YARDLEY, PA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/13/13 -- The Agency Inside® Harte-Hanks (theagencyinside.com), an omnichannel customer engagement agency of Harte-Hanks (NYSE: HHS), announced today that it and client Sony Electronics have won three 2013 MarketingSherpa Email Awards. The honor includes:

• A Gold Award in Email Innovation for a campaign that integrated the email strategy with Sony's social strategy,
• A Silver Award in Best Promotional Email or Campaign for a Black Friday/Cyber Monday email program that generated a 53-percent increase in revenue for the holiday shopping period, and
• An Honorable Mention in Best Triggered Email for a new customer triggered email campaign that streamlined more than 70 email versions into three dynamic email templates, enabling both better brand interaction and relevancy in messaging.

In its recently published report showcasing winners, MarketingSherpa wrote, "perhaps most impressive of all, consumer giant Sony Electronics took home an unprecedented three awards this year, across as many categories, for its trio of very unique, creative, and effective email."

"Email connects customers and prospects with a brand at various points in the customer lifecycle -- it motivates, inspires, and engages. When leveraged correctly, email can be a vital part of a rich customer experience," said Jeannine Falcone, executive vice president, customer strategy and engagement, Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing, and managing director, The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks. "These campaigns -- and the results they generated -- serve as a testament to the value of email as part of an integrated marketing strategy. In particular, the effort to link Sony's email strategy to its Pinterest presence truly serves as an example in how to create a 'virtuous cycle' between these two channels. To win the Email Innovation Gold Award is truly an honor. We are so pleased that our work and the work of Sony Electronics have been recognized in the industry. We're looking forward to what is to come from this collaboration."

"Sony is dedicated to providing a rich customer experience, and we look to utilize the channels our customers are already using to create the most relevant and effective experience possible," said Jennifer Geddy, director of CRM, Sony Electronics. "When planning, we work with The Agency Inside to see how each channel can be leveraged and integrated to create a cohesive, memorable experience."

"We are so excited to receive this recognition from MarketingSherpa. Our team and our partners at The Agency Inside have worked hard to create email campaigns to continue the dialog and move the customer relationship forward. These campaigns all performed extremely well in terms of engagement, and we've found that engaged consumers buy. We couldn't be happier with the result," said Barbara Miller, vice president brand activation, Sony Electronics.

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®
Harte-Hanks, Inc. is a worldwide, direct and targeted marketing company that provides direct marketing services and shopper advertising opportunities to local, regional, national and international consumer and business-to-business marketers. Visit the Harte-Hanks Website at http://www.harte-hanks.com or call (800) 456-9748.

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.

This document may contain trademarks that are owned or licensed by Harte-Hanks, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including, without limitation, Harte-Hanks® and other names and marks. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.