People's Choice Award: Best in Email
The Email Experience Council created the People's Choice Award to recognize an individual or company that has created an email campaign or program that demonstrates the full power of email marketing. Chosen by the members of the eec, the winner provides further evidence of email marketing’s unsurpassed return on investment and provides inspiration to others seeking to elevate the performance of their own programs.
The winner receives free admission to the Email Evolution Conference, where the winner is announced each February. Each year's winner is also placed into the semi-finals of the Direct Marketing Association’s International ECHO Awards. The Oscar of direct marketing and a much sought-after industry honor, the ECHO is the only comprehensive international direct marketing award recognizing excellence in strategy, creativity and results.
Our past winners and finalists have set the bar high for this competition, exhibiting admirable creativity and enviable results. If you have run a campaign or implemented an email program that matches up well against those entries, then we'd love to see you compete for our next People's Choice Award.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUBMITTED AN ENTRY.
Entry Guidelines and Deadlines
The eec is no longer accepting entries for 2009.
Each year the members of the eec will select the winner from among the People's Choice Award finalists, which are determined by the eec’s leadership and announced in mid-January. The winner is announced and presented with an award at the eec's 2009 Email Evolution Conference.
2009 winner and finalists
The 2009 People’s Choice Award was presented at the Email Evolution Conference on February 11, 2009 at a luncheon sponsored by Listrak.
THE WINNER: REI
Working with Smith-Harmon, REI created a campaign that started a dialog with its members as well as leveraged membership data to increase relevancy in customer communications. The emails contained clear calls to learn more about the outdoors apparel and gear retailer as well as inspiring messaging encourage new members to take part in the REI community through stewardship, outdoor clinics, gear reviews and more. The campaign is still running so metrics are not available, however the response thus far has been incredible.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
THE OTHER FOUR FINALISTS:
Borders: Working with Experian CheetahMail, Borders launched an email campaign to announce their brand new ecommerce website, www.borders.com. The primary goal of the campaign was to drive traffic to the new site. Borders chose a small sample of their subscribers to test two very different creative treatments of the announcement and five subject lines. In the period just after the launch of the email campaign, online sales doubled.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
Chuck E. Cheese: Working with BlueHornet, Chuck E. Cheese launched an email campaign with a primary goal of driving in-store traffic. The emails had a consistent template layout, allowing busy parents to quickly access the information that would be most helpful to them, including coupons, news and updates. Dynamic coupons in welcome emails and monthly emails generated a 74% lift in CEC revenue in 2008.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
Crutchfield: To target their vast audience with relevant product offerings and information, Crutchfield developed an email template that can be customized for each of its recipients with custom-tailored product picks without individual coding. After extensive testing against a control group, the targeted emails saw an increase in open rates and responses and a decrease in unsubscribes.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
Sony: Working with Epsilon, Sony launched the New Buyers campaign to introduce Sony and its offerings to those who had recently made a purchase via the Sony Style website. These messages were relevant to the recipient’s recent purchase and were intended to make the recipient a brand enthusiast by introducing them to Sony’s wide array of products and services. They also presented an opportunity to cross-sell and up-sell. The campaign saw open rates that were more than double the Sony average while click-through rates were eight times higher than the regular marketing messages.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
2008 winner and finalists
The 2008 People's Choice Award was presented at the Email Evolution Conference on Feb. 13, 2008, at a luncheon sponsored by Merkle.
THE WINNER: Wacom
Working with eROI, the manufacturer of pen tablets, interactive pen displays and digital interface solutions created an email campaign that ran for 12 consecutive days, with each day highlighting a different month of calendar artwork created using their products by up-and-coming artists. The emails invited subscribers to download the calendar as well as upload their own art to Wacom’s site, where the community could vote on their favorite, which would win a Cintiq 12WX tablet. Over the first six days of the campaign, more than 33,000 new visitors went to Wacom’s site and more than 1,300 works of art were uploaded.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
> View supporting materials: Wacom-Power_of_the_Pens-Intro_email.jpg, Wacom-Power-of-the-Pens-Feb_email.jpg
> View the press release: Wacom and eROI Win Email Experience Council's Email Performance Award
THE OTHER FOUR FINALISTS:
Accor: Working with Neolane, the global hotel operator implemented a new email system that allowed them to personalize email content based on customer preferences, behavioral data, financial data, booking history and other factors—and do it on a grand scale. In fact, Accor expected to generate more than 50 million dynamically personalized emails by the end of 2007. With better technology and better targeting, Accor was able to reduce its marketing expenses by nearly $500,000 and still generate higher revenues.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
AOL: To address the subpar results of a major advertiser, the internet service provider developed AOL Real Time Mail, an email delivery system that is triggered when a user logs into AOL’s email system. Abandoning batch deliveries allowed the advertiser to target only those accounts that were routinely checked and to make adjustments to the campaign messaging or creative on the fly, among other benefits. As a result, the advertiser’s cost per acquisition fell from $317 to $74.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
Genentech, Inc.: Working with DKI Direct, the biotech company created an email campaign to support its RISE Support online patient relationship marketing program, which seeks to build awareness of rheumatoid arthritis and Rituxan, Genentech’s RA drug. The campaign targets three different segments of the RA market with a strong segmentation strategy and tailored content. Since the launch on March 28, 2007, the RISE Support ePRM program has successfully generated 23,783 enrollments through October, 2007, which exceeds the original online acquisition goal for the year by 18%.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
REI: Working with Smith-Harmon, the outdoors apparel and gear retailer redesigned its July 7 “Summer Shoes Gearmail” email, implementing a range of best practices to optimize for viewing in preview panes, to improve readability, and to make calls-to-action more prominent. For the redesigned email, the unique click-through rate rose 22%, unique traffic to target specialty shop rose 90%, and revenue per email rose 11%. Because of the strength of the results of this creative test, REI moved forward with an entire suite of redesigned, maximized email creative templates in time for the critical fourth-quarter period.
