MarketingSherpa Announces 2015 Award Winners; Launches Inaugural Readers' Choice Award

JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 8, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- MarketingSherpa has selected the winners of its 10th annual awards, sponsored by BlueHornet, as well as commenced its first opportunity for readers to choose a winner in the awards competition.

Finish Line was awarded the "Best Business-to-consumer (B2C) Email Campaign" while Ferguson Enterprises was named the "Best Business-to-business (B2B) Email Campaign" winner. MarketingSherpa also unveiled its first "Readers' Choice Email Campaign" category for the MarketingSherpa Awards. MarketingSherpa's blog readers will vote for the best email marketing campaign among five outstanding programs that were finalists for the MarketingSherpa Awards. The voting period will take place December 8-18, 2014.

The winners will be honored at MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2015 on Feb. 23-26, 2015 at the ARIA Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. The Email Summit is the original research-based conference serving the email marketing community.

Daniel Burstein, director of editorial content for MECLABS, parent company of MarketingSherpa, said: "After reviewing nearly 500 submissions, our panel of judges selected the Finish Line and Ferguson campaigns as the most outstanding examples of effective email marketing initiatives that put the customer first. These customer-centric programs generated strong and measurable results exemplifying the marketing principles and lessons that other marketers can learn from."

Winning Campaigns for the MarketingSherpa Award Competition
Finish Line, a leading athletic retailer with more than 660 stores in 47 states and online, won the MarketingSherpa Award for its consumer-focused email campaign that transitioned from a "batch and blast" email marketing program to an advanced multichannel marketing program resulting in a 50 percent increase in email revenue.  

Ferguson, the largest wholesale distributor of plumbing in the U.S. with more than 1,400 locations and 20,000 associates around the country, was recognized for its B2B email marketing program that moved from a manually-driven email database to an automated email in-take process allowing for tailored content based on the customer type and segment. By digitizing its on-site registration process at trade shows, Ferguson  generated  millions in online revenue by enriching the customer experience.

"Ferguson is honored to receive MarketingSherpa's Best B2B Campaign award. I am excited to share how the program changed the way we think about our customers' experience at events.  The results far exceeded our expectations and we'll continue to build on that success in the future," said Mary Abrahamson, email marketing specialist at Ferguson.

At Email Summit 2015, attendees will hear how Ferguson generated online revenue by enriching the customer experience. Ms. Abrahamson will take the stage to share the customer journey of two personas as they move through the sales funnel.

For this year's awards competition, judges reviewed 497 submissions. Entries were judged by a panel of email marketing and research experts at MECLABS. Winners were selected based on five criteria: transformation of internal thinking and practice; transferable lessons to apply to broader marketing challenges; innovation in campaign creativity and execution; customer-centric focus; and strong results that illustrate the campaign's effectiveness against its goals.

Finalists for Readers' Choice Award
For the first time, readers of the MarketingSherpa blog will have the opportunity to vote on the best email marketing program among the five runner-ups. 

"We created the Readers' Choice Award to give our MarketingSherpa readers an opportunity for them to vote on which email marketing program they think is the best campaign. Our blog readers will select among five finalist programs that our judges picked among the many outstanding campaigns we considered for the MarketingSherpa Awards this year," said Mr. Burstein.

The five finalist programs are:

• World Jewish Congress - a digital marketing campaign that provided their customers with a more relevant email interaction.
• Microsoft Store - built a long-term data infrastructure that would deliver dynamic, relevant customer communications while simultaneously working within current data confines to begin learning about customers.
• Precor - implemented automation to nurture leads more effectively by serving up the right message at the right time and achieved a 74 percent increase in new leads through revamping its nurturing process.
• Kentucky Derby - developed a newsletter centered on Derby content that began to segment and direct compelling content directly to the customers who wanted it most.
• JAM Paper - developed a welcome series, and applied the lessons learned to other areas of the email marketing program, including a retargeting series and an abandoned cart campaign.

MarketingSherpa blog readers will be able to cast their votes on the Email Summit 2015 website.  The winning entry will be announced on Monday, Dec. 22, 2014.

About the Email Summit  
The Email Summit, being held Feb. 23-26, 2015 at the ARIA Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, is the original research-based conference serving the email marketing community. Participants from around the globe learn from some of today's leading marketers from organizations including VolunteerMatch, CNET, Dun & Bradstreet, Finish Line, Emfluence, LinkedIn, Ferguson, and Microsoft Stores. Featured speakers include Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, Jonah Berger of The Wharton School, Jose Palomino and Flint McGlaughlin. Sponsors for Email Summit 2015 include Maropost, BlueHornet, StrongView, Yesmail, Listrak, Adestra, Silverpop, dotmailer, PostUp, LiveIntent, Message Systems, TowerData, TailoredMail, StrikeIron, Litmus, RealTime Email by LiveClicker, ClickMail, SailThru, SendGrid, Email on Acid, OutMarket, Oracle Marketing Cloud, Movable Ink, Lionbridge, Fluent, HyperDrive Interactive, Retention Science, B2Lead and Inbox Group.

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SOURCE MarketingSherpa

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