Austin, Texas, 4 May 2009 — WeAreTeachers and MDR today announced a strategic partnership to collaborate and leverage each company's marketing solutions and services for K-12 and higher education companies nationwide. The social media marketing expertise of WeAreTeachers combined with the analytics, research and market data from MDR provide timely 21st century marketing solutions. Through this agreement, MDR will become a strategic investor in WeAreTeachers. The strengths of both companies will be leveraged to provide marketers more resources and reach to drive growth using web marketing solutions.
"The combination of proven, direct marketing methods with innovative social media marketing offers education companies a 21st century approach to grow their business," said Sandy Fivecoat, chief executive officer, WeAreTeachers. "Our social media optimization services and platform are the first of their kind for the education market. Combine that with MDR's proven targeted marketing solutions and this partnership is a unique powerhouse for education marketing."
"I'm very excited about this new opportunity with WeAreTeachers," said Fady Khairallah, president of MDR. "Sandy and her team have built a solid platform for social networking and a significant membership base that has great potential for the future. At MDR, we are consistently looking for new ways to help our customers connect with educators, and this partnership offers us an important way to expand our Professional Services offerings in the Web 2.0 space."
MDR and WeAreTeachers signed a letter of intent and will be finalizing the details of the partnership and the available marketing services in coming months. The announcement does not affect existing customer relationships or contracts. Merger and acquisition advisory firm, Whitestone Communications, Inc., initiated and negotiated the agreement on behalf of WeAreTeachers.
MDR, a D&B Company, is the first choice for sales and marketing information in the education market. MDR is powered by the most complete, current, and accurate education databases available in the industry, including 5.9+ million educators in more than 288,000 institutions from preschool through college, along with 14 million proven direct mail buyers of books, information services, professional development, and personal growth products. For 40 years, MDR has been committed to providing customers with best-in-class data and information, superior market insight and knowledge, innovative and comprehensive products and services, and world-class responsive service and delivery. MDR's suite of products and services provide end-to-end marketing solutions, from custom market research and creative services, to comprehensive mailing lists, powerful e-marketing programs, sales contacts, actionable leads, and market trend analysis.
WeAreTeachers is a social and business network for teachers, schools,associations, and education marketers designed to enable members to share, connect and collaborate. Members interact through a community profile, vertical community circles, video sharing/streaming, forums, blogs, webinars, and other Web 2.0 social networking tools. WeAreTeachers is the first network to include The Knowledge Marketplace that gives educators, schools and businesses the ability to sell and recommend partner products for added income or fundraising opportunities. Commercial education marketers partner with WeAreTeachers for its social media marketing services that leverage the capabilities on the WeAreTeachers technology platform as well as its Facebook application, "I am Teacher." WeAreTeachers delivers new solutions to these companies that help maximize their impact with the education community, engage with customers for greater retention, intercept buyers with a new distribution channel, reduce professional development support and delivery costs and create an online community around their brand. For more information about WeAreTeachers, visit www.weareteachers.com.
Contact: Donnine Souhrada, WeAreTeachers, 619.838.4133, dsouhrada@weareteachers.com
