopRight intellectual property in the areas of: CMO Playbook, Consumer BuyWay, EMM and Marketing Spend Effectiveness.
• Attracting top strategic marketing talent to the firm

Contact info for the TopRight Chicago office :

TopRight
225 W. Washington Street
Suite 2200
Chicago, IL 60606
office: (312) 775-1006

Atlanta, GA (November 19, 2008) — Triton Value Partners and TopRight LLC will co-sponsor Goizueta Business School’s seventh annual Venture Capital Investment Competition on November 20-22.  The competition will be held at Emory University.

The Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) brings real startup companies and venture capitalists together with venture capital-minded MBA students for a uniquely powerful learning experience.

The VCIC is a one-of-a-kind competition that gives MBA students from top business schools a realistic venture capital experience in a competitive environment. Teams of MBA students from Goizueta Business School’s full-time MBA and Evening MBA programs will be placed in the role of venture capital firms deciding among various investment opportunities.

The investment opportunities are real companies that are seeking venture capital investment. The student teams analyze each company in the same way a venture capitalist would, by: reviewing the business plan, listening to the company presentation, engaging in question-and-answer sessions with the company management team, and performing additional due diligence about the company. Students prepare term sheets for the investments that they would seek out and present their analysis of all presenting companies to a judging panel. Real venture capitalists serve on the judging panel and select the top student teams to win cash prizes.

ATLANTA, Sep 16, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — TopRight, a leading strategic marketing consultancy, announced today the formation of a strategic alliance with Triton Value Partners, a premier private equity and strategic advisory group. As a result of this alliance, both TopRight and Triton will augment and extend their strategic advisory capabilities for their clients. TopRight will bring deep strategic marketing expertise and hands-on marketing practitioner experience to Triton’s clients and portfolio companies. Likewise, Triton will bring a full breadth of operational optimization strategies, business development capabilities and capital structure and funding expertise to TopRight clients. This unique combination will enable both companies to create value for their respective clients in an unprecedented way.

TopRight is an innovative strategic marketing consultancy headquartered in Atlanta, GA. offering strategic marketing services through their proven methodologies. Applying hands-on marketing practitioner experience, TopRight helps clients accelerate growth through a rigorous analysis of their customer buying cycle (the Customer BuyWay(TM)), increasing marketing spend effectiveness and optimizing sales & marketing operations. TopRight builds marketing capabilities with a blend of art and science including strategy, creativity, execution and analytics that power growth and guide business performance.

Triton Value Partners, also headquartered in Atlanta, is a unique private equity and strategic advisory firm focused on maximizing enterprise value for company owners. Triton’s team of seasoned professionals uses “real-world hands-on experience” to help owners drive value by focusing on the strategies and execution capabilities needed to optimize operational efficiency, drive top line revenue and properly capitalize their business. Triton is fully committed to not only developing the plan, but they are prepared to take ownership of the process and drive it to completion.

TopRight’s Managing Partner, Dave Sutton, expects that the alliance with Triton will further strengthen TopRight’s market presence and capabilities to serve clients. “Triton’s ability to develop and implement operational optimization strategies, identify and execute proper capitalization techniques and their extensive network provide a robust platform for accelerating our clients’ growth plans.” Sutton continued: “By aligning with Triton, we will not only develop our clients’ strategy to win in their markets but also give them the opportunity to access the talent and capital they need to execute their plan.”

“This is a very strategic and important move for Triton,” expressed Jeffrey Zwitter, Managing Director of Triton Value Partners. “TopRight gives us access to world-class strategic marketing capabilities to help our clients meet their revenue generation objectives.” Zwitter also pointed out that “The alliance with TopRight is consistent with our strategy to bring our client and portfolio companies the best talent and services available to maximize enterprise value.”

For more information please email Maryellen Carducci.

At long last, the cat’s out of the bag: TopRight and Navarra Solutions Group join forces! Almost five years ago, Dave Sutton and Francisco Ruiz met for the first time. Both quickly realized they had a lot in common: a keen interest in marketing. However, they approached the problem from different ends of the spectrum: Dave from the strategic end, Francisco from the systems end. Dave had just published his book on EMM and Francisco had just started Navarra Solutions Group. But Dave had a bigger, comprehensive vision which he described in his book…What if both of those ends came together? More importantly, as he compellingly wrote, those ends should come together. Well, as of today they are together in one place: The TopRight Enterprise Marketing Enablement Team. The right people, the right vision, the right technology, the right moment. Nobody says it better than Aprimo’s CEO Bill Godfrey: “This merger is the perfect marriage of two of Aprimo’s leading service partners, both of which are hyper-focused on delivering tangible customer value. Navarra Solutions brings world-class capability in delivering business solutions and a successful track record to TopRight. TopRight, an already-established EMM thought leader, is now positioned among the few full-service, end-to-end solution providers in our partner network.” Read the full Press Release <here>!

TopRight and Hakuhodo, the second largest advertising agency in Japan, have jointly developed a  new EMM diagnostic & consulting approach designed to link branding activities directly to profits for Japanese companies. The two companies will commence marketing and delivering the new package, called “EMM-J”, in May 2007. Pioneered by Dave Sutton , Managing Partner for TopRight, Enterprise Marketing Management ( EMM ) is currently used by many blue chip companies in the United States and Europe. In January 2007, Dave Sutton signed on as an advisor to Hakuhodo, helping to develop and design EMM-J specifically for the Japanese market. EMM-J goes beyond simply defining brand values and designing brand experiences to integrate and manage all aspects of a company’s activities, up to and including such back office functions as human resources, accounting and distribution. Clients also have access to EMM-J teams leveraging Dave Sutton and the experienced “TopRighters” in the US, and the branding and enterprise innovation consulting experts at Hakuhodo Brand Consulting, depending on their needs. Hakuhodo has long supported brands and brand building activities by defining brand value and designing brand experiences, but with the introduction of EMM-J, the agency can now offer services far beyond those previously provided to client marketing departments. In EMM-J, we have a program useful not only to B-to-C companies, but B-to-B enterprises as well.