StrongMail, a leading provider of online solutions for email marketing and social media, today announced that Valpak®, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America, was able to improve the deliverability, reliability and effectiveness of its email marketing programs using StrongMail’s solutions and services.
“StrongMail was the clear choice for Valpak, as it provided direct integration with our custom applications, maximum flexibility for supporting future email initiatives, and a no-CPM pricing structure that would save us a lot of money compared to a hosted solution,” said Chris Cate, vice president of information technology and support services at Cox Target Media, Valpak’s parent company. “With StrongMail, our deliverability rates have increased substantially, and we’ve improved send times by a factor of 10.”
Owned and operated by Cox Target Media, Valpak is known for its signature Blue Envelope® product, which delivers savings and coupons to nearly 40 million US and Canadian households each month. Valpak also has a thriving digital advertising solution business via its online site for local savings www.Valpak.com, which generates more than 40 million offer views each month, and its newly launched daily deal product, ValpakDeals.com.
Email is a core component of Valpak’s digital marketing strategy, as millions of consumers have registered at www.Valpak.com to receive email alerts with local offers. Valpak originally relied on a custom-built solution to deliver these critical emails, but as the volumes grew, it struggled with the ability to deliver these messages reliably and in a timely manner. In addition, it was looking to find the resources and expertise to address deliverability issues and keep up with increasingly complex ISP filtering protocols. After evaluating several top-tier email solutions, Valpak decided to standardize its existing and future email marketing programs on StrongMail.
Since switching to StrongMail, Valpak’s deliverability rate has increased to 98 percent, representing an average gain of 10 percentage points. Equally importantly, what used to take multiple days to deliver millions of emails can now be done in two hours. Using StrongMail’s deliverability tools and services, Valpak is able to actively manage its sender reputation and identify and address deliverability issues in real time. Valpak has also increased deliverability and overall efficiency by using StrongMail to automate unsubscribe and bounce management processing.
“Now our deliverability is almost guaranteed,” said Cate. “StrongMail gives us real-time visibility into the deliverability and overall performance of our campaigns, which has been extremely valuable information for optimizing our programs. With StrongMail, we were able to plug it in, turn it on, do some minimal set up, and we haven’t had to look back – that’s one of the biggest advantages.”
“As email has become an increasingly important component to its business, Valpak has made a strategic decision to invest in the right technology that can meet its needs today and in the future,” said Tal Nathan, vice president of client services at StrongMail. “As a strategic partner for Valpak’s email-driven business, StrongMail provides them with the critical technology and services for serving their clients with relevant and timely offers – which is the foundation of its brand.”
About Valpak®
Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America, is owned and operated by Cox Target Media, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Media Group. With approximately 180 franchises throughout the United States and Canada, The Blue Envelope® delivers savings and value to nearly 40 million households each month. Annually, Valpak will distribute some 20 billion offers inserted in more than 500 million envelopes. Valpak also offers digital solutions with www.Valpak.com®, an online site for local savings, which has nearly 40 million offer views each month, as well as mobile phones, including apps for iPhone™, iPod touch®, AndroidTM, Palm® PreTM ,Blackberry®and Windows Phone 7 platforms. For more information, please contact 1-800-676-6878.
Cox Media Group
Cox Media Group, Inc., a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises, is an integrated broadcasting, publishing and digital media company that includes the national advertising rep firms of Cox Reps. With revenues exceeding $1.5 billion, the company operations include 15 broadcast television stations and one local cable channel, 86 radio stations, four metro newspapers and more than a dozen non-daily publications, and more than 100 digital services. Additionally, CMG owns and operates Valpak, one of the leading direct marketing companies in North America. For more information about Cox Media Group, please check us out online at www.coxmediagroup.com.
About StrongMail Systems, Inc.
StrongMail enables marketers to forge meaningful, profitable and long-lasting connections with their customers through email marketing and social media. With our unique combination of technology and services, StrongMail takes a fundamentally different approach that offers many distinct advantages. StrongMail’s dedicated solutions offer the lowest cost of ownership of any tier-one solution and easily connect with customer data for superior relevancy and performance. StrongMail’s email and social CRM agency provides groundbreaking strategic and creative services to help marketers listen, learn, engage and influence best customers. It’s these differences that have led Fortune 2000 brands to switch to StrongMail. Learn more at www.strongmail.com or via the links below.
Newsletters: www.strongmail.com/site/subscribe/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/StrongMail
Twitter: www.twitter.com/StrongMail
Blogs: www.strongmail.com/resources/blogs/
StrongMail Powers Substantial Boost in Email Deliverability and Speed for Valpak | SYS-CON MEDIA.
