VerticalResponse, Inc. and BigContacts Partner to Provide Integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Award-Winning Email Marketing Services to Small Businesses

July 8, 2009; 01:55 AM

SAN FRANCISCO – July 7, 2009 – VerticalResponse Inc. (www.verticalresponse.com), a leading provider of on-demand e-mail marketing, online survey and direct mail solutions, today announced it has joined BigContacts (www.bigcontacts.com), a provider of a web-based Customer Relationship Management system, to bring advanced business building tools for the first time to thousands of small businesses otherwise priced out of current offerings.

The partnership provides an integrated suite of award-winning tools previously only available to larger corporations with deeper marketing and technology budgets. Now, small businesses all the way down to individual proprietors and micro-businesses can access web-based email marketing and CRM tools on a very affordable, pay-as-you-go platform. Small businesses will have the capability to better manage client relationships and transactions and convert the data to sales and growth through targeted email campaigns. Additionally, the partnership provides full access to the suite of tools available from VerticalResponse ranging from email marketing to online surveys and direct mail options.

"We’re thrilled to provide our customers direct access to VerticalResponse’s award-winning email marketing services,” said Bob Walton, Founder, President and CEO of BigContacts. “VerticalResponse shares BigContacts’ unwavering commitment of supporting small business owners and their daily efforts to deepen customer relationships and facilitate growth through the use of leading-edge, web-based solutions.”

Grow Sales, Reduce Expenses and Strengthen Existing Customer Relationships

Once a small business has accumulated customer data in BigContacts, they can filter and sort by any criteria they like and then package the results into segmented lists for highly-targeted email campaigns. The lists are then automatically published on VerticalResponse’s platform for future management and outreach – and stored there for free, no matter the frequency of a business’ email.

Clients have immediate access to the results of the campaign – including opens, clicks, bounce backs, unsubscribes, purchases, and more – and  contact records in BigContacts are automatically updated to reflect responses. The next time a business wants to launch a campaign, all of the historical data will already be compiled in a single, easy-to-read dashboard. The campaign messaging can then be tailored accordingly, without the wasted cycles of having to manually compile the data.

 “Integration with CRM platforms is among the most successful applications of our product, because it eliminates the complexity of managing data across multiple applications – as evidenced by the longstanding rank as the number one application on Force.com,”, said Janine Popick CEO of VerticalResponse. “Small businesses owners are already balancing multiple aspects running their company, especially at the end of the spectrum that BigContacts serves where the owner may also be running the sales and marketing. By drastically saving time and money, this is a huge way we can help make their customer relationships as efficient and effective as possible.”

The current economic climate has introduced a host of new challenges for all business. By eliminating the complexity of managing data across multiple platforms and streamlining communication with clients, small businesses can run more efficiently. VerticalResponse – with  its easy to use e-mail marketing, online survey and direct mail products and services – extends  the historic, transactional data housed within BigContacts into more repeat sales, and a robust marketing data to help grow businesses.

VerticalResponse’s integration with BigContacts is the latest in a series of partnerships that have helped bring VerticalResponse to nearly 60,000 small businesses and over 300 partners around the world. VerticalResponse for AppExchange has long topped Force.com’s list of most popular applications, and the product has also been incorporated into other leading small business software, including: Intuit Quickbooks via VerticalRespone for Intuit Workplace, Advantage QuickBase’s eResults, PaloAlto Software’s eMail Center Pro, and Longjump.

For more information about VerticalResponse, please visit: www.verticalresponse.com

About VerticalResponse

VerticalResponse, Inc. is a leading provider of self-service email marketing, online surveys and direct mail services empowering businesses of all sizes to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse’s flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit www.verticalresponse.com

About BigContacts

Big Contacts, LLC is the provider of a web-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System designed for micro businesses, small teams, or workgroups that have outgrown basic contact management solutions like Excel, Outlook, or ACT but can’t afford the cost and don’t want the complexity of high-end CRM solutions like Salesforce.com. Big Contacts’ on-demand solution costs less than 50 cents per person per day, and helps customers grow their sales, reduce their operating costs, and improve their relationships with their customers every day. Big Contacts is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia. For additional information, please visit www.bigcontacts.com.