VerticalResponse To Power Self-Service Email Marketing Products For Leading Agencies

21stAZ Marketing, Opus Media, 2Plus2 Partners and Elex Interactive Partner with VerticalResponse to Offer Campaign Management via the Internet

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - July 24, 2001 - VerticalResponse, an emerging leader in self-service email marketing, today announced that four leading direct response and full service agencies have selected its self-service email marketing service iBuilder™ to offer to their clients. VerticalResponse will provide co-branded services for each agency, which will provide these powerful tools to clients who want an affordable, easy-to-use, outsourced solution for creating and managing email marketing campaigns.

"iBuilder is a major step forward in helping agencies provide easy-to-use tools to help their clients grow their businesses while creating additional revenue streams for themselves," said Janine Popick, CEO of VerticalResponse. "Early adoption of iBuilder by such strong agencies is further validation that iBuilder is the emerging standard in self-service email marketing."

Currently, many full-service marketing, advertising, interactive and list management agencies are unable to service their clients email marketing needs and lose that business to competitors. With iBuilder™, agencies can offer email marketing capabilities without purchasing additional hardware or software. Agencies can simply direct their clients to a co-branded Web site to create and manage campaigns via the Internet.

"Adding iBuilder to our capabilities will allow us to give our current and prospective customers self-service email marketing capabilities," said David O. Schwartz, CEO of 21stAZ Marketing, an industry leading direct marketing organization. "iBuilder is the most thoughtfully designed, intuitive and scalable self-service email marketing product available."

"Email marketing is one of the most powerful and least expensive ways for a company to grow their business," said Joe Bryan, Chief Development Officer and Vice President of Opus Media, a leading full-scale, digital professional services firm with a focus on microsite campaign projects for Fortune 1000 and mid-tier corporations. "With iBuilder, our clients will be able to easily create and manage email campaigns without the hassle of purchasing and installing software while creating an additional revenue stream for our agency."

The VerticalResponse Approach: Self-service Email Marketing

VerticalResponse was founded to allow businesses of all sizes, regardless of technical expertise, to affordably communicate and sell directly to their customer base via email. iBuilder™, the backbone of VerticalResponse's self-service offering, guides a business through a Web-based process that drastically reduces the amount of time and money a business spends managing and executing email marketing campaigns.

Launched earlier this year, iBuilder™ is rapidly becoming the self-service email marketing product of choice worldwide. Built on the application service provider model, users can implement email marketing campaigns in minutes with no technical expertise, no hardware to purchase and no software to install.

Availability

iBuilder™ is available now. Agencies interested in signing up for service can log onto verticalresponse.com. VerticalResponse will develop a co-branded version of iBuilder™ for each agency. Their clients may then log onto the co-branded site and create an email campaign. When the client is ready to mail a campaign, the client will purchase email credits directly from their browser using a credit card.

About Vertical Response

Based in San Francisco, VerticalResponse was founded by industry veterans who set out to revolutionize email marketing with affordable, easy-to-use products. iBuilder™, the first product from VerticalResponse, helps companies of all sizes create and execute email campaigns as well as manage customer contact lists. Built on the self-service model, iBuilder™ is available directly over the Internet with no software to purchase, maintain and upgrade. Customers can register on the VerticalResponse site and purchase blocks of email credits online with their credit card.

For more information about VerticalResponse or iBuilder™ log onto www.VerticalResponse.com.