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VerticalResponse - Company of the Year

Gold Stevie Award Winner 2013, Click to Enter The 2014 Steve Awards for Women in Business

Company: VerticalResponse, San Francisco, CA
Company Description: VerticalResponse is a self-service web-based solution enabling small businesses to get up and running quickly and affordably with email marketing, surveys and direct mail campaigns. Founded in 2001 by Janine Popick, VerticalResponse employs 95 people and has been named to Inc.'s 5000 list as well as San Francisco Business Times Fastest Growing Company list five years running.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Company of the Year – Business Services – More Than 10 Employees

Nomination Title: VerticalResponse Continues to Innovate Marketing Technology Services for Small Businesses

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated organization since the beginning of July last year (up to 525 words):

This year VerticalResponse celebrates 12 years of servicing small businesses and nonprofits, helping them get up and running quickly and easily with their email and social media marketing campaigns. More than 8.4 billion emails were sent with our self-service platform in 2012.

The company was honored with five Stevie Awards in The 11th Annual American Business Awards — a Grand Stevie®, a Gold, two Silver and a Bronze Award. “VerticalResponse Innovates Marketing Technology for Small Business” won a Gold award for Company of the Year – Internet/New Media. “The New VerticalResponse® Marketing Blog: Providing Utility for SMBs” received a Silver award for Best Writing/Content. David Shiba, VerticalResponse’s Chief Operating Officer, won a Silver award for Executive of the Year – Internet/New Media. A Bronze award went to “VerticalResponse® InstaEmail” in the category of New Product of Service of the Year – Software – Marketing/Public Relations Solution.
New this year, Grand Stevies were awarded to organizations that submitted the best body of work to the competition, based on a points system on the total number of awards won in the ABAs. VerticalResponse ranked #8 overall.

We were once again ranked on the Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest-growing companies, an honor we’ve achieved every year since 2006.

Key corporate achievements from July 1, 2012, to present include:

• In August 2012, added Coupons and Clipper. Industry surveys suggest up to 80 percent of Web users prefer to get coupons and discounts from companies via social media, so the Coupons tool lets businesses generate custom coupons that can be published as a Facebook tab on their Facebook page and/or as a standalone Web page. Clipper lets users save interesting Web pages to their VerticalResponse Social account whenever they’re browsing online; the “clipped” URLs will appear in their VerticalResponse Social content library for easy sharing when they’re ready to create a social media post or campaign.

• In November 2012, launched a newly redesigned marketing blog for small businesses, with more posts, more authors and greater variety of content. The new blog features 15 authors (versus 7 authors previously) and has attracted nearly double the number of unique visitors who spend more than double the amount of time on the site per visit to date, compared to the same time period a year ago. At a time when many readers are experiencing “content fatigue,” our blog metrics show people are reading and engaging with our content more than ever before.

• In February 2013, launched InstaEmail, a free online email template creation tool. Companies can use the tool to create a professional-looking email newsletter template in seconds. InstaEmail instantly detects the images and color scheme found on the company’s website, to ensure the newsletter matches the company’s brand. More than 10,000 email templates were created using InstaEmail since launch.

• In August, launched three free online marketing tools for small business. Conversation Starter, Button Builder, and PageRank Checker.

Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the nominated company (up to 125 words):

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. She won a Stevie Award for Entrepreneur of the Year every year from 2008 to 2011 and Executive of the Year in 2012, and was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist from 2006 to 2009.

Janine also won the U.S. Small Business Administration award for Small Business Person of the Year and was named a Small Biz Influencer Champion by Small Biz Trends. Janine brings over 20 years of experience leading direct and Internet marketing programs for some of the biggest brands in technology and entertainment.

The CEO (or other principal manager) of this company is a woman, and at least 40% of the management team is comprised of women.