Email Experience Council Launches Speakers Bureau

Email Experts Spread Best Practices
and Invite New Practitioners into the Email Marketing Community

New York, NY, August 13, 2008 — The Email Experience Council (eec), the email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), today announced the official launch of the eec Speakers Bureau. Composed of experienced eec members, the speakers have committed to making themselves available to speak at events that currently have little or no programming about email marketing.

“Email marketing is a challenging craft to master. Do it right and you can see a phenomenal ROI. Do it wrong and you can seriously hurt your brand,” said Jeanniey Mullen, eec founder and chief marketing officer of Zinio. “Learning about the right way to do email marketing from the front-line experts in the field is enormously important. We believe the launch of the eec Speakers Bureau will help provide fast access to expert speakers in the email space. This is a resource with extremely high value for our community.”

The Speakers Bureau currently consists of more than 20 speakers in 12 states, plus Canada. The speakers, who have waived all fees, are available to talk on a wide variety of fundamental email marketing topics, including: Email in the Marketing Mix; CAN-SPAM and Other Laws; Permission Practices; Deliverability; List Growth Tactics; and What to Send.

The Speakers Bureau was created by eec roundtable members as an industry outreach project and will continue to be overseen by an advisory committee. The committee is composed of eec members who will evaluate speakers, approve speaking opportunities and presentations, as well as collect feedback from event organizers.

Commenting on the eec initiative, DMA Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Ramesh Lakshmi-Ratan, Ph.D., said, “Education has always been a key pillar of the Direct Marketing Association’s work. The eec Speakers Bureau complements DMA’s educational efforts — which include conferences, training sessions, virtual seminars, and members-only briefings — by reaching out to new email marketing practitioners and welcoming them into the fold.”

“One of the benefits of eec membership is the networking opportunities. We all learn from each other,” said Kay Cavendar, one of the chairs of the Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee and the director of communications for Silverpop. “The eec Speakers Bureau was created to help members broaden their own abilities and to educate new email marketers entering this growing field."

Rich Slater, the Speakers Bureau Advisory Committee’s other chair and the vice president of sales at AcquireWeb, added, “We want to make sure that email marketers, large and small, are aware of best practices so they can maximize their return on investment and avoid pitfalls that could result in their violating CAN-SPAM, experiencing high list churn, or being blacklisted by ISPs.”

Requesting a speaker from the eec is simple. To book a speaker, please complete a Speaker Request Form.

About the Email Experience Council (eec)

The Email Experience Council (eec) (www.emailexperience.org), the Direct Marketing Association’s vertical working group that is focused on the email marketing industry, is a global professional organization striving to enhance the image of email marketing and communications, while celebrating and advocating its importance in business, and its ROI value. The eec is committed to regularly conducting a broad series of email initiatives for a variety of organizations that highlight the positive impact and importance of email as a marketing tool, communications vehicle, and branding device. Additionally, eec members are setting the standards for email through Member Roundtables. The eec members are representatives of other trade organizations, agencies, advertisers, technology partners, clients, and companies focused on the potential of email marketing via mobile and other digital devices.

About Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

The Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) is the leading global trade association of businesses and nonprofit organizations using and supporting multichannel direct marketing tools and techniques. DMA advocates standards for responsible marketing, promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable offers, and provides cutting-edge research, education, and networking opportunities to improve results throughout the end-to-end direct marketing process. Founded in 1917, DMA today represents nearly 3,600 companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 50 other nations, including a majority of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as nonprofit organizations.

In 2007, marketers — commercial and nonprofit — spent $173.2 billion on direct marketing in the United States. Measured against total US sales, these advertising expenditures generated approximately $2.025 trillion in incremental sales. In 2007, direct marketing accounted for 10.2 percent of total US gross domestic product. Also in 2007, there were 1.6 million direct marketing employees in the US. Their collective sales efforts directly supported nearly 9.0 million other jobs, accounting for a total of 10.6 million US jobs.

The Power of Direct: Relevance. Responsibility. Results.

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