Look around you! What amazed you in the last year? Who amazed you in the last year? We see greatness all around us and in the inboxes that we check every day. Those accomplishments from the email marketing teams and individuals “behind the curtain” deserve recognition of their efforts and the resounding push to drive innovation and the email industry forward.
The ANA Email Experience Council (EEC) is accepting nominations for individuals who represent the best and brightest in the email marketing industry. We are excited to promote and honor stand-out email marketers.
Additionally, know of a campaign that produced outstanding results or innovation? You can also nominate a program!
We will be accepting nominations for:
Stefan Pollard Email Marketer of the Year Award
Established in honor of Stefan Pollard, a highly respected and beloved member of the email marketing community who suddenly passed away in 2010, this award honors a brand-side marketer who demonstrates the qualities and high professional standards that Pollard exemplified during his lifetime.
Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year Award
This highly-coveted award is given to a vendor-side marketer who exemplifies the best and brightest in the email marketing industry, embodying thought leadership, service, innovation, and vision and influence.
Email Program Awards
This set of awards promotes excellence in email marketing by showcasing the impact that email is having in the marketplace and within organizations. Most importantly, these awards feature email campaigns, programs, and people that make us excited and proud of the work being done in our industry.
Key Dates
- January 4, 2021: Nominations for 2021 Awards open
- February 26, 2021: Deadline for 2021 Nominations
- May 5-6, 2021: Winners will be honored at 2021 Email Evolution Conference
Guidelines
- You can nominate one or multiple candidates for each individual award (Pollard and Thought Leader).
- You are limited to two unique nomination submissions across any of the 3 Program Award categories.
- You cannot submit the same program entry/campaign to more than one category.
- No entry fees.
Nomination/Voting Process
- The EEC Awards Subcommittee will review the nominations and select a winner for each award based on the criteria in the nomination form.
- The winners will be selected in April 2021.
Stefan Pollard Email Marketer of the Year Award
The EEC Awards Subcommittee will be judging entries based on the following points:
- Exemplary Performance: We’re looking for marketers that have pushed the envelope of their current programs to drive a goal. As such, we want the candidate to have results tied to their efforts. These results can be whatever the particular company measures success but should be tied to the objectives they set out to hit at the beginning of the program. These results can be: - Dollar value or proxy for dollar value
- MQL-SQL
- Revenue
- Bookings
- Conversion metric - Cross Channel Performance: The future of email marketing is tied to the ability of any company to create a cross-channel experience where email is one part of that experience. We’re looking for programs that have integrated their email marketing across other channels through data, creative or strategy.
- Creating Innovation with Data: Success lies in your access to available data and to use such data for better targeting, messaging, or even suppression of people. We’re looking for programs that had a keen eye and integration with data. That can be in the segmentation or the insights found to create an exemplary program or finding new ways to use existing data. So, tell us how data was central to your success!
- Advanced Email Marketing Program: Describe the advancement that you deployed. We’re moving beyond having a stellar welcome program or a tweak to an abandoned cart. The submission should be an advanced program that clearly pushes the bounds of email and is unique.
- New Strategies - Redefining the Email Marketing Channel: We all love new things, and in companies, true innovation is something that’s not been done before. So share with us the innovation and how this was something that was brand new and redefined the channel for you and your company.
Previous Stefan Pollard Email Marketer Winners
- 2020: Sandra Cordero, Torrid
- 2019: Kait Creamer, Scaled Agile, Inc.
- 2018: Alice Li, Shutterstock
- 2017: Genevieve Longtin, Sharecare
- 2016: Jeanne Jones, Alaska Airlines
- 2015: Alessandra Souers, JibJab
- 2014: Zack Notes, UncommonGoods
- 2013: Sal Tripi, Publishers Clearing House
- 2012: Meg Reynolds, REI
- 2011: Loren McDonald, IBM Marketing Cloud
"I’m extremely honored to receive this award as part of the extraordinary email marketing community. Whether in times of crisis or met with impossible goals, we step up to the plate and push ourselves to provide the best experience for our customers, in a manner of excellence that moves our industry forward. May we continue to grow and learn together in the spirit of Stefan Pollard and innovate beyond what’s been done before. I’m so grateful to my peers, family, friends, and mentors that have equipped me to dream big dreams and encouraged me to never give up."
