VerticalResponse Takes to the Streets of San Francisco

Online Direct Marketing Leader Launches Ambitious Local Advertising Campaign

San Francisco – July 28th, 2005 - Because of its scope, ease of use and low cost, email is a medium with global reach.  Yet, in the latest effort to strengthen its grip as a leader in the world of email and direct mail marketing, VerticalResponse is staying close to home.  On August 1, 2005, the San Francisco-based company will launch a multimedia advertising campaign to alert Bay Area residents to the presence of an industry leader in their own backyard.

Over the next two months, the VerticalResponse name – and testimonials from prominent local companies – will fill the airwaves of RadioAlice (www.radioalice.com), span billboards across town, cover the backsides of MUNI busses, adorn the pages of 7x7 magazine (www.7x7mag.com), grace the front of thousands of direct mail pieces and make a splash on numerous San Francisco-based websites such as Salon.com (www.salon.com),  SF Gate (www.sfgate.com) Splendora.com (www.splendora.com) and SFmerchants.com (www.sfmerchants.com). The company has even hired a team of brand ambassadors to explain how VerticalResponse lets companies painlessly create, deploy and evaluate their own email and direct marketing campaigns.

The idea is to strengthen VerticalResponse’s growing global client base with a solid foundation of local customers who not only appreciate the company’s services, but also its location in and involvement with the community.

“We have an outstanding product that people around the world benefit from, but it’s even more special when you serve people who walk the same streets as you and socialize in the same places you do,” added Janine Popick, VerticalResponse’s Founder and CEO. “We think companies everywhere should use VerticalResponse, but that’s doubly true for firms in the Bay Area.  Our fates are to a large extent linked and when we help local businesses we help ourselves.”

VerticalResponse made its name helping clients build the email lists, publish the newsletters, print the postcards and manage the marketing campaigns that promote their businesses.  Now, the company has decided it’s time for a little self-promotion of its own, and local stars like Splendora.com CEO and Founder Gina Pell are lending a hand.

Pell’s glamorous, life-size image peers out over the Marina from a billboard at the corner of Union and Fillmore.  From this lofty vantage point the “Authority on Fabulous” offers her endorsement of VerticalResponse, noting the company “helps Splendora.com’s 50,000+ e-mail subscribers stay hip to everything fabulous, every Friday.”

Pell’s weekly newsletters allow her to keep in touch with her customers - and keep them ahead of the fashion curve.  A wide range of local firms spanning the hospitality, entertainment, technology, retail, political, non-profit and financial fields, among others, have chosen VerticalResponse to simplify, automate and enhance their marketing campaigns.

“Using VerticalResponse, we’ve been able to launch mass email campaigns in-house, saving thousands of dollars. VerticalResponse is very intuitive and allows me to control the creative layout, testing, launch, and analysis response metrics at the click of a button,” said Melissa Fass, Director of Marketing at Business Engine, a San Francisco-based enterprise software company specializing in IT portfolio management.

The time and cost savings offered by VerticalResponse have made the company a lot of local friends, even as it’s remained largely in the background.  But not for long.  The desire to capitalize on that goodwill and make VerticalResponse a household name – starting with the 7x7 slice of land the company calls home – is prompting Popick to put the company out front for a change. 

“We’re a company that’s dedicated to helping our clients reach people in the most effective manner possible,” Popick explained. “And if those people are in the Bay Area, we’re even more overjoyed to make ourselves known to them – and to make life easier for them.”

About VerticalResponse

VerticalResponse, Inc. (http://www.verticalresponse.com) is a leading provider of branded experience email and direct marketing services. The company’s self-service and customized marketing solutions empower businesses of all sizes to create, manage and assess their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive Web-based direct marketing solution available. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit www.verticalresponse.com.