This is pretty exciting and a great representation of how a timely email marketing campaign drives results.
Earlier this month the Mavericks Surf Competition was held. Mavericks is a surfing institution here in Northern California and a legendary name among surfers worldwide, with three-story waves for brave surfers to endure. Kier Beadling, CEO of Mavericks Surf Ventures, who doesn't ride these waves himself but has the charge of promoting this crazy event, had a tough job. Get 50,000 fans to the waves on a 48 hour notice. Wow! This rabid fan base has grown rapidly since Keir teamed up with partners Douglas Epstein and Jeff Clark, the big wave surfing hero and Mavericks pioneer, so indeed it was a difficult task.
Do they have budget? No. But in just two years, they've doubled their email list size and got NBC to cover the event.
How were they originally getting the word out? They used their own personal email accounts and according to Kier it quickly became an impossible task as their list size grew to an unmanageable size.
VR to the rescue! Kier had heard of VerticalResponse through his local connections here in the bay area (can you say word of mouth marketing?) and was in need of a few things:
1. He needed someone to manage a good size list.
2. He needed a reliable
service he knew he could trust to get the email marketing campaigns out so that in just
24-48 hours notice the tens of thousands of fans could come.
3. He needed to be CAN SPAM compliant with a working unsubscribe.
4. He needed a cost-effective solution since the Mavericks doesn't charge!
If anyone wants to watch this crazy competition, it airs 2pm ET/11am PST on May 13, 2006 on NBC. If anyone wants to see it online before that go here.
Yeah, this is sort of a self-serving blog, but I thought it was a great story for both the Mavericks and VerticalResponse. Thanks for letting us share Kier!
Got any good stories of your own? Give us a comment!
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