• by Staff Writers , October 10, 2007

These marketers deployed quality content and targeted distribution to convince consumers to open the messages in their in-boxes.

MindComet Corporation

Skyy Spirits

Mindcomet: Jenni Star, Lead Designer; Scott Allen, Art Director; Lea Loya, Project Manager. Skyy: Alyssa Martin, Director of Marketing; Kelly Sventy, Brand Manager.

Skyy Spirits was looking to promote X-Rated Fusion Liqueur by highlighting it as a fun, mix-with-anything adult beverage. The primary target was professional women. Skyy did not have a list of confirmed e-mail addresses and needed to grow a database.

A Skyy Web site was created with two locations to collect e-mail addresses. The audience was introduced to the site and a companion sweepstakes through e-mails sent in cooperation with InStyle and online ad buys with Lucky, Oxygen, and PinkIsTheNewBlog.com. Within one month, Skyy garnered 774 double opted-in subscribers, and launched the "Drink Pink Weekly" e-mail newsletter that included a sweepstakes winner announcement, a new user-submitted drink recipe, pink party tips, and a link to enter the next week's sweepstakes.

"Drink Pink Weekly" realized open rates as high as 47.97 percent and click-through rates of 52.04 percent, which directly related to the sweepstakes registration link in the e-mail message. After 18 weeks, the double opt-in subscriber base had grown by over 200 percent and continues to grow today.

StarLink Worldwide

American Medical Association

StarLink: Vickie Szombathy, Vice President, Director; Stephen Carlson, Associate Director; Laura Voticke, Senior Buyer. American Medical Association: Catharine Hamrick, Vice President, Integrated Brand Management; Mike Lynch, Vice President, External Communications.

U.S. News & World Report: Paul Kissane, Vice President, Midwest Advertising Director.

This program hinged on the insight that in today's digital world physicians fear falling behind their patients in the news game. By partnering with U.S. News and World Report, the American Medical Association was able to align itself with trusted content that kept AMA doctors informed every morning through a carefully created, health-specific e-mail program with content distilled from more than 3,000 major news sources. This was exclusively negotiated in addition to a print agreement, and was offered as a free benefit to member doctors.

In post-launch research, 75 percent of respondents said Morning Rounds adds value to AMA membership. Half the respondents' attitudes toward the AMA improved as a result of receiving it. Early membership renewals are up 3 percent, representing the potential for millions of dollars for the AMA.

Yesmail

DEWALT

DEWALT: Brian Frederick, E-marketing Manager.

Yesmail: Matt Caldwell, Creative Director; Tarik Hart, Account Director.

The DEWALT Racing newsletter is a weekly e-mail message sent to a highly-targeted audience of about 50,000 NASCAR enthusiasts. It requires a fast turnaround so subscribers can receive updates each Monday of weekend race happenings and news about upcoming events.

The newsletter required a new design that was more streamlined and easily scanned by readers, while taking advantage of the opportunity to drive awareness around DEWALT products, and encouraging subscriber engagement through online cross-selling and promotions. The new sectional newsletter takes about half the time to change out content and graphical assets, and allows for easy swapping of promoted products, which are confined to the bottom 20 percent of the newsletter so as to not overwhelm readers.

The new DEWALT Racing newsletter is a success. It continues to generate more than twice the response rate of untargeted campaigns.