Email Marketing Company Emma, Inc. Named to Fortune's 2012 Inner City 100

May 10, 2012 - PRLog -- NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Fortune magazine and the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) recently honored email marketing and online communications company Emma, Inc. by naming it to the 2012 Inner City 100, which lists the fastest-growing companies located in America's urban core. Emma ranked 27th on the list.

This is the second year in a row that Emma has landed on the Inner City 100. The list includes companies that have achieved marked growth and bottom-line success while located in inner city areas.

“The decision to found our company in the heart of Nashville — and to stay there over the years — has been very intentional," said Emma CEO Clint Smith. "In fact, there have been a couple of times where we've totally pushed the limits of our current office space, holding out for just the right next office space. But we believe our physical environments are an integral part of fostering a highly collaborative and creative culture, and we get a lot of energy from buildings with character located squarely in the urban core."

As a result of outgrowing its current headquarters on 8th Avenue in Nashville, the company will move even closer to the urban center of Nashville this June, when it takes up residence in the historic Trolley Barn development in the downtown neighborhood of Rolling Mill Hill.

The collaborative and creative culture that thrives in an urban environment has served Emma well. In less than a decade, the company has expanded from its headquarters in Nashville to satellite offices in Portland, Denver, Austin and New York City, and currently supports more than 30,000 businesses, organizations and nonprofit agencies worldwide.

In addition to its second Inner City 100 honor, Emma has also been recently named one of Middle Tennessee’s 10 Best Employers for 2011 by the Nashville Post, a 2011 Top Small Company Workplace by Inc. magazine and Winning Workplaces, and Best Place to Work by the Nashville Business Journal.

In the last 14 years, 720 different companies have earned positions on the Inner City 100, collectively generating more than $2.2 billion in annual revenues and creating nearly 73,000 new jobs. For the 2012 list, winners represent a wide span of geography, operating in 46 cities and 30 states. The 2012 Inner City 100 winners grew at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent and an average standard growth rate of 577 percent between 2006 and 2010.

Highlights of the 2012 Inner City 100 list:
·      Companies generated $15.3 million in revenues on average and $1.5 billion in the aggregate.
·      Companies employ 7,965 workers and have created 4,635 new jobs in the last five years.
·      Forty percent of their workers are inner city residents.
·      Thirty-six percent are minority-owned. Nationally, minorities head only 21% of all companies.
·      Twenty-five percent women-owned. Nationally, only 10 percent of companies with over $1 million in annual revenues are women-owned.

Chevron Corporation, Staples and Goldman Sachs sponsored the awards program.

Emma®
Emma is an online marketing and communications service that makes it easy for organizations everywhere to manage their email campaigns, social sharing and surveys — all in one great place. Founded in 2003, Emma makes it easy to create attractive email campaigns and online surveys, send to large opt-in audiences and track the response in real time. Based in Nashville, with offices in Portland, Denver, Austin and New York, Emma’s 100+ employees serve more than 30,000 organizations worldwide. To learn more, please visit myemma.com. Follow Emma on Twitter at twitter.com/emmaemail or on Facebook, facebook.com/emmaemail.

Initiative for a Competitive Inner City
ICIC is a non-profit research and strategy organization and the leading authority on U.S. inner city economies and the businesses that thrive there. Founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, ICIC expands inner city economies by providing businesses, governments and investors with the most comprehensive and actionable information in the field about urban market opportunities. ICIC's unique knowledge and expertise about inner city success factors and thriving companies is developed from specialized urban networks and path-breaking research. www.icic.org

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