ATLANTA, March 17, 2009 - TMG (Telegraaf Media Groep N.V.) received the gold award for "Best B2C Email Newsletter for Marketing Purposes" at MarketingSherpa's annual Email Summit in Miami yesterday.

TMG is the largest media group in the Netherlands, with market leadership positions in daily newspapers, magazines, online and offline media and radio. And as with many very large corporations, its email marketing program was complex, with millions of addresses spread in silos throughout the enterprise.

With 26 titles and access to more than 4.5 million unique email addresses, the company as a whole sends more than 6 million messages a month. Prior to working with Silverpop, a leading email service provider with offices throughout the U.S. and the U.K., the company had a lot of different suppliers that led to complete mayhem.

"We came to realize the importance of setting up a central database to maximize efficiencies and effectiveness," said Edouard Leeuwenburg, TMG's project manager for email marketing. "Naturally, there was some hesitation on the part of individual owners of customer data in the various divisions within TMG."

In order to convince others of the appropriateness of the project, Leeuwenburg worked the project from the top down and bottom up.

"We showed owners of customer data in various silos throughout the company how easy it was to send emails through a central process," he said. "We showed that by combining all the customer lists and then segmenting to deliver very targeted offers, newsletters could actually generate revenue by incorporating highly successful banner ads and advertorials."

He said that TMG executive management was also quick to see the revenue potential and value of his proposal. They gave a green light to the project to create a sophisticated central database.

"The creation of an enterprise-wide email program requires the smooth integration of various components and the accessibility of sophisticated data systems," said Will Schnabel, vice president of international markets for Silverpop. "A well-designed integrations solution like Silverpop's not only streamlines marketing's day-to-day tasks, but it bolsters the flexibility and segmentation efforts that underlie the entire enterprise email program."

TMG's first centralized emails were sent in early April of 2008. The results of the carefully targeted advertising in emails were significant. Click through rates saw a phenomenal increase of more than 900 percent. And the targeted email newsletters have generated a 94 percent increase in banner ad sales. In fact, the success of the program has led to a significant change in how banner ads in TMG's newsletters are positioned within the company and to advertisers.

"In the past, advertisers would be given free newsletter ads as make-good for Web site ads that didn't achieve the targeted number of clicks," Leeuwenburg said. "Now, because of the tremendous success of the banner ads placed in newsletters offered to highly segmented and well-targeted customer profiles, those spots are no longer given away as make-goods."

Not only has the combined and segmented data base benefited the sale of banner ads, the email program now also drives sales of merchandise from the company's online store.

"Additionally, we not only increased revenue with our very targeted mailings, we lowered costs," Leeuwenburg said. "For example, marketers who manage our BtoC marketing efforts have discovered the power of retention mailings. Because Silverpop is so easy to use, and our database provides rich insights, they're able to reach out to customers more frequently and with less effort."

The successes of highly targeted email campaigns soon won most doubters over. And with the kinds of results TMG is achieving, it's no wonder. The company recently launched a special promotion to encourage people to subscribe to the newspaper. It was the "08/08/08" campaign, offering new subscribers 8 weeks of the paper for just 8 euros. The campaign was offered via targeted newsletters as well as on the company's Web site.

The newsletters generated 650 percent more subscribers than did the Web site. But more importantly, the cost per subscriber from the Web site was 3,900 percent higher than those generated through the email campaign.

About Silverpop
Silverpop's Engagement Marketing suite enables companies worldwide to turn prospects into loyal customers through the creation, automation and delivery of relevant online messaging. Companies rely on the Silverpop Engage platform to execute marketing campaigns that reach millions of individuals-one at a time-enhancing lifetime customer value and brand loyalty. Silverpop's Engage B2B platform seamlessly scores and nurtures sales leads and measures return-on-investment. For more information visit www.silverpop.com.

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