Every year as part of our annual customer conference we host the Silverpop Pop Star Awards, a friendly competition among our clients that typically serves to amaze us with all the cool ways they’ve taken their digital marketing programs to the next level. This year was absolutely no exception.

With more than 75 nominations, our customers made it incredibly difficult to pick winners across our 10 categories. Below are some of my favorites from this year:

MOST POPULAR POP STAR: space150 on behalf of its client Dairy Queen
Awarded for: The best use of social in an email

Why They Won: Dairy Queen challenged its agency, space150, to grow its email database while increasing coupon prints. Space150 determined that without budget for paid acquisition, the best way to do this was to utilize social media.

Using Silverpop’s Share-to-Social feature and Facebook’s “Like” button, space150 launched a campaign around the Blizzard of the Month that increased new Blizzard Fan Club members by nearly 400,000 — a 37 percent increase over the program goal — and resulted in a record 412,000 coupons printed, which was 33 percent above the campaign goal.

More on space 150 and Dairy Queen:

• Case Study: “American Dairy Queen drives fan club membership, boosts store traffic and increases customer satisfaction”
• Blog: “5 Questions: Jamie Guse of Dairy Queen on Social Media, Loyalty Programs”
• Incentive Magazine article: “Dairy Queen Uses Social Incentives to Boost Fan Base”

MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED POP STAR: YouSendIt
Awarded for: The best email program ROI

Why It Won: The YouSendIt email program resulted in more than a million dollars in bookings last year alone, netting an incredible ROI on its email investment. YouSendIt recently presented at Silverpop Amplify on the topic of “Cart Abandonment: From Zero to 60 in 45 days,” where it described the process of setting up a cart abandonment campaign in less than two months that’s netted a 12.65 percent conversion rate. Bravo YouSendIt!

BEST DRESSED POP STAR: King Arthur Flour
Awarded for: The best email program ROI

Why It Won: King Arthur Flour maintains an aggressive email schedule, with year-round deadlines, yet each email is built using compelling imagery designed to entice its enthusiastic “foodie” audience to get into the kitchen.

Exhibit A? King Arthur Flour’s spring campaign featuring delectable cherry cupcakes:

According to Ben Adams, King Arthur Flour’s Web designer, “Each mailing