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A brief description of each winning campaign follows:

Sony's Email and Pinterest Collaboration (Best Email Innovation, Gold Award) - "One of the most rewarding parts of working with MarketingSherpa is seeing just how creative marketers can become when integrating email tactics with an ever-growing slate of interactive social media elements," the lead judge wrote. "When Sony Electronics submitted an integrated email/Pinterest campaign, we took notice. And, when we saw results that included open rates that were 67 percent above goal -- some of the highest ever for the company -- we appreciated this campaign all the more. In the end, Sony Electronics' email and Pinterest campaign was a perfect launch point to create a highly visual, engaging way to promote Sony's innovative product line, both for this campaign, and in those to come." When Sony launched its Pinterest boards on the social media network, Sony needed to build awareness and attract followers there -- since engaged consumers buy. As one example among Sony brands, VAIO tapped Pinterest for its "Summer Line-up Product Launch," and used emails to prime its VAIO customers to "pin it" -- meaning the product -- on Pinterest, using a linkable button in the email. While Sony had had a Pinterest page for 5 months, the dedicated Pinterest email effort doubled the number of Sony Pinterest subscribers right as the email campaign rolled out. Further engagement milestones were achieved, among them: the highest open rates for Sony Electronics ever achieved, 67 percent above goal; a click-through rate that was 16 percent above goal; a resend to non-responders that further grew followers by 15 percent; and thousands of new click-throughs to both Pinterest and Sony's e-commerce site each month, creating a virtuous cycle.

Sony's Black Friday-Cyber Monday 2011 Campaign (Silver Award) - "This campaign was notable for how it achieved success during the very competitive (and often cluttered) Black Friday/Cyber Monday retail sales/promotion period. This multi-touch email campaign built momentum and increased urgency," the lead judge reported in the entry announcement. The email initiative was viewed as a huge success: revenue per email delivered for Black Friday far exceeded expectations at 174 percent of goal; for Cyber Monday, revenue per email delivered nearly doubled goal at a whopping 191 percent; and, overall revenue from the week-long campaign was up more than 53% from 2010. The timing and content strategy which drove these results were built with known consumer behaviors in mind, based on prior year's successful campaign analysis.

Sony's New Buyer Dynamic Content Trigger Program (Best Triggered Email or Auto-Responder Series, Honorable Mention) - "Understanding that existing customers are our best customers, this campaign starts after a purchase has been made and provide relevant content and drives customer engagement," the lead judge wrote. "The campaign condensed a 72-static trigger email program into three dynamic email templates. The use of dynamic email templates dramatically reduces the time needed to maintain the triggered campaign, allowing the marketing team to spend time on developing new content, expanding the program and testing new tactics to drive results." While the Sony post-sale trigger communication stream has a history of strong results, the migration to a dynamic program has allowed Sony to provide the newest and most relevant content to its customers, which has increased customer engagement: the open rates on Sony post-sale triggers have remained at their historically high average of 70 percent; however, the biggest achievement of the new dynamic trigger program was the increased click rate -- up 22 percent from the previous year.

For a full description of these campaigns, as well as the listing of all 2013 Marketing Sherpa Email Award winners, go to: http://www.meclabs.com/training/marketing-summit/email-summit-2013/awards

The Marketing Sherpa Email Award winners are determined by a panel of five marketing experts, using a collaborative, multi-step procedure to identify the campaigns that have the most merit and innovation. The winners will be showcased during the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2013, February 19-22, in Las Vegas, NV.

About Harte-Hanks®
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The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks is a full-service, omnichannel customer engagement agency specializing in direct and digital communications. With award-winning strategy, creative and implementation services, The Agency Inside helps marketers within targeted industries understand, identify, and engage prospects and customers in their channel of choice. Recognized and respected as a market leader for many decades, it is our mission to deploy world-class, insight-driven, multichannel relationship marketing programs that address each client's acquisition, cross-sell, retention and loyalty needs.

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