Why I Invented a New Marketing Channel for Small Businesses

TL;DR: Necessity Is Still the Mother of Invention

I did not set out to invent a new marketing channel. The world already has plenty.

I’ve spent most of my career adapting existing direct-marketing channels to meet the needs of my friends and neighbors in an industry filled with small businesses: the U.S. wine industry.

But when the channels I had championed for years began to falter, I felt compelled to act.

That is how Progressive App Marketing™ was conceived.

The Lure of Technological Innovation

Growing up during the space age, I was fascinated by robots, spaceships, and the infinite possibilities of how technology can help people enjoy better lives.

When my parents transferred to a new federal agency called NASA, I had the chance to meet Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Wally Schirra. Seeing the real people and incredible machines behind the space program left a lifelong impression.

That’s why I studied mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley, then earned a master’s degree in business management from MIT Sloan, because I needed to know how technology could solve human problems.

This quest has shaped my path ever since.

When Digital Marketing Belonged to Large Corporations

After MIT, I worked for well-funded technology firms during the early years of digital marketing.

It was a time when managing automated email marketing could cost a quarter-million dollars a year. A national webinar could cost close to $1 million. Digital marketing required special software, multiple vendors, technicians, creatives, and enough money to learn what worked and what didn’t.

Three lessons I learned stood above all the rest:

1. Marketing became far more effective when customers told us what they cared about and we used those preferences to make our communication more relevant.

2. Instead of treating everyone in a database as part of the same anonymous audience, we could recognize different interests, needs, and reasons for engaging with us.

3. Customers received information they were more likely to value. We wasted less money sending irrelevant messages. And marketing began to feel less like a nuisance and more like a service.

I was hooked on preference-based marketing. The principles were simple:

• Let people tell you what interests them.

• Respect their preferences.

• Create value for both sides.

At the time, preference-based digital marketing was largely reserved for those with enormous budgets.

But then, everything changed…

Becoming a Small-Business Owner Overnight

When the internet bubble burst, countless technology firms failed. Investment disappeared and corporate jobs evaporated by the thousands.

Mine was one of them.

Within days, I went from working with multimillion-dollar marketing budgets to becoming a small-business owner who needed to make every dollar count.

It was a shock. But the collapse also revealed an opportunity.

The excess surrounding the early internet disappeared, while useful technology became less expensive. Marketing techniques that once required corporate budgets could work for small organizations.

I had settled in California wine country, where wineries were discovering the potential of selling directly to consumers through tasting rooms, wine clubs, email, events, and ecommerce.

The direct-to-consumer wine industry was growing quickly.

So I started helping…

When Small Became Beautiful

Working with organizations such as Sonoma County’s Wine Road, Napa Valley Vintners, and the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Alliance, we helped introduce preference-based email marketing to wineries building modern DTC sales programs.

Our clients included Ravenswood, Franciscan Estate, Kendall-Jackson, Arrowood, Clos Pegase, Freemark Abbey, and dozens of family-owned wine brands.

The budgets were smaller than those I had managed in technology. But the work felt more meaningful.

I knew the people who trusted me with their businesses. They invited me into their homes.

I could see what success meant to an owner, a winemaker, a tasting-room team, or a family trying to build their legacy.

The results weren’t merely numbers in a report. A successful campaign could help a winery sell through a release, fill an event, grow its wine club, hire another employee, or survive a difficult season.

We also had one thing in common. We all had something to prove.

Our clients were trying to prove that smaller wine brands could compete with companies that had more money, more employees, and greater distribution. I was trying to prove that my small business could succeed by helping them.

Their growth became our growth.

At some point, helping small businesses run by people I knew became far more inspiring than watching the stock price of one of my former employers.

Helping small brands compete became personal to me.

Leveling the Playing Field

Much of my career since then has followed a similar pattern.

Large corporations adopt a powerful marketing technology. The cost falls. The tools become easier to use. Then I look for a practical way to place them in the hands of smaller businesses.

Email marketing offered one opportunity. Ecommerce offered another. SMS followed.

Preference-based messaging remained a constant. That conviction eventually inspired PreferencePro™, an award-winning email system that let consumers choose the messages they wanted and helped marketers honor those choices.

The technology evolved, but my principles didn’t:

• Permission before promotion.

• Personalization over broadcasting.

• Relationships over interruptions.

The Problem I Kept Hearing from Wineries

For years, I demonstrated SMS marketing to wineries that wanted a more immediate way to reach their customers. I always began by asking why they were interested.

The most common answer was: “Too many wine club members complain they never see our emails.”

Years ago, a missed message might have been a nuisance.

In a difficult wine market, this can become a serious problem. When members miss shipment announcements, pickup reminders, event invitations, payment updates, or special allocations, winery employees must resend messages, answer avoidable questions, and sometimes watch loyal customers drift away.

At first, I thought it was a messaging problem.

Maybe wineries needed better subject lines, smarter timing, cleaner data, or more personalization.

But after hearing the same frustration repeatedly, I began asking different questions:

• What if the message wasn’t the problem?

• What if the problem was the channel we’re using to communicate?

