Facebook and livemercial Are Now Friends
Visit evidence of the excitement found on livemercial’s Facebook page and witness some of the sights, sounds, stories and mysteries that swirl around livemercial. For those who don’t know, Facebook is an integrated, interactive online social community where people share ideas, interests, videos, music and time together.
Still in the page’s infancy, livemercial’s Facebook page gives you access to some of the fans / employees who make up the heart of livemercial as well as recent and past photos and photo galleries of recent events. Livemercial’s Facebook page will be continually updated with news, livemercial blog posts and video of the exciting endeavors with which livemercial is diving into.
To visit our link, simply log into your Facebook account at facebook.com (or register an account – only takes a few moments), search for us with the keyword “livemercial” and become part of our online community.
Missi Maynard Celebrates 5 Years with livemercial
As livemercial™ continues to set its sights higher and higher, new milestones are surpassed and signs of growth can continue to be seen. It’s with this journey in mind that livemercial is proud to give a (belated) “congratulations” to Missi Maynard. On June 13th, Missi celebrated her 5th anniversary with the corporation. Since joining the company in 2003, Missi has been asked to wear many hats and tackle many new and enterprising challenges. Those experiences now help her as she continues to thrive in her current position as Director of Process Automation.
Here’s to Missi Maynard. May she be blessed with 5 more years and beyond. Livemercial thanks you.
Exciting Changes at livemercial!
This is an exciting time for livemercial™! Business is better than ever and to help facilitate that, the company is going through a reorganization – they’re calling it livemercial 2.0™.
What does that mean for their customers? Don’t worry, livemercial™ will still be the same great company dedicated to customer satisfaction and innovation.
To help facilitate the changes being made within the company, there are several promotions on the plate.
Kevin Cory, currently our Chief Operating Officer (COO) will be moving up to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to focus more of growing the technical backbone of livemercial™.
Moving into the COO position is Pete Altieri, who comes from heading RecruiTV and he will focus on organizing the company for the next stage in its evolution.
Stay tuned for the latest updates!
livemercial Purchases Monolithic Dome
Livemercial™ has purchased a landmark building to help facilitate expansion. The internet marketing company has won a sealed-bid auction for the former Natural Ovens Monolithic Dome.
The former Natural Ovens Bakery, located next to Indiana 49 and Route 2 in Valparaiso, IN, has been mostly unoccupied since Wisconsin-based Natural Ovens closed operations at the facility nearly 5 years ago. The monolithic dome is one of a kind and its unique architecture is very environmentally friendly; the building uses 50% less energy than that a comparatively-sized building.
“It’s a very unusual building, but we’re a very unusual company,” said CEO Johnny Mathis, Jr.
Livemercial™ plans to turn the dome into an information technology hub and put Valparaiso, Indiana on the map as an information technology center.
“Valparaiso is already a center of learning with 3 major universities based there,” said a company spokesman, “it’s only natural that businesses would want to tap into the highly educated population.”
Valparaiso, Indiana is considered a suburb of Chicago and attracts visitors and workers from throughout the Chicago metropolitan region.
“This acquisition will ensure that we can continue expanding, innovating and developing technology in this very unique place.”
The monolithic dome has nearly 60,000 square feet of space and has two levels; an open floor plan where the bakery’s production once took place and a mezzanine office level that looks out on the former production area. The building features solid concrete construction that has been designed to withstand a category 5 tornado.
Thanks for a fantastic party!
Thanks go out to everyone who was involved in organizing and planning the livemercial™ Party by the Pond last Friday. It was a huge success and all who attended had a great time.
The company would also like to thank its employees for another great year and it hopes that they had a fantastic time! Till next year guys!
Check out the pictures from the party below!
And a special “Thank you!” goes out the the band Between the Trees for giving an energetic, inspiring performance at Party by the Pond. Watch their video blog chronicling their experience flying aboard LM 2.
livemercial Goes International
livemercial™ has expanded its U.S. holdings and gone international by opening offices in both the United Kingdom and in Portland, Maine. The company also announced the appointment of Glenn Morgan to Executive Vice President of Sales-Europe, overseeing the company’s European operations, and Todd Flaherty to Executive Vice President of Sales based out of Portland.
“Our national and international expansion is the direct result of the increased demand for the innovative direct response marketing and virtual recruitment technologies offered by livemercial™ and RecruiTV,” said Johnny Mathis, Jr., CEO, livemercial™. “The significant experience that Glenn and Todd bring to livemercial™ and their respective markets will enhance that demand by introducing livemercial’s cutting edge approach to direct response and recruitment to entirely new audiences.”
The office in England will serve as the European sales office for livemercial™ and RecruiTV, which provides virtual recruiting technology and services to corporations and recruitment firms worldwide. RecruiTV was acquired by livemercial™ in May 2008.
Prior to joining livemercial™, Morgan drove sales activities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region for several telecommunications companies including ANDA Networks, an Ethernet equipment manufacturer. He also held executive positions with Newport Networks, Clear Communications and Orchestream, and was a sales leader for Xerox.
The Portland office will handle sales activities for the United States and provide sales support for Europe and Canada. In particular, the Portland location will benefit from the growing number of local companies providing such critical direct response support services as shipping and fulfillment, media buying, creative production, credit card processing, call centers and product manufacturing.
