Digital News South Africa

Partnership to boost email campaign standards in SA

Cape Town-based multi-channel digital communications company Grapevine Interactive has partnered with Silverpop, an email marketing solutions provider, to bring the Atlanta-based company's solutions to the local market. The partnership will enhance Grapevine's existing range of corporate messaging products, which include multi-channel communication services across email, sms, fax and web.

Silverpop has won various industry awards for its feature-rich content and business value. In 2005 it was ranked by global research house JupiterResearch as having the highest business value (for the second year in succession) and richest feature set. The company has also been ranked among the top five email service providers worldwide for three years in a row. Silverpop also has an international track record of success with marquee clients such as Fossil, British Sky Broadcasting, Weather.com, Golfsmith and others.

Commenting on the decision to partner with Silverpop, Carl Karusseit, head of email marketing at Grapevine, says, "The SA market has grown more sophisticated in its approach to email campaigns, and it had become clear that existing offerings do not meet marketers' requirements for accurate metrics to gauge the effectiveness of email campaigns."

No longer "spray and pray"

"Email marketing is no longer a 'spray and pray' process and spamming is not acceptable. Companies want to effectively target groups who have given their permission with rich email functionality, and one of the key requirements missing to-date is accurate feedback concerning campaign effectiveness and automated list management for their campaigns," he adds.

Karusseit continues, "What makes Silverpop particularly powerful to professional marketers is its comprehensive range of reports, which allow campaigns to be properly measured for results, thereby enabling marketers to fine-tune future campaigns for better targeting."

Commenting on email effectiveness overall, Karusseit concludes, "Companies integrating email into their overall marketing program should evaluate vendor solutions carefully, not only for the depth of application features such as list management, campaign execution and measurability, but also for the overall usability of the application. We believe this solution to be the best in all respects."

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