The Tragedy of the Digital Commons

The declining utility of email, SMS, and social media reminds me of the tragedy of the commons. Shared resources can benefit everyone. But if people compete to exploit it, the resource loses value.

Consumer attention works the same way.

The more messages marketers pour into digital channels, the harder it becomes for any one message to earn attention.

Legacy channels still work, and I still recommend them when used thoughtfully. But attention is finite.

And since email, SMS, and social media are controlled by inbox providers, carriers, and technology platforms, neither businesses nor customers have complete control over what gets through.

So small businesses still rely on communication channels they can’t depend on.

Meanwhile, large national brands found another option: mobile apps.

Mobile apps gave loyal customers a familiar place to check their account, receive updates, access benefits, and make another purchase.

But traditional native apps still remain too expensive for most small brands.

Then technological innovation saved the day…

Progressive Web Apps Nearly Closed the Gap

When I looked closely at progressive web apps in 2023, I realized this new technology had become practical enough to change what was possible for small businesses.

A progressive web app (PWA) can give any business a branded, installable presence on its customers’ phones without requiring an expensive native app.

For a precious minute, I thought we found the solution.

But one piece was still missing…

The PWA tools that I could find didn’t offer any support for preference-based messaging.

They could create an app experience. Some could send notifications. But they couldn’t reliably store the identity, preferences, targeting, and message-history data to support an ongoing relationship with individual customers.

Without those capabilities, a mobile app risked becoming another channel for unwanted messages.

That was not what I wanted to build.

I Didn’t Want to Invent Anything

To overcome this final roadblock, I followed my trusty playbook.

First, I searched for anyone who had already solved the problem. No luck there.

Then we tried all the obvious ways of connecting affordable existing technologies in a way that could support preference-based messaging inside a PWA.

We got close. But close wasn’t good enough.

After nearly a year, I scrapped the playbook because I couldn’t find an acceptable combination that tied all the pieces together into a dependable, affordable system simple enough for small teams to operate.

That was when invention became the only practical option left…

Building the Missing Layer

The software architecture I invented acts as a relationship broker coordinating several affordable technologies to support personalized, preference-based communication between merchants and consumers.

It allows PWAs to recognize returning customers, remember their identity and preferences, maintain consent and message history, and deliver relevant updates to everyone, select groups, or only one individual.

By adding this layer, low-cost tools began behaving like one coherent mobile relationship platform.

No single ingredient was exotic. The invention was in the way we fit the pieces together.

That was the breakthrough I was looking for…

A PWA could now do more than occupy space on a customer’s home screen. It could support the personalized, preference-aware experiences delivered by national brands.

The first practical expression of this architecture became myWineClubApp™.

Wine clubs were a natural place to begin because they’re built around ongoing relationships. Members want to learn about shipments and upcoming events, receive benefits, and stay connected to the people and stories behind the winery.

Our approach could give those relationships a permanent home.

From Wine Clubs to Progressive App Marketing

As I developed myWineClubApp, I realized the underlying need extended beyond wine.

Performers depend on loyal fans. Fitness clubs depend on engaged members. Salons depend on recurring clients. Pubs, dispensaries, and casinos depend on repeat customers.

These businesses serve different communities, but they share one economic truth: Their long-term success depends on customers who choose to remain connected.

That broader realization became Progressive App Marketing.

Progressive App Marketing is not simply marketing conducted through a progressive web app.

It is a relationship-building engine that uses an affordable branded app to make communication more valuable over time.

Customers choose the information they want. Businesses respect those choices. Messages remain available inside a persistent destination. Each useful interaction strengthens the relationship.

Technology is only the means. Long-term relationships are the goal.

A David-and-Goliath Story

For decades, I’ve helped small businesses profit from tools once available only to large corporations.

Not because small companies should imitate giant brands. I think the opposite is true.

Small businesses possess something large brands spend fortunes trying to build: authentic human relationships.

In our world, small business owners still know the customer. Winemakers remember longtime club members. Trainers celebrate a member’s progress. Performers recognize familiar faces in the audience.

Technology shouldn’t replace human connections. I think it should help them grow.

Every small business owner knows the odds are stacked against us. Larger competitors have more money, more data, more technology, and more ways to purchase attention.

But as a small business owner myself, I feel the need to play a useful role in our mutual survival. My role is to place better direct marketing tools in our hands.

Progressive App Marketing is the channel I created to help business owners like me strengthen the real human relationships that make small businesses so special in the fabric of our lives.

For me, necessity became the mother of invention.

Looking Ahead

I did not spend a year solving a problem because the world needed another marketing technology.

I kept working because the problem belonged to people I care about.

All small business owners know our fates are determined by the market, our tenacity, and luck in equal measure. The courage to move forward despite uncertainty is what unites us all.

Will Progressive App Marketing ultimately play a role in the success of small businesses?

I hope so, but the jury is still out.

Either way, I still feel the need to channel my energy, skills, and experience to help a small business community that welcomed me with open arms decades ago.

Despite the risks and setbacks that come with technological innovation, I still think about the astronauts I met and the incredible machines I saw at NASA when I was just a boy.

Their courage, vision, and persistence still inspire me today to keep going and take calculated risks to help others.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR