eROI Days Email Agency

6. Great Content is King. Quality content is more important now than ever before. Each of us receives dozens of email newsletters on a daily basis. There are over 100 million viewings DAILY on YouTube. One in twenty visits on the web is to a social networking site where new content is generated every second. There is a glut of content and it’s only going to get more crowded. The key point worth noting is that the few companies providing great content are HUGE winners because of all of the online and offline marketing channels that work together in a sort of crescendo effect, amplifying the messaging of well positioned brands. Word of mouth spreads so much faster than it used to through blogs, iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, websites, and online press. Fans of the TV program “Grey’s Anatomy” can convert non-believers because the content of the show is good enough to keep them once they’ve heard about it. The opposite holds true of “Snakes on a Plane” which had a huge online following, but bombed at the box office because the content sucked. Keep this in mind when strategizing and implementing your next viral marketing site or email campaign.

7. Email marketers will demand more strategy from their marketing agencies. From the client-side email marketer’s perspective, there are only minor differences between the top email marketing software platforms. Email marketers will demand to know more advanced strategies for their email programs by asking questions like: how does this email render in the default settings of the different email environments (AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.)? What content shows up above and below the fold on the email preview? What content and call-to-action will really resonate with my target audience? How can I be a resource and still convert click throughs into qualified leads?

Wieden+Kennedy headquarters in Portland, Oregon has held off entering into the interactive agency world for the past decade until now. Wieden has fervently stayed true to its core talent in TV and print advertising until its recent hiring of Carat Fusion exec, Renny Gleeson, as its global director of digital strategies. Arguably, the most talented independent, private agency in traditional mediums, WK is going to make a strong run at the online world with this new infusion of talent and business direction. WK has a lot of ground to make up to catch up with online viral marketing pioneer Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Read the full MediaPost article

8. User-generated content will be a component on most new websites. Many companies are just starting to realize the great potential of websites with user-generated content that enable customers co-create with their brands. Ultimately, allowing users to post their stories through text, images, and video, helps to build community and long-term brand loyalty. In short, it works, and companies large (Diesel-U-Music) and small (Dunderdon Workspace) will employ this strategy much more frequently next year.

9. Viral campaign websites will have a purpose. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been forwarded hundreds of quirky sites that are experimenting with the whole viral marketing thing and that have no further purpose whatsoever. There are no calls-to-action or indications as to why these sites exist. A few examples of pointless viral sites include: Patron’s SimplyPerfect, eROI’s WearShortShorts, and the pointless but popular CareerBuilder Monk-e-Mail/. Next year will feature more substantial viral campaign sites like Philips’ ShaveEverywhere, Kettle Foods’ PassportToFlavor, and Snakes on a Plane.

It’s Thanksgiving Day and it’s that time of year again when eROI makes its outlandish predictions for the year to come. In prior years we have given you a mix of business and personal lifestyle predictions, but this year we’re sticking to just the online marketing world. We busted out our omniscient crystal ball and this is what it told us:

Top 10 Online Marketing Predictions for 2007
10. Social networking will get more and more niche. Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools for communicating with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People use specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups. For this reason, there are many types of Social Media now and there will be five times this many by the end of next year:

B2C: MySpace, Facebook, Gaia, Friendster, Second Life
B2B: LinkedIn, Jigsaw
Search: Digg, Delicious, Wink, Technorati
Shopping: Wists, ThisNext, Woot
Expert Communities: Blogs, Wikis
Mapping: Geosearch
Video: YouTube, TurnHere, Splashcast
Images: flickr

Sometimes the best emails are from close friends who want to share a really positive, inspirational story that they received from another friend or saw in the media. Amazingly, the video has NOT been posted on YouTube, so I couldn’t embed it in this blog posting, but it is a great video on the link below. Enjoy.

“Fathers/Coaches…

Spend a few minutes and read the story below. It appeared in Atlanta’s paper (AJC) today. It will only take you 5 min total and is worth it.
It will make your Friday….

After the story, go to this link to see an interview with the head coach and see a video of the play.
http://www.ajc.com/news/mplayer/m/6009

Disabled student the unlikeliest of players Banneker’s Gerard Robinson lives out his dream by running the play of his life

By CURTIS BUNN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/16/06

In a noisy moment at Banneker High’s homecoming pep rally, coach Benny Crane felt a tug on his sleeve. It was not a yank, but a slight pull, enough to get his attention. He turned and glanced down into the excited yet concerned eyes of Gerard Robinson.

At 5-foot-3, Robinson is shorter than most of his classmates, but his audacity and charisma elevate his stature. As Coach Crane bent over to listen, he could see Robinson’s mouth quiver.”

