Press Release

Family Christian Stores Converts to StrongMail's Dedicated Email Solutions

Leading Specialty Retailer With 300 Stores Nationwide Standardizes Marketing and Transactional Email on StrongMail to Better Serve Customers With Reliable, Relevant and Timely Communications

Redwood City, Calif., August 18, 2009 – StrongMail Systems, Inc., the leading provider of commercial-grade solutions for marketing and transactional email, today announced that Family Christian Stores®, America's leading specialty retailer, is standardizing all of its marketing and transactional email on StrongMail's commercial-grade email platform. Family Christian Stores previously relied on an email service provider but switched to StrongMail to improve the relevancy, reliability and cost of its email campaigns.

Family Christian Stores is the nation's largest retailer of Christian products with over 300 locations and 5,000 employees in 40 states. In addition to its chain of retail stores, Family Christian Stores also sells Christian products and church supplies through its website. In order to keep its customers informed of relevant information, promotions and store events, Family Christian Stores relies heavily on email, resulting in multiple campaigns and millions of emails sent each month.

As the company's email volumes have grown alongside its rapidly expanding customer base, Family Christian Stores began looking to replace its email service provider with an alternative solution that would enable it to keep pace with customer demand and marketplace conditions, while also lowering its costs. After evaluating several solutions, Family Christian Stores quickly determined that StrongMail offered the best solution to meet its needs for increased control, data integration, flexibility and value.

"With StrongMail, we now have the control and data integration necessary to respond quickly to market changes with personalized messages that drive results and customer satisfaction," said Keith Watkins, CIO of Family Christian Stores. "By offering us a complete solution at the right value, StrongMail will enable us to deliver more relevant and cost effective email communications across our multi channel environment."

StrongMail's comprehensive and easy-to-use email marketing application will allow Family Christian Stores to better leverage its customer data to send more relevant information and offers. Equally important, by bringing its email capabilities in-house with a commercial-grade solution, Family Christian Stores now has total control over the timing of its emails and a high-performance delivery engine to get them delivered quickly and reliably. StrongMail's transactional email capabilities will also allow Family Christian Stores to personalize and track the performance of its critical service-based messages.

"Sending relevant messages that demonstrate an understanding and respect for the customer relationship is a key driver of successful campaigns, and that's why leading retailers like Family Christian Stores are turning to StrongMail in record number," said Kristin Hersant, director of corporate marketing at StrongMail. "By allowing companies to reduce their email marketing costs while improving their results, StrongMail continues to see strong demand for our solutions -- particularly from companies transitioning from ESPs and custom-built solutions."

About Family Christian Stores
Family Christian Stores® is America's leading specialty retailer with over 300 locations and over 4,000 employees in 36 states dedicated solely to the $4.3 billion Christian retailing market. Family Christian Stores sells Christian products and church supplies through its chain of stores and via the Internet. Merchandising categories include Bibles, Books, Music, Childrens, Gifts, Apparel, Software, Cards, Church Supplies and DVD's.

About StrongMail Systems, Inc.
StrongMail's marketing and transactional email solutions enable businesses to deliver more relevant, timely and cost-effective messages. StrongMail gives email marketers the control and support they need to improve campaign performance, boost deliverability and lower costs, while also providing IT with superior deliverability and reliability. Combining an easy-to-use email marketing application, high-performance delivery system, and a wide range of deliverability, strategic and supporting services, StrongMail makes it possible for companies with all levels of resources and expertise to take advantage of its proven solutions. Headquartered in Redwood City, CA, StrongMail’s clients include global leaders across virtually every industry. To learn more about StrongMail, please visit www.strongmail.com.

Media Contact
Andrea Cousens
Eastwick Communications
650-480-4019

 

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