Cooking.com Selects StrongMail as Perfect Recipe for Email Marketing
REDWOOD CITY, CA - 03/30/09— StrongMail Systems,
Inc., the leading provider of commercial-grade solutions for
marketing and transactional email, today announced that Cooking.com,
the leading online marketplace for cooks, has selected StrongMail to
power email marketing for itself and all the managed e-commerce sites
it operates on behalf of Starbucks, The Food Network, General Mills
and other top culinary brands.
Offering over 60,000 products for the kitchen as well as recipes,
menus, articles and a growing library of user-generated cooking
content and online tools, Cooking.com and the other e-commerce sites
it hosts and manages have become a popular destination for millions
of foodies each month. Email’s ability to drive site traffic and
conversions has cemented its position as one of Cooking.com’s top
drivers of revenue and customer acquisition.
Cooking.com originally relied on a custom-built system to deliver
email, but deliverability challenges, performance limitations and a
desire for more sophisticated targeting and reporting led the company
to begin looking for an alternate solution. Cooking.com quickly
narrowed in on StrongMail for its superior performance, advanced
capabilities and unparalleled ROI.
“Not only did StrongMail offer the performance, capabilities and
expertise we needed to take our email programs to the next level,
they’ve allowed us to capitalize on our email marketing in-house
capabilities while reducing our effective costs,” said Kieran Hannon,
CMO of Cooking.com. “By enabling Cooking.com to send more
sophisticated campaigns with a powerful system that’s easy to manage
and maintain, StrongMail will help us better serve our customers and
continue to keep us at the forefront of e-commerce.”
StrongMail’s high-performance email marketing system, automated
bounce management and extensive deliverability tools will enable
Cooking.com to continue to improve the deliverability and timeliness
of its campaigns while expanding their frequency and mailing size.
Equally important, Cooking.com will take advantage of StrongMail’s
advanced segmentation capabilities and Omniture web analytics
integration to send highly relevant, closed-loop marketing campaigns
that drive customer conversions and satisfaction. StrongMail’s
automated A/B testing and robust reporting and analytics will also
play a key role in optimizing the performance of its campaigns across
all partner sites.
“When email is as critical to your business as it is to Cooking.com,
you need to remove all the limitations that can prevent you from
leveraging its full potential—and that’s where StrongMail shines,”
said Sam Cece, CEO of StrongMail Systems. “StrongMail’s email
capabilities make it possible for Cooking.com to create, deliver and
continually optimize highly targeted campaigns that help ensure the
continued successful of its partner e-commerce sites.”
About Cooking.com
Cooking.com was founded in 1998 and is based in Marina Del Rey, CA.
As the leading online marketplace for cooks, Cooking.com operates
five uniquely branded websites: Cooking.com, FoodNetworkStore.com,
StarbucksStore.com, PillsburyStore.com, and BettyCrockerStore.com.
Cooking.com offers its customers over 60,000 products for the kitchen
as well as recipes, menus, articles and a growing library of
user-generated cooking content and online tools. Cooking.com is
committed to providing customers with an exceptional experience and
was the recipient of the 2007 i.Merchant Gold award for overall
excellence as an online retailer. Its investors include Azure Capital
Partners, Idealab, Clearstone Venture Partners, Starbucks Corp. and
ORIX Venture Finance.
About StrongMail Systems, Inc.
StrongMail Systems is the leading provider of commercial-grade
solutions for marketing and transactional email. Offering maximum
flexibility for deployment, StrongMail’s solutions are offered in
both on-premise and hosted models to meet the needs of every
business. StrongMail delivers its proven email delivery, tracking and
campaign management software on high-performance servers that are
optimized for maximum deliverability. In addition to providing
superior control, security and integration capabilities, StrongMail’s
high-performance solutions offer companies a more powerful and
cost-effective alternative to homegrown or traditional outsourced ESP
solutions. Headquartered in Redwood City, CA, StrongMail solutions
are used by companies across the globe, including eHarmony, Fox
Sports, and Ticketmaster. To learn more about StrongMail, please
visit http://www.strongmail.com.