VoIP pioneer Vonage sent customers an email earlier this week offering them shares in the company’s upcoming IPO, an interesting move that has sparked a lot of press — how many companies give their mass market customers an option to get in on the ground floor of a public offering?
Now Vonage is stepping up its pitch — overnight it sent customers a voice mail message (note this is .wav file) advising them, in case they missed the emails, that they have the chance to buy Vonage stock before the company goes public.
While at first blush it seemed kind of nice (although a bit odd) that Vonage is turning to its customers as potential pre-IPO investors, this stepped-up “marketing” effort has really peaked my curiosity. Either Vonage is a financial genius by tapping into a heretofore little utilized investment source — mass market customers — or it’s struggling to gain investment prior to its IPO and is turning to an easily touched source of funds.
Or it’s pushing the financial markets envelope just for the heck of it, because it can. After all, unlike most companies that go public, Vonage has ready access to millions of customers’ email addresses and voice mail systems.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:35 AM|Comments(0)
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