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25/02/2022: The email fraternity celebrated the best in email marketing at ‘For the Love of Emails – Awards 2022’ (FTLOE Awards – 2022), Asia’s first-ever email excellence awards on 25th February 2022. The virtual event held on Airmeet was hosted by the continent’s leading recognizing body Asia Inc. 500’s Indian Chapter in association with martech solution giant Netcore Cloud.

The FTLOE Awards – 2022 witnessed participation from more than 1500 people from Asia including new-age email marketers, digital marketers, technologists, and professionals from top brands across industries. The one-day event aimed at celebrating excellence in email marketing while setting a new benchmark for impactful email marketing that inspires leaders to take action in their own communities. The event was marked by several powerful keynotes and engaging panel discussions by industry titans.

Delivering the opening keynote, Chaitanya Ramalingegowda. Director and Co-Founder of Wakefit.co said, “In today’s competitive market, hyper-personalized email campaigns with powerful content are one of the keys to drive customer engagement, retention, and loyalty. The more personalized and interactive your content is, the more your customers are going to love your brand.”

Speaking on the topic, ‘Martech for Consumers 3.0,’ speaker Avi Kumar, CMO, Join Ventures, said, “Content marketing that is contextual to the platform is a powerful way to get attention from your audience. It’s all about how you tell your story to inspire, engage and activate your consumers.” Stressing on the importance of email automation, he added, “Automation is not a luxury today, it’s a necessity.”

Chaitanya Chinta, Global Head, Email Business, Netcore Cloud also graced the event as a speaker. Speaking on his topic, ‘Attention is the new oil,’ Chaitanya said, “The reality of evolving multi-channel marketing strategies is that tracking ‘engagement’ and ‘action’ is no longer enough to win customers for life. You must strategize to convert momentary engagement into sustained attention on your brand and the message lay down a clear path for conversation and create a memorable user experience in the inbox.” “Email marketing is all about value exchange. Before launching an email campaign, the marketers should understand what value their message is carrying for the readers,” Chaitanya added. According to him, value, storification, relevance, and creativity are the keys to driving the right kind of attention from the audience.

Discussing the topic ‘Email Marketing Predictions of 2022,’ panelist Ramesh Srinivasan, CEO – India Business, Netcore Cloud said, “Emails have been the best, low-cost and high-return marketing channel for decades and still continues to be so.” While moderating the discussion, Ramesh also urged the marketing folks to leverage emerging technologies like AI and ML to boost the effectiveness of their email marketing initiatives.

Priya Patankar, Head of Communications, PhonePe as another panelist of the discussion said, “The more relatable your story is the more effective your marketing campaign is. The story has to be followed by a logical action to drive the desired attention from the audience.” She said this while speaking on the importance of storytelling in email marketing.

Mili Kataria, Head of Branding and Marketing at HESA and the founder at Pandora’s Box was among the panelists. “Subject lines can make or break. Before launching an email marketing campaign, marketers need to ensure that their subject line is very concert and attractive to invoke the receivers to read their email and take the desired action.”

Talking about ‘AI as a tool to make customer engagement,’ Panelist Hitarth Saini, Founding Member and Head of Marketing, FREO said, “AI can help marketers completely change their game. It can help them disseminate multiple types of emails to multiple sets of audiences in multiple time segments in a more effective way, saving them time and effort.”

Moderating the second-panel discussion of the event on the topic, ‘Email design that leaves a lasting impact,’ Santosh Valecha, Global Head, Customer Success, Netcore Cloud said, “Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) is going to be the next big thing in email marketing. It can take customer experience to a whole new level. So, marketers should seriously start thinking about it.” India seems to be rapidly adopting AMP, he observed.

Joining the discussion, panelist, Gopal Kumar Upadhyay, Director of Design at Moglix said, “Email design, call-to-action, and images play a key role in appealing to the audience to take the desired action. Even emojis are great in attracting and engaging audience these days.”

Lily Worth, Senior Email Designer, Litmus was another panelist of the discussion. Talking about the design aspect of emails, she said, “Dark Mode is trending now. Like most people today prefer reading on their phones, tabs, and computer with dark mode on, email designers should ensure that their designs are dark mode-friendly.”

Mr. Paul Airy, Email Designer and Developer at Beyond the Envelope also joined the discussion. According to Paul, branding, content, design, and call-to-action are the major components of an email and they need to be placed strategically to ensure the success of an email campaign.

The maiden edition of the unique event presented awards under seven different categories. Mehek Bharadwaj from Reliance General Insurance was honoured with the Email Marketing Thought Leader of the Year award. Equitas and Tata 1mg won the Email Campaign of the Year award. While the first runner-up in the Email Campaign of the Year category was Wakefit Innovations, Myntra & Trell were the second runners-up. Axis Bank became the winner in the Most Innovative Email Campaign category of awards, and Big Basket and Yourstory Media became the first runners-up while Wakefit Innovations took the second runner-up trophy. Myntra, Unacademy, and Permata Bank became the winner, first runner-up, and second runner up respectively in the Most Visually Compelling Email Campaign category. While Reliance General bagged the Best Email Customer Journey Award, Nykaa and Axis Securities became the first and second runners-up in the category. The winner of the Email Marketing Kickstarter award was YourStory Media. The first runner-up of the category was Mariposa Care and the second runners-up were Unacademy and Via.com – An EbixCash Initiative. While the Best Email Strategy Award was bestowed to Nykaa & Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Jio Saavn and Equitas were honoured with the first runner-up trophy. Kotak 811 and Axis Bank bagged the second runners-up trophy in the same category.

The FTLOE Awards – 2022 was moderated by Anshika Purwar, Global Director, Country Operations, Asia Inc. 500. The closure of the event was marked by the launch of the 10^th edition of the Asia Inc. 500 magazine themed on the event and handcrafted for the email marketing and digital marketing folks. The event was organized in association with other partners including LinkedIn, YourStory, Airmeet, Your Story, StarFeed, CMO Asia, and Maverick Digital.

About Asia Inc. 500

Asia Inc. 500 celebrates and awards thought leaders and industry stalwarts across Asia. It is one of the pioneering recognising bodies in the continent that encourages and honours these risk-takers. Also as an international business magazine, Asia Inc.500 gives its readers exposure to top businesses and business leaders that have excelled in digital transformation. It motivates young promising entrepreneurs to accelerate their digital journey by inspiring them with the success stories of the front-runners in their respective industries.

About Netcore Cloud

Netcore Cloud enables marketers to achieve higher ROI and growth through AI-Powered Customer Communication and Engagement Platform Solutions. It has a 20+ years legacy of delivering value to more than 5000 leading brands across the globe. Netcore Cloud is trusted by more than 25 global unicorns as a full-stack marketing platform with its world-class Email Engagement API and Omnichannel Personalization Solutions.

 Netcore Cloud is also the largest Email Service Provider in Asia, accounting for 50% and 75% of the total email traffic of Asia and India respectively.