Client

The Internet Marketing Association (IMA) is an international professional organization with more than 330,000 members in various fields such as sales, marketing, business ownership, programming, and creative development. Founded in 2001 by Sinan Kanatsiz (also the current Chairman), the IMA is now one of the fastest growing internet marketing groups in the world, providing members the opportunity to learn, engage, and define internet marketing best practices.

Challenge

The IMA is no stranger to digital marketing. Having successfully used email marketing for several years, the IMA’s biggest challenge was ensuring they could support their growing membership base with effective and relevant email messages. Forecasting to grow to a half million subscribers by the end of 2011, the IMA had worked with nearly a half dozen Email Service Providers but couldn’t simply find the right “fit”.

Deliverability was a key issue of the IMA because its members had to be engaged in order for the association to have an effective voice in the industry. Additionally, they knew that they needed to integrate their email channel with mobile email campaigns as 30% of their membership was reading their emails on the go from a mobile device.

Solution

In 2009, the IMA was introduced to KM as a referral to help them solve their ongoing deliverability challenges and at the same time introduce them to new capabilities that would add value for their members. “Our experience from the start with KM was a cut above compared to the other providers. They’re extremely responsive in their services and the software is so flexible, it feels like it’s customized to our needs at IMA,” says Kanatsiz.

Not only was KM able to help them overcome their deliverability challenges and boost their inbox delivery, but they also showed them how they can improve their growing mobile email channel. “Mobile is a natural fit for our members and being able to provide them with timely up to date information has proven to be valuable based on feedback from members. KM’s mobile friendly editor allows us to create HTML, text, and mobile messages all on a single screen allowing us to be efficient in our campaign development process.”

The IMA found exactly what they were looking for: better deliverability and a flexible software platform that could send multiple email formats based on their subscribers preferences, especially with the growing mobile user-base.

Results

The IMA has been able to grow their membership and successfully keep their members engaged while becoming one of the leading internet advocacy groups in the world. “The other platforms we looked at didn’t combine mobile email in a seamless environment,” said Kanatsiz. “Without KM’s technology, we would not have been as successful as an organization as we have been. We are seeing an increase in our membership, website traffic, page views, and overall better ROI. We are proud to have KM as our endorsed email partner for the IMA.”