VerticalResponse Named A Top 100 Champion In Small Business Influencer Awards

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses including email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, postcard marketing and online surveys, has been named a Top 100 Champion in the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards. CEO/Founder Janine Popick earned an honorable mention.

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The Small Business Influencer Awards honor those who are influential to small businesses in North America through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market. 

"It's such an honor to be named to the top 100 and be among such big names as American Express OPEN Forum and Inc. magazine," said Popick. "Everyone here at VerticalResponse, whether they're on the engineering team or the customer support team, has one goal, and that's to help small businesses grow. Receiving this award is a great morale boost for the entire company."

The awards are designed to recognize the unsung heroes of small businesses – those who support and encourage entrepreneurs and small business owners, and help them achieve success and stay successful. The champions are chosen based on a combination of voting by the small business community and a panel of judges who considered the contributions of the nominees over the past year toward: 

• Advocating on behalf of small businesses
• Providing products or services that address the unique challenges faced by small businesses
• Revolutionizing how small businesses do business or how they solve business challenges
• Helping small businesses grow
• Impacting small businesses in a significant way

"Influencers are those who play crucial roles in the small business ecosystem, but who often are in the background," said Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends and one of the co-founders of the awards program. "The Top 100 Champions have distinguished themselves in some way. We're delighted to see the wide range of champions and honorable mentions this year – including non-profits, academia, journalists who've spent decades covering small business issues, corporate leaders whose names may not be widely recognized but who impact small businesses by influencing the offerings within their companies, vendors large and small that support small businesses, analysts who aid our understanding of this market, and entrepreneurs who have a strong voice among their small business peers."

Awards co-founder Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com noted, "Being recognized by the community as a Top 100 Champion also reinforces with employees that their dedication and hard work has paid off. The awards are intended to provide that added boost in motivation and morale that can make a big difference in results. We're also delighted at the honorable mentions, who definitely bear watching over the coming year!"

For the complete list of Top 100 Champions and honorable mentions, visit http://influencers.smallbiztrends.com/2012-top-champions-and-honorable-mentions.

ABOUT VERTICALRESPONSE
VerticalResponse Inc. provides a full suite of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses including email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, online surveys and direct mail marketing. 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 via a single dashboard, including more than 700 free email marketing templates; social media management tools to create, schedule and publish content, and engage with followers; 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.

ABOUT THE SMALL BUSINESS INFLUENCER AWARDS
The Small Business Influencer Awards, now in their second year, enable the small business community to nominate and show their support for those that influence and support them. The Awards have an open nomination period, followed by community voting, and then a judging period by a group of industry-knowledgeable judges. The Small Business Influencer Awards initiative is produced by Small Business Trends, an award-winning online publication, serving over 4,000,000 small business owners, stakeholders and entrepreneurs annually, and SmallBizTechnology.com, a media company that produces online content and live events educating small and mid-sized companies on how to strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.  The Awards can be found on the Web at www.SMBInfluencers.com.

Media Contact:
Connie Sung Moyle
VerticalResponse Inc.
415-808-6781
[email protected]

SOURCE VerticalResponse