(more…)

This holiday season brings upon us the daunting task of getting a gift for your Mom, Dad, grandmom, granddad, brother, sister, nephew, neice, or friends. For each one of these people, Gifts.com created a creative question and answer online system to suggest gifts based on the intended gift recipient’s personality. The fun part of this excercise is to see what your own personality is like. Are you the type of guy/gal to call the repairman or bust out the wrench and fix the plumbing yourself? Do you go to a concert or get drinks with your colleagues? Read books or watch TV? Play golf or chess? It keeps telling me I’m a “Country Clubber,” when my real interests are quite different. I’d like to think I’m more of a “Mr. Field and Stream,” however the gift ideas are really compelling and it’s a fun way to come up with new ideas.

Try it out yourself: http://www.gifts.com/finder

No I am not going to bang the idea that we can all shoot video. I am just going to share with you another brand that is getting into asking everyone to create an ad and upload it. With YouTube we are all now experts it seems. Or at least novices that can make some compelling stories that others will watch. Are we all voyeurs? Is it just human nature to want to watch others? Or are we creating a online community that owns the brand? Owns the content? And brands are just a way to express yourself around a feeling they emote?

I have lot of questions around what is happening with the social and video sites.

Not sure, but what I do know is the JACK in the BOX is hit a few times a week by the eROI team and I have a digitial video camera in my office. Maybe we might hit the Jackies.

http://jackinthebox.com/jackies/

New Video Voting Site for Konami Video Games
Konami American Idol KKR

Vote for the Next Kettle Flavor
Kettle Foods Passport to Flavor
www.passporttoflavor.com

Wow. Amazing Production
The Stuntman
www.thestuntman.la

The Black Diamond
www.thomsonblackdiamond.com

Getting Creative With Consumer Generated Campaigns and Food Clothing Stains.
Stain Art
www.stainart.com

The Fifth Freedom
www.myfifthfreedom.com

I was reading the physical, printed Sunday New York Times today and I came across a full-page advertisement in the Sports section. I initially noticed the ad because it was all yellow, but then I realized that some ad agency just copied and pasted a real email correspondence between Lance Armstrong and Scott M. (Nike). Unfortunately for me, I actually have to type all this out instead of copying and pasting, but here is an excerpt from the ad:

“From: Lance Armstrong
To: Scott M. (Nike)
Sent: Nov 5, 2006 3:32pm
Subject: Re Re: Re: Re: Idea

I’m dead.

Hardest physical thing I’ve ever done.
Try your best to make this happen.
No way I would have crossed the finish
line without the cheering. I owe them.

> From: Scott M. (Nike)
>To: Lance Armstrong
>Sent: Nov 5, 2006 3:29pm
>Subject: Re Re: Re: Re: Idea
>
>I think we can do it. I’ll let you know
>for sure. BTW, how do you feel?”

The advertisement continues the email dialogue, but the reason why it works is because it made me stop and actually read it. The content was so real and part of something most of us do every day – read and respond to email. As usual, Nike knows good marketing.

Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools to communicate with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People enjoy specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups.

For this reason, there are many types of Social Media:

B2C: MySpace, Facebook, Gaia, Freindster, Second Life
B2B: LinkedIn, Jigsaw
Search: Digg, Delicious, Wink, Technorati
Shopping: Wists, ThisNext, Woot
Expert Communities: Blogs, Wikis
Mapping: Geosearch
Video: YouTube, TurnHere
Images: flickr

YesMail, a reputable email marketer, got slapped with a big fine today. As email marketers, we need to learn how not to make these mistakes.

ComputerWorld reports:
“November 07, 2006 (IDG News Service) — Marketer Yesmail Inc. has agreed to pay a $50,717 civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges accusing it of sending unsolicited commercial e-mail after recipients asked it to stop.

The FTC alleged that Yesmail, doing business as @Once Corp., violated federal law by continuing to send unsolicited e-mail more than 10 business days after recipients asked that the e-mail stop.

In an ironic twist, Yesmail’s spam-filtering software filtered out some unsubscribe requests from recipients as spam, resulting in Yesmail failing to honor unsubscribe requests, the FTC said. Yesmail sent thousands of e-mail messages to recipients after they requested it stop, the FTC said when announcing the settlement yesterday.”

Read full article >>

I got an email from a friend (okay, it was from a co-worker of mine), and it struck me as the best “Send to a Friend” email creative I’ve seen. Well, full disclosure is that we (eROI) did the email and web creative, but sometimes it’s nice to celebrate a great partnership with a client that produced a really cool website and email campaign. As you can see from the above creative, the email is from Kettle Foods which just launched its Passport to Flavor campaign today. The email creative reflects the early 1900′s old-world traveller feel to it where you might find an authentic ink stamp on a postcard or even your passport as you travel abroad. The site www.PassportToFlavor.com allows the user to send a unique postcard creative for each of the five outrageous flavors.

Who ever heard of a Chocolate Potato Chip? Check it out when you get a chance and when you vote for your favorite flavor or buy the chips to taste these crazy flavors, you can be eligible to win a $4,500 travel gift certificate from REI Adventures: www.PassportToFlavor.com