News & Events

StrongMail Systems Introduces World's Most Powerful Email Marketing System... in a Box

StrongMail Email Marketing Edition Combines Easy-to-Use Campaign Management with an Advanced Technology Platform for Better Control, Delivery and Bottom Line Results

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.-October 17, 2005 - StrongMail Systems, the innovation leader in email infrastructure software, today announced the availability of StrongMail Email Marketing Edition, the first complete, fully integrated turnkey solution for email marketing. StrongMail Email Marketing Edition, available as an appliance or software, combines easy-to-use campaign management with the power of StrongMail's flagship email application server to create, deliver and manage email communications.

StrongMail asserts that the Email Marketing Edition provides the highest return on investment and lowest total cost of ownership of any product on the market, and is backing the introduction of its new product with an unconditional guarantee to improve conversion rates within 30 days.

Email is the glue that holds online communication and commerce together. It's already proven itself to be the most powerful tool in the marketer's arsenal, and email marketing is projected to grow at annual rate of up to 30 percent over the next several years. However, the email marketing environment is tough and getting tougher. Today's email marketers face a myriad of complex challenges, including 25 percent non-delivery of legitimate email and 33 percent email address churn every year. In addition, new regulations, authentication protocols and industry standards are introducing even more complexity.

The systems that support email marketing at most enterprises and service providers were never intended for this kind of usage or complexity. They are based on 25 year old technology, and have been cobbled together using freeware, custom code and disconnected components. They cannot scale or respond to the ever-changing email environment. In a very real sense, email marketing systems across the industry are broken.

Today's Email Systems are Failing
For many marketers, their email systems are failing them today. Email marketers find it difficult or impossible to access the data required for targeting or the content for personalized, relevant messaging. They experience system meltdowns or poor sending performance that degrade on-time delivery. Poor email deliverability undermines their results and reputation, and they lack the visibility to even know what is happening or how to correct it. Finally, email marketers cannot quickly and easily integrate data back into their business applications to meet regulatory requirements and customer expectations, or improve the performance of their own campaigns.

All of these problems have bottom line consequences and "break" the direct marketing revenue model. Unlike package software products that ride on top of existing broken infrastructure, StrongMail Email Marketing Edition is built on StrongMail's advanced technology platform and fixes these problems once and for all. That is what empowers marketers to unlock the true potential of email in their campaigns, achieve a better bottom line today and future-proof it for tomorrow.

According to Sam Cece, CEO of StrongMail Systems, "While it is commonly acknowledged that email is the killer application of the Internet, the infrastructure designed to support it has been ignored for far too long. We created the StrongMail Email Marketing Edition to free marketers from the frustrations of dealing with archaic, under-performing systems that offer little visibility or control. StrongMail provides a solution that puts them back in control with the power to create and deliver compelling email campaigns that drive revenue, retain customers and reduce costs."

FOX Sports Interactive Improves Effectiveness of Email Marketing Programs
Long-standing StrongMail customer, Andrew Hossom, Vice President, Marketing for FOX Sports Interactive, agrees. "StrongMail is the ultimate solution for email marketers," said Hossom. "By enabling us to tightly integrate all of our systems and optimize our workflows, we've been able to lower the cost of our email marketing programs by 60 percent while improving their effectiveness, dramatically improving delivery and doubling open rates. Most important, we can now be more responsive to editorial and business needs in driving our number one goal: increasing viewership and ratings for FOX Sports Interactive."

"Now with our recent purchase of the StrongMail Email Marketing Edition," Hossom continues, "we expect to take another quantum leap forward with this new product's intuitive campaign management and powerful, unique features, like smart bounce reporting and live updates to ensure delivery success."

Frank Addante, Founder of StrongMail Systems, provides an additional perspective, "Email marketing can be a tough business and is likely to get much tougher for those who lack the right technology. What we've done with StrongMail Email Marketing Edition is put everything marketers need for successful email campaigns in a box. Literally. StrongMail makes sure all the plumbing works so marketers can do what they do best: use email to drive bottom line results."