-Sandra Cordero, 2020 Stefan Pollard Email Marketer of the Year Award Winner
Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year Award
The EEC Awards Subcommittee will be judging entries based on the following points:
- Outward Sign of Thought Leadership: We’re looking for a candidate that is active in the community and helping lead marketers forward in innovation. There are a lot of smart people in the industry, but the true sign of a Thought Leader is that they give back to the community by writing, speaking, interacting with marketers in demonstrable ways. Is the person considered a thought leader or generally well-accepted?
- Service: Is the candidate active in the industry with an organization? There’s many of them out there and they’re all focused on leadership and volunteerism. Examples could be: ANA, EEC, DMA (U.K.), ESPC, M3AAWG, WoE and others.
- Vision and Influence: Does the candidate practically apply their strategies to application by the market? Have they introduced new material to the industry so that marketers can directly apply it to their strategies. We all need realistic expectations and merely doing research for the sake of research is helpful, but applying it simply is the role of a Thought Leader.
- Innovation: In his/her career, how much has this person contributed to the industry as a whole and driving email forward? A thought leader has not only been around for a while and established a history in the industry, but they have consistently moved the needle for the industry.
Previous Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year Winners
- 2020: Simms Jenkins, BrightWave
- 2019: Matthew Vernhout, 250ok
- 2018: Chad White, Litmus
- 2017: David Daniels, The Relevancy Group
- 2016: David Baker, Cordial
- 2015: Justine Jordan, Litmus
- 2014: Dennis Dayman, Return Path
"I am truly honored to receive one of the most prestigious awards in the email marketing industry. This industry has its fair share of stars so winning this award is meaningful, and I am proud to be included with many of the previous winners who I highly regard as well as the other great talent in our industry. When I created BrightWave in 2003, I didn’t know much but I quickly found smart people, partners and even competitors that I learned from and along the way, made new friends and realized how lucky we all are to be email marketers."
-Simms Jenkins, 2020 EEC Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year Award Winner
EEC Email Program Awards
Best Overall Improvement Program Award
This award will recognize those that saw and acted on the opportunity to shift the paradigm/status quo in a program. In this award, we are looking for major improvements in an existing program by leveraging an insight to layout a new program to generate significantly improved results that justify the investment to change the program. The key components of the submission should be prior results, the insight that drove change, description of the change, any testing, and final results.
“One-Person Team” Award:
This award will celebrate the scrappy email marketer who gets a ton of stuff done without a lot of help, yet delivers a great program and results through hard work and innovation. We are looking for those unsung email heroes that work day in and day out to keep a program evolving. We want to hear about what they are able to accomplish within the context of their constraints.
Cross-Channel Award:
This award will honor a program that connects email to another channel such as site, call center, push, SMS, IOT, or even screen reader. We want to see great examples of how email is being used with and is considerate of other channels. We will be looking for programs that are designed to improve customer experience and deliver results by coordinating messaging across 2 or more channels, as long as one of those channels is email.
"We're honored to be recognized by the EEC for the email enhancements we used, which led to a wildly successful, record-breaking fundraising campaign. We’re proud to shine a spotlight on how email can engage and activate your donors and subscribers. The enhanced email techniques we used had a direct impact on The Salvation Army’s ability to provide more help to those in need."
-Brenda Jones, Territorial Director of Digital Strategy, The Salvation Army USA Western Territory and 2020 Best Overall Improvement EEC Program Award Winner
Show off to your colleagues
Individual award winners (Pollard and Thought Leader) receive:
- Complimentary registration to attend and be honored at the 2021 Email Evolution Conference
- Recognition and esteem from the industry and your peers.
- The opportunity to be featured in a future webinar with the EEC.
- A distinguished trophy.
Program winners will receive special recognition.
The EEC Awards Subcommittee is comprised of leaders in the email industry, as well as friends and colleagues of Stefan Pollard
- Ryan Phelan (Chair), Origin Email
- Jose Cebrian (Vice-Chair), Merkle Inc
- John Caldwell, Red Pill Email
- Heather Curcio, AARP
- Allyson Federbush, Movable Ink
- Elaine Gamble; Otsuka Pharmaceuticals
- Margaret Hamner, MailChimp
- Jennifer Horner, DEG
- John Landsman, SparkPost
- Charma Parker, Home Depot
- Gretchen Scheiman, CM Group
- Manisha Shaw, Salesforce
- Paul Shriner, AudiencePoint
- Sal Tripi, PCH
- Karen Talavera, Synchronicity Marketing (Vice-Chair, EEC)
- Matthew Vernhout, Netcore (Chair, EEC)