Verticalresponse Wins Blog Of The Year In 3rd Annual STEVIE® AWARDS For Women In Business

Second Award This Year Recognizing Janine Popick’s Blog

San Francisco, CA – March 8, 2007 –VerticalResponse's "Email Marketing Blog," penned by CEO and Chief Executive Blogger Janine Popick, won Blog of the Year in the 2006 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, presented last week.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, and the companies they run – worldwide.  The Stevie Awards have been hailed as "the business world's own Oscars" (New York Post, April 27, 2005).

Nicknamed the Stevies for the Greek word "crowned," winners were announced during ceremonies at New York's Marriott Marquis Hotel.  More than 180 nominated women executives and entrepreneurs from the U.S. and several other countries attended.

Winning the Stevie, Popick's blog was included with other finalists including "The Budget Fashionista" and  "eMoms at Home."  Janine was also named a finalist in the "Entrepreneur of the Year" category, and the email and direct mail marketing firm she heads was honored as a finalist in two additional categories: the "Best Overall Company of the Year" and "Fastest-Growing Company."

"We've built VerticalResponse to help businesses communicate with their target audiences easily and effectively, from traditional direct mail to e-mail marketing," said Popick.  "Blogging is another step. Our newsletter has become the "teaser" for our blog posts, letting our users know that we've updated the information on our blog.

Winning the Stevie Blog of the Year Award of 2006 caps a stellar year for Popick's company. In 2006, VerticalResponse:

• placed #402 on the Inc. 500 list, which ranks the fastest-growing private companies in the country;
• received two 2006 WebAwards from the prestigious Web Marketing Association (WMA), for Email Standard of Excellence and Marketing Standards of Excellence;
• won the ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards for Best E-Newsletter Product/Service and Best Business/Marketing Blog.
• placed #37 on the San Francisco Business Times List of "Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies"

In addition to her now award-winning blog on the VerticalResponse website at http://blog.verticalresponse.com, Popick also regularly writes a column for the Inc.com website Resource Center for Women in Business.

"The team at VerticalResponse is thrilled that Janine's blog was recognized as the best of the year by the Stevie Awards," said Josh Feinberg, VP of Product Managementof VerticalReponse. "We all work hard to maintain the highest standard of customer service and communication, so her commitment to sharing best practices, industry news and other insight with our customers is a great value-add.  It is very satisfying to see us recognized by the top business leaders and members of the business media that served as judges on the distinguished Stevie Award panel."

Members of the Awards' Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors and their staffs selected Stevie winners from among the Finalists.   Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging last fall.

The elegant Stevie trophy was designed by R. S. Owens, the same company that makes the Oscar® and the Emmy.

Details about The Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Finalists and Stevie Award winners are available at www.stevieawards.com/women. 

About VerticalResponse

VerticalResponse, Inc. is a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail services empowering businesses of all sizes to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About The Stevie Awards

Hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” by the New York Post (April 27, 2005), Stevie Awards are conferred in four programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, The Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Selling Power Sales Excellence Awards.  Honoring companies of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide.  Learn more about The Stevie Awards at www.stevieawards.com.