StrongMail Empowers Marketers to Unlock the Potential of Email
The StrongMail Email Marketing Edition combines intuitive campaign management, effortless content creation, advanced data segmentation and targeting, real time data integration, detailed visibility and reporting with StrongMail's market proven email delivery platform to provide marketers with both total control over campaign creation and the power to deliver it.

With the easy-to-use and install appliance version of the StrongMail Email Marketing Edition, marketers can be sending the kind of highly targeted, personalized email campaigns that drive results in under an hour - all without arbitrary lead times or dependencies on others.

Features of StrongMail Email Marketing Edition include:

• Sophisticated Campaign Management-controls the email marketing process throughout the organization with flexible sharing and role management. Campaigns can be launched immediately or scheduled for when they will generate the best results.
  
  
• Effortless Content Creation-enables marketers to quickly and easily create and edit tailored messages with dynamically selected content and personalized one-to-one communications. Before launch, delivery assurance tools can be used to identify and fix potential content issues that might risk delivery. Campaigns can also be verified as CAN SPAM compliant.
  
  
• Advanced Data Segmentation and Targeting-creates one-time, recurring and event-triggered campaigns and sends targeted messages based on user-defined market segments and demographic and behavioral data drawn from multiple sources. Libraries of suppression and seed lists can be created and applied.
  
  
• Workflow Collaboration and Security-ensures collaboration across multiple organizations, divisions and business units with access permissions appropriate to different user roles and responsibilities.
  
  
• Real Time Visibility and Actionable Reporting-provides 100 percent visibility into all aspects and levels of campaign performance. Users can access standard reports that highlight key campaign metrics or create custom reports on any element to identify the key drivers of success. Delivery can be tracked down to the folder in which the email was placed. Failure can be granularly analyzed by specific reason and domain with intuitive drilldowns and help screens to diagnose problems and improve results.
  
  
• Real-Time Data Integration and Control-taps existing data assets from most any database for simple segmentation and personalization. Smart bounce management and address hygiene helps keep databases clean and current.
  
  
• Intelligent Infrastructure-delivers performance, availability, manageability and security. Patent-pending AMP Technology (Asynchronous Memory-based processing) enables millions of emails an hour to be sent. Other unique features include: service oriented architecture (SOA) for seamless integration with enterprise applications; Live Updates for up-to-date compliance with ever-changing ISP and corporate anti-spam and bounce rules; and, built-in authentication protocols and reputation tags for higher email delivery rates.
  
  

Pricing and Availability
StrongMail Email Marketing Edition is available today as an appliance or software. Pricing for the turn-key version starts at $15,000 and varies depending on desired through-put performance, format (software or appliance) and number of users. There are no CPM charges or hidden fees. Solutions designed to integrate with existing CRM systems and to support multiple organizations are also available. For more information, contact StrongMail Systems at 1-800-971-0380, info@strongmail.com, or see us at the DMA-05 Conference & Exhibition, Booth 1462.

About StrongMail Systems, Inc.

StrongMail Systems, the innovation leader in email infrastructure software, is the only company that has solved the email challenge at its core, thereby empowering businesses to fix, enhance and extend their email communications. StrongMail Systems has pioneered the email application server - the industry's first complete, fully integrated infrastructure solution for outbound email. Companies use StrongMail software to email-enable disparate business assets, and deliver marketing messages, order confirmations, and other transactional communications seamlessly and in real-time. StrongMail is application agnostic and easily integrates with CRM, e-commerce and financial applications, as well as custom developed solutions to unlock the potential of email for enterprises, service providers and ISV's. Founded in 2002, StrongMail Systems is privately held and funded by Globespan Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital and Evercore Ventures. The Company is headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA, and can be found on the Web at www.strongmail.com.

Contact

Schwartz Communications for StrongMail Systems, Inc.
Dara Sklar or Christine Wright
415-512-0770
strongmail@schwartz-pr.com>