> For all the details and results, view their nomination form.
> View supporting materials: REI-New_CreativeChanges.jpg, REI-New_Creative.jpg, REI-Legacy_Creative.jpg, REI-New_PreviewPane.jpg, REI-Legacy_PreviewPane.jpg
We'd like to thank all those organizations that submitted nominations. They made it very difficult to narrow the field down to our five finalists, including our eventual winner. We were thrilled to see such high quality efforts throughout the email community.
the latest
member initiatives
Apr. 29, 2009: eec/DMA/FTC Webinar: New FTC, New Rules? Update Your Email & Digital Strategy. Get the recording.
Mar. 2009: The Email Design Roundtable releases Email Program Review Checklist, the latest in the series of Email Checklists.
Feb. 2009: The eec & the DMA release the International Email Compliance Resource Guide.
Jan. 2009: The Email Design Roundtable releases Creative A/B Testing Checklist, the latest in the series of Email Checklists.
Nov. 12, 2008: The Email Design Roundtable releases the Landing Page Checklist, the latest in the series of Email Checklists. Also read Always Have Smooth Landings with the Landing Page Checklist, which talks about the new checklist and shares landing page advice.
Oct. 1, 2008: The Member Initiatives Advisory Committee releases a list of Email Marketing Q&A's. Read the press release.
Sept. 30, 2008: The Consumer Education Roundtable releases a strategy brief on their plan to build a website that educates consumers about how to have a positive experience with email. Read about the roundtable's plans.
Aug. 28, 2008: The Deliverability & Rendering Roundtable releases "How to Revive a Stale Email List," a reportlet that lays out step-by-step how to salvage stale lists and actively prune lists before too many inactives build up. Read about what happens if you don't keep a clean list.
Aug. 13, 2008: The Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee officially launches the eec Speakers Bureau, which aims to reach out to new email marketing practitioners. Read the press release.
Aug. 12, 2008: The Email Design Roundtable releases the Welcome Email Checklist, the latest in the series of Email Checklists. Also read Put Your Welcome Message to Work with the Welcome Message Checklist, which is a discussion of some of the best and worst welcome emails seen by members of the Email Design Roundtable.
June 23, 2008: The Email Design Roundtable kicks off a series of Email Checklists with the Code QA Testing Checklist and the Email Design Checklist. Also read Email Design Checklists Save the Day: Avoiding Common Pitfalls, which is a discussion of common design mistakes that these checklists are designed to catch.
June 3, 2008: The eec's Nonprofit Project releases a case study on their work with the Women's Bean Project. Download the Women's Bean Project Case Study for free from the Whitepaper Room.
May 21, 2008: The Advocacy Roundtable publishes the latest post in its Email Advocate blog series, discussing the new rule provisions released for the CAN-SPAM Act last week.
May 15, 2008: The Communications Roundtable launches the Speakers Bureau, which matches eec members up with speaking opportunities at events that currently have little or no programming about email marketing. The Bureau is dedicated to spreading fundamental best practices by proactively reaching out to communities where our message of responsible, permission-based email marketing can do the most good. Read about the launch.
May 12, 2008: The eec's Nonprofit Project shares a recap of their work with the Women's Bean Project. Read How Email Impacts Society.
Apr. 3, 2008: The List Growth & Engagement Roundtable shares the takeaways from their latest meeting discussion, which involved tackling the list growth challenge of how to deal with lapsed subscribers. Read List Growth Challenge: Lapsed Subscribers.
Feb. 27, 2008: The Clients-Only Roundtable shares notes from a recent meeting where they discussed what kept them up at night. The Roundtable's chair, Brian Ellefritz of Cisco Systems, said, "We hope the vendor and agency side is listening because what we said—and heard—speaks volumes for unmet needs." Read Notes from the Client Side.
Feb. 22, 2008: The Advocacy Roundtable publishes the latest post in its Email Advocate blog series, discussing the use of the CAN-SPAM Act against a Las Vegas-based company peddling HGH via email.
Feb. 12, 2008: The List Growth & Engagement Roundtable releases an interactive Excel calculator to help retailers measure the ROI of their acquisition and retention email mailings, including deployment costs, list growth calculations, and more. See a sample of the ROI Calculator for Retailers or visit the Whitepaper Room to download it. The calculator is $49 for non-members, discounted for silver and gold members, and free to platinum members. (Learn more about membership.)
Jan. 30, 2008: The Advocacy Roundtable publishes the latest post in its Email Advocate blog series, addressing the status of the FTC’s CAN-SPAM rulemaking and whether the agency is going to reduce the opt-out timeframe.
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