VerticalResponse Picks Up 9 IAC Awards for Excellence in Online Advertising

SAN FRANCISCO, April 10, 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, won nine awards in the 10th annual Internet Advertising Competition, including Best in Show, Email Message Campaign.

The Internet Advertising Competition, produced by the Web Marketing Association, honors excellence in online marketing and is the first and only competition dedicated exclusively to online advertising. Entries were judged on seven criteria: creativity, innovation, impact, design, copywriting, use of the medium and memorability. A total of 86 industries were represented.

VerticalResponse won Best Email Message Campaign in three industry categories: B2B, Email and Application Service Provider. The campaign also won Best in Show in the Email category, for a total of four awards. The winning email promotion was styled after daily deal email sales, with eye-catching email and landing page creative that included a widget that spelled out the price, percent discount and dollar savings. It also featured a live countdown showing how much time – in days, hours, minutes and seconds – was left to redeem the offer. The sales results far exceeded both conversion and revenue goals.

The company also won Best Online Newsletter Campaign in three industry categories, B2B, Email and Application Service Provider, for its VR Buzz weekly e-newsletter. Sent to current and prospective customers, the e-newsletter keeps readers informed of the latest marketing news, strategies and sales. In summer 2011, VerticalResponse completely redesigned the VR Buzz in order to reflect new corporate branding, ensuring consistency across all channels and engagement through compelling content and visual design. This effort has resulted in a substantial increase in engagement, including open and click-through rates.

VerticalResponse also nabbed Best Website in two industry categories, Application Service Provider and Email, for its 2011 "Everything Holiday" microsite. The site served as a resource for the company's small business customers, providing easy, actionable tips to help them with their email and social media marketing during the busiest season of the year. It featured holiday-themed guides, images, an email subject line generator, email marketing templates, Web buttons, can't-miss shipping deadlines and more.

"This is our first time participating in the Internet Advertising Competition, so being recognized in nearly every category we entered exceeded all expectations," said Janine Popick, VerticalResponse CEO. "We're particularly delighted to win Best in Show for best email message campaign, since email marketing is one of our core products. It's also such an honor to be in the company of brands like Gatorade, Toyota and Microsoft, along with incredibly creative agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi and Alloy Digital."

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. 

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Janine Popick

http://www.profnetconnect.com/janine-popick

SOURCE VerticalResponse