Businesses Who Use Email Marketing and Social Media Achieve 28% Higher Email Open Rates, According to VerticalResponse User Data

SAN FRANCISCO, March 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses including email marketing, social media marketing, online surveys, event marketing and direct mail marketing, today released the first in a series of findings that examine email and social media marketing user data among small and mid-sized businesses.

VerticalResponse found companies that use its email marketing service and also engage in social media marketing for their business (defined by activity on Roost by VerticalResponse, the company's social media marketing platform) experience a 28 percent higher open rate on their email marketing campaigns versus those that don't use Roost by VerticalResponse.

"This is really compelling evidence showing those who combine email marketing and social media obtain greater results from their campaigns, especially among small and mid-sized businesses that represent the majority of our customer base," said Janine Popick, VerticalResponse CEO. "The numbers clearly show that those who broadcast content across multiple online touch points are getting a lot more engagement than those who don't."

What types of businesses do the best in leveraging email marketing and social media? The data analysis uncovered the following:

• Top five industries that use both email marketing and social media, in order:

1. Non-profits
2. Real estate
3. Marketing and advertising
4. Internet
5. Health and wellness

• Top five industries that use both email marketing and social media, and have the highest open rates on their email marketing, in order:

1. Music (average open rate: 32.1 percent)
2. Consumer electronics (average open rate: 31.7 percent)
3. Financial services (average open rate: 22.6 percent)
4. Motion pictures and film (average open rate: 21.9 percent)
5. Graphic design (average open rate: 21.3 percent)

Roost by VerticalResponse enables small businesses to easily and quickly create, schedule, manage and measure their social media marketing campaigns from one convenient dashboard. Earlier this month, the company released a free iOS mobile app, giving customers access to the platform's most popular features no matter where they are.

Methodology: VerticalResponse analyzed a sample set of 3,116 active customers who use both the company's email marketing service and Roost by VerticalResponse. Their open rates were compared to those had by customers who only use VerticalResponse email marketing.

ABOUT VERTICALRESPONSE
VerticalResponse Inc. provides a full suite of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses including email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, direct mail marketing and online surveys. Its mission is to empower small businesses and non-profit organizations to easily and affordably create, manage and analyze their own marketing campaigns. Users can benefit from a wide variety of features including more than 700 free email marketing templates; tools to create, schedule and publish content over social media networks; and robust reporting so that they can understand overall marketing success. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. For more information visit www.verticalresponse.com, and connect on Twitter at @VR4SmallBiz and Facebook at www.facebook.com/verticalresponse. Learn more about Roost's social media marketing tools for small business here and by following @Roost.

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Janine Popick
https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=92010

SOURCE VerticalResponse Inc.