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Email, Social Media Help International Airline Increase Sales, Customer Satisfaction

Icelandair to Discuss Its Online Marketing Strategy at European Email Marketing Conference Thursday in Barcelona

LONDON (12 November 2009) – International airline Icelandair will share how targeted email marketing has helped the company boost customer satisfaction and increase online sales during a presentation at the European Email Marketing Conference in Barcelona Thursday.

Powered by ExactTarget’s on-demand email marketing platform, Icelandair’s email marketing effort consists of six targeted email campaigns, ranging from newsletters and frequent flyer updates to pre-flight informational messages and post-flight surveys.

“Email provides Icelandair an unparalleled channel to build loyalty with our guests and create a buzz around our products that drive repeat purchases,” said Katrin Erna Gunnarsdottir, Web marketing, project manager at Icelandair. “ExactTarget provides us a flexible platform to power all of our communications - both external guest communications and internal communications to agents.”

Using ExactTarget’s Enterprise Edition and triggered email technology, Icelandair automatically sends its suite of email communications to clients in 10 countries throughout Europe and North America.  Using ExactTarget’s international sending technology, the airline is able to send its messages in the appropriate format for each country and displays the content in a host of languages including German, Dutch, English, Icelandic, French, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

The airline plans to continue to expand its use of ExactTarget in the coming months by integrating data from its Web analytics provider Google Analytics to build automated email campaigns to customers based on their browsing of Icelandair.com.  The company also plans to integrate its existing social media strategy into its email efforts using ExactTarget’s Social Forward technology to enable customers to share email content with up to 50 social network sites including Twitter and Facebook.

“ExactTarget’s sophisticated platform allows Icelandair to better serve its global customers by harnessing data to build and send personalised, relevant messaging,” said Peter McCormick, ExactTarget co-founder and general manager of ExactTarget Global.  “The gains Icelandair has made are exemplary of an international marketer who is using technology to build customer loyalty and drive sales in an exceedingly tight market.”

The news of Icelandair’s success with email marketing comes two months after ExactTarget announced its new international headquarters and sales and support centre in London.  The new operation allows the company to serve the growing demand from its client base in the UK and across Europe and also serves as the international headquarters for the company’s operations outside of North America.

ExactTarget is among the world’s largest email marketing and one-to-one marketing firms, serving clients from small businesses to multi-national brands.  The company’s on-demand software allows marketers to build, send and track email, SMS text messaging, voice messaging, Web content and social media interactions from a single Web-based platform.

About Iceland Air
Icelandair is the national carrier of Iceland and connects Iceland with the U.S. and Canada through Baltimore / Washington, Boston, Orlando, Minneapolis, New York, Halifax and soon Toronto. Icelandair also offers connecting flights to 17 other European destinations including London, Paris and Stockholm, and trips to Europe can be combined with a free stopover in Iceland of up to 7 days. Visit www.icelandair.com to find out more about Icelandair and book flights and vacation packages to Iceland and Europe.

About ExactTarget
ExactTarget is a leading global provider of on-demand email and one-to-one marketing solutions. The company’s software as a service technology provides organisations a single platform to connect with customers via email, SMS text messaging, voice messaging, social media and landing pages. Supported by collaborative global services teams, ExactTarget’s technology integrates with more sales and marketing information systems than any other in the industry, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Omniture and Webtrends among many others. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based multi-channel communications for thousands of organisations around the world including Expedia.com, Aurora Fashions, Papa John’s, Sun Microsystems, Value Retail, World Society for Protection of Animals and Gulf Air.  For more information, visit www.exacttarget.co.uk. 
 
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Media Contacts:
Tom Flisher / Sean Fleming (Octopus PR for ExactTarget) – 08453 700 655 or thomas@octopuscomms.net  / sean@octopuscomms.net
Mitch Frazier (ExactTarget) – 00 1 317 275 5034 or mfrazier@ExactTarget.com