• by Staff Writers , August 24, 2006

Once a message lands in an inbox, personalized content and a clear call to action can make all the difference.

Bennett Kuhn Varner, Inc.

The Home Depot

Bennett Kuhn Varner, Inc.: Roxana Shershin, Senior Vice President; Zoe Levine, E-mail Project Manager; Linda Stevens, Senior Strategist; Wayne Pelletier, Creative Director; Jason Dooley, Creative Designer; Kimberly Coburn, Copywriter

The Home Depot: Shera Shrago, E-mail Project Manager; Julie Whitney, Marketing Manager; Andrew Knight, User Experience Manager

ExactTarget: Sarah Hatch, Account Manager; Morgan Stewart, Director of Strategic Services

The Home Depot wins points for an e-mail campaign custom-designed to promote interaction with recent online purchasers  and build the stock of customer product reviews it began publishing on its Web site in May. That's also the month the company began sending out e-mails with a subject line that read, "Review your recent purchase and you could win a $1,000 gift card." Each e-mail included an image and specific product information.

In the project's first incarnation, custom e-mails were sent to 52,258 customers and performed well above typical promotional e-mails due to their specific past-purchaser targeting. They generated a 49.2 percent open rate and a 28.1 percent click-through rate (of delivered e-mails), while the click-through rate of opens was an impressive 57.1 percent. The campaign also generated further product purchases. It's now considered one of the most successful of The Home Depot's e-mail programs and continues on a biweekly basis.

CRN International

CRN International/Mediarology

Jane Garcin, Director of Marketing and Communications; Cheryl Elliott, Multimedia Designer

"It's Hurricane Season!" trumpets the copy in this B2B campaign created by CRN International  a message cleverly reinforced with rich media showing pouring rain, swirling air pockets, and flashes of lightning, embedded into the sides and top of the e-mail. The message is a natural lead-in to the product that CRN International is promoting  Mediarology, a weather-based media service that delivers radio-based reports with a brand message and a call to action, reaching consumers right before an approaching storm.

Recipients of the e-mail can also click to hear a sample radio broadcast: a weather report touting the warming benefits of Campbell's Soup prior to snowfall.

Click here to view CRN Internationa's brief.

Spunlogic

InterContinental Hotels Group/ Hotel Indigo

Jennifer Harrison, Director of Marketing; Amy Griswold, Project Manager; Shannon Delaney, Account Manager; Bryan Gonzales, Designer

Spunlogic created an e-mail that successfully mirrored the qualities of the brand it was promoting, as well as introducing recipients to podcasts that furthered the brand experience. The interior design of Hotel Indigo, the newest member of the InterContinental Hotels Group, was developed to foster a spa-like atmosphere and guest relaxation  so the e-mails sent out to potential guests featured a message in haiku that led recipients to a hotel podcast of relaxing seasonal music. The e-mail generated an open rate of 38 percent, a click-through of 32 percent, and an extremely large group 

80 percent of unique clickers  who initiated the download of the podcast.

Click here to view Spunlogic's brief.

For more information about the OMMA Awards ceremony go here.