Flaherty brings a proven entrepreneurial track record to livemercial™, having co-founded successful ventures including Acadia Credit Card Processing, an authorized re-seller of merchant processing services, Pinnacle Marketing, a direct response marketing company, and Ship-Right Solutions, a third-party order fulfillment company specializing in e-commerce, direct response and retail clients. His background includes work in financial analysis with Digital Equipment Corporation and in global sales with DHL Worldwide Express.
livemercial Aquires RecruiTV
VALPARAISO, Ind. – (May 15, 2008) – Livemercial, a leading provider of online direct response marketing and seminar lead generation services, has expanded into the virtual recruitment market with its acquisition of RecruiTV, Inc.
“Livemercial revolutionized the direct response and seminar industries through the introduction of innovative video and other online technologies that generate and convert leads at a rate unmatched by others in the industry. The addition of RecruiTV to the Livemercial family of companies paves the way for us to do the same for the recruitment industry. By leveraging our technology platforms and expertise with RecruiTV’s suite of video solutions, we will drive virtual recruiting to the next level.”
Johnny Mathis, Jr., CEO, Livemercial
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. RecruiTV will retain its identity and be positioned as a Livemercial company providing virtual recruiting technology and services to corporations and recruiting firms.
Livemercial leads the direct response industry in single product sales, utilizing innovative proprietary technologies such as “instant on” streaming video for email, pop-ups, banners and direct response websites. Its Virtual Call Center generates higher conversion rates and revenues-per-order by eliminating traditional online shopping carts to capture, up-sell and securely transmit orders. Most recently, Livemercial became the first to offer secure mobile ordering technology with the launch of Txt2Buy.
By applying those same innovative technologies and e-commerce strategies, Livemercial has emerged as the leading provider of online lead generation services for the seminar industry. In addition to geographically targeted banner ads, email and search engine optimization strategies that drive qualified leads to dedicated registration websites, Livemercial also provides services designed to maximize response from print and broadcast promotions of seminars and other live events.
Founded in 2006, RecruiTV provides turn-key recruitment video solutions, including campaign development, production and integrated web solutions. It creates brief but compelling online video campaigns featuring employees, executives and hiring managers designed to convey the hiring organization’s culture, diversity, leadership and benefits in a way that attracts more qualified candidates.
“Online recruitment videos serve as a handshake between the company and prospective employees, giving candidates an opportunity to view the real corporate personality behind the help wanted ad or online job listing,” said RecruiTV CEO Peter Altieri. “By deploying Livemercial’s highly successful direct response marketing and lead generation models within the context of recruitment, we will be able to make that video handshake more powerful and effective than ever before.”
Livemercial History Featured in the Northwest Indiana Times
Recently, Livemercial™ CEO Johnny Mathis, Jr. was profiled in the Business Features section of The Times of Northwest Indiana newspaper.
The article gives a good summary of the history of livemercial™, which highlights livemercial’s rise from the ashes of the dot-com bubble burst of the late 1990s. Determined to come up with a new idea, Johnny Mathis developed a new streaming video technology, called the livemercial Player that would later become part of the company’s Virtual Call Center. He presented the video technology at a trade show and Livemercial™ was born along with a revolution in direct response marketing.
What makes livemerical’s™ Virtual Call Center platform different from other e-commerce sites?
As quoted in May 11th, 2008 Times article, Mathis described the Virtual Call Center as “… a ’micro site’ built around a single product. At the time, the industry relied on a ’shopping cart’ for a buyer to purchase different products. Instead, the call center encourages the buyer to increase the dollar value of a single purchase through additional purchases. We call this an ‘upsell tree.’”
The Times article also featured an insight into the company’s future plans. Livemercial™ hopes to turn Valparaiso into a tech center by incubating new and innovative ideas.
Livemercial™ has grown steadily to the point where it now employs 100 people nationwide, a large majority in the Valparaiso area at its corporate headquarters located near the Porter County Municipal Airport. Mathis also wants to give back to the tech community: “I didn’t have any support for my ideas,” he said in the article. “I want to help others with their ideas and grow our business as well.”
Livemercial Welcomes New Executive Team Members
Livemercial™ is proud to announce the appointment of Kevin Cory to Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Ed Barbara to Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
“This expansion of our executive team is an important step toward achieving the aggressive goals we have set for livemercial,” said Johnny Mathis, Jr., CEO, livemercial™. “Kevin and Ed have proven track records of implementing the kinds of strategic internal and external programs and processes that are necessary for us to achieve rapid growth by solidifying our leadership position within the direct response industry and capturing a significant share of new markets.”
As Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Cory will be responsible for guiding livemercial’s™ long-term strategic operations. He brings nearly 24 years of business, technology and entrepreneurial experience to the company, including more than 12 years of senior management consulting with Deloitte. At Deloitte he participated in developing the firm’s technology delivery methods and led numerous implementation initiatives in the financial and insurance industries
Cory, who served in the United States Air Force, also held leadership positions with companies in the retail, financial trading and software industries, where he built high-performance delivery teams, global solutions and innovative systems that drove significant enterprise improvements.
As Chief Marketing Officer, Ed Barbara will be responsible for guiding the strategic direction of livemercial’s™ sales, account management and marketing operations. He brings more than 20 years of experience in direct marketing and communications to the company and is a successful entrepreneur with a solid track record of establishing, marketing and managing highly profitable companies.
Barbara’s background includes developing marketing strategies and techniques for Fortune 500 companies in the direct response, financial services and telecommunications industries that increased sales and reduced customer attrition rates.
They will be an excellent addition to the livemercial™ team!