VerticalResponse Summer Release Makes Marketing Even Easier

Broad Range of New Layouts and Several Feature Upgrades Take on More of the Work

User Feedback and an Ongoing Quest to Provide Customers with Intuitive, Easy-to-Use Online Marketing Tools Result in Hundreds of Changes – Released Today

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Aug 12, 2008 -- VerticalResponse, the leading provider of self-service email marketing, survey and direct mail solutions, has worked through the summer to develop a full set of upgrades and themed layouts to make using its suite of tools even easier for small businesses. VerticalResponse’s services in email marketing, direct mail postcards, surveys, and Salesforce.com integration already provide small businesses and nonprofits with everything they need to create a successful marketing campaign - from one easily navigated website. The Summer Release adds 60 new themed layouts and other timesaving tricks to further refine marketing programs and make small businesses look like they have the budgets and designers of much bigger competitors.

“We’re constantly working to build extra value for our small business and nonprofit customers, knowing they’re often short on the time and money their bigger competitors spend on marketing,” said Janine Popick, CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. “We regularly receive feedback from our VR Lounge, our blog and Facebook group, and directly to our customer service team. Combined with our own obsessive attention to detail, we’ve added a ton of tricks and tools that will give small businesses even more flexibility to help them succeed in this down economy.”

The first major upgrade is the addition of 60 themed layouts that allow businesses of every type to take advantage of best practices – from holiday promotions to special events and more – without doing any extra design work. Among the themes users will see:

Holiday and Seasonal
Food and Beverage
Retail
Invitations (Parties, Open House, Graduation, etc.)
Newsletters
Education
Travel and Tourism
Business
Health
Spa and Salon
Spanish Language

The rest of the upgrades take best practices VerticalResponse has observed among its 45,000 customers’ most successful campaigns and makes them simple to execute for even the most novice marketer.

Content / Design

The Email Canvas Editor features additional in-line help, including descriptions of each function of the product, hints and tips, and a How to Do Everything guide.
Customers can now find over 100 short video tutorials throughout the product.

Best Practices

The new Subject Line Counter makes it easy to keep subject lines short and snappy, but counting down the max recommended 50 characters.
Mandatory unsubscribe links can be inserted in Portuguese, German, French and Spanish Added alternate merge field functionality lets users easily substitute generic text when a field in their database is missing information. For example, for many businesses who lack full information on their recipients, VR now makes it easy for them to replace a recipient’s first name with “Valued Customer” automatically.
The default freeform HTML limit has been increased to 45KB.

Account Management

Anything in an account – from sent emails to postcards or surveys – can easily be renamed in the event that customers have changing campaign names.
The VR Home tab lets customers see email campaigns straight from the Actions menu eliminating wasted clicks.

Because many improvements respond to requests from users, or echo best practices established by customers, VerticalResponse has made it even easier for everyone to keep on top of what’s going on in fields relevant to their success, with the new VR Lounge feed, which delivers tips, help and other valuable information directly.

From ongoing product upgrades such as the Summer Release, to offering new educational services, and providing multiple sources for receiving customer feedback, VerticalResponse has worked tirelessly to provide the most comprehensive and affordable product to its customer base since inception. The past year has brought VerticalResponse to new heights as it continues to establish itself as a one-stop marketing resource for small businesses.

This ongoing commitment has resulted in continued growth across the company in 2007 – closing the year with a 54% rise in VerticalResponse's client base (from 22,100 to 34,000), a 34% increase in revenue (from $6.4 million to $8.6 million), and 20 additional employees (from 31 to 51) from the previous year – and 2008 is on track to see even more growth. In addition to the increase in numbers, VerticalResponse has received continued industry recognition, having recently been recognized with the following:

Named Finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards in the “Emerging Growth” category
Stevie® Award for Women for Fastest Growing Company of the Year
Ranked 21 on the Silicon Valley Technology Fast 50, which is a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology firms in the Bay Area
Number 254 Fastest Growing Company in North America on Deloitte’s 2007 Technology Fast 500
Ranked 22 on San Francisco Business Times’ “Top 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies”
Dreamforce Best-in-Show at salesforce.com’s 2nd Annual Appy Awards
Best Overall Company at the American Business Awards and nominations as a finalist in five additional categories
San Francisco Business Times’ list of Best Places to Work in the Bay Area
Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies
Web Marketing Award for Outstanding Achievement in Website Development

About VerticalResponse

VerticalResponse, Inc. (http://www.verticalresponse.com) 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. For additional information, please visit www.verticalresponse.com.