eROI Days Email Agency

Email is a direct marketing medium, and I appreciate this directness.  I advise clients to be direct with a clear call to action.  But everyday and sometimes 3 times a day can be too much.  Yes, I am talking about an email program that I have praised and defended - Barack Obama’s email marketing program.  McCain doesn’t know how to use email, and last week, Barack was using email far too much.

The following email was the twelth I received for the week yesterday and I just want to tell the Obama posse (Barack, Michelle, Joe, and the local Barack campaign manager) to stop asking me for money in at least one of these uber-frequent emails.  A recent email example with subject line “Deadline: Tomorrow”:

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While my 6 year-old daughter Grace didn’t write my Creative Review for SesameStreet.org, she definitely was the entire focus group for the writing assignment.  Apparently, the entire site (including strategy, focus groups, usability experts, content creation, design, development, and production) cost $14 million.  Fellow eROI blogger, Dylan Boyd, shared this fact with me and we were both stunned at the price tag.  However, the following weekend, Grace and my youngest daughter Emma proved the money for SesameStreet.org was worth it, as it was exactly what kids wanted (not for adults who think they are big kids).

Here is my Creative Review published in iMedia Connection a few days ago:

“The tough task of writing a review for the iconic brand of Sesame Street’s new website melted away when I included my six-year-old daughter Grace to put the site to the test. The site’s primary target audience is clearly focused on young kids, so watching Grace interact with the site was much more informative than my initial attempts to be a big kid on the site. Here is what I learned: Sesame Street did its homework. When it comes to good content, kids are far more patient than adults. Grace watched the first two minutes of the homepage Flash animation of Bert introducing the elements of the site. She and her three-year-old sister Emma began talking back to the screen and getting very animated about all the recognizable characters. Where do you think Grace clicked first? Games, of course. Kids love games and smartly, SesameStreet.org has “Games” as the intuitive first choice in the top navigation.”

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My respected co-worker, email expert, and The Email Wars star blogger, Dylan Boyd, has made some excellent points about the Obama camp’s blown opportunity in VP Candidate Joe Biden’s email outreach with the subject line “Hello” in today’s blog post: http://theemailwars.com/2008/08/25/errr-hello-top-subject-line-ever/.  However, I challenge Dylan to tell me that he is truly “jaded” by the pure effectiveness of the Obama email program. 

I’d love to get Dylan’s response to Michele Obama’s email this evening with the subject line “Behind the scenes in Denver”.  The content of the email hit the mark - it was real, genuine, her voice, intelligent.  The timing perfect: she delivered a kick ass speech at the Democratic National Convention just 3 hours after her email hit my inbox.  The call to action was compelling, obvious, focused, and had intrigue and mystery built into it.  I want to see what’s going on behind the scenes in this historic presidential race.  Don’t you?

So, before you all get jaded from one mis-step out of 207 emails, get inspired by the good stuff.  To me, the Obama campaign displays Email Intelligence.  And, unlike his opponent, he can actually use the medium. Tell me what you think in your comments on this post.  Subscribe to this Blog in the upper right.

If you want to check out the content of Michelle’s email, read more here >> (more…)

At eROI, we have a lot of talented creatives. They inspire me and keep the place thinking differently. But, I have to admit that Overland Agency, based in Portland Oregon, has THE BEST young talent I’ve ever seen. Papa, Arve Overland, has a rockstar of a 4 year old son. And, so the legacy begins.

Sometimes, I think it can be better to live in the now, enjoy the moment, and keep the memories among everyone in the company.  I was on the fence whether or not to blog these limited set of photos but decided that this blog is all about transparency of what goes on inside an online marketing company, so here’s our slideshow.  Elliot’s photos are far better than these.  He’ll need to post it.

To check out the conversations we have inside the company (some are completely frivilous like Alex’s dancing dinosaur and others are really insightful), check out our “internal” blog called CrossPixelNation:

http://crosspixelnation.com/category/pdx (Portland office)
http://crosspixelnation.com/category/nyc/ (New York City office)

I’m pretty darn psyched about being an Inc. 5000 company for the second year in a row.  Last year, I was so inspired by being around my entrepreneurial peers at the Inc. 5000 Conference in Chicago, I vowed to go back to the conference this year whether we made the list or not.  It’s a little bit sweeter that we actually made the list, regardless of dropping from the #402 position to #1142 fastest growing company in the country (yes, it’s much much harder to grow substantially from a larger revenue number, then when you first start out).

So, here’s what we had to say in our press release:

“eROI Ranks No. 1142 on the 2008 Inc. 5,000 With Three-Year Sales Growth of 327.6%

NEW YORK, August 20, 2008 – Inc. today ranked eROI No. 1142 on its annual ranking of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the country. The list is the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy – America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Taken as a whole, these companies represent the backbone of the U.S. economy.

“Our second annual Inc. 5000 continues the most ambitious project in business journalism,” said Inc. 5000 Project Manager Jim Melloan. “The Inc. 5000 gives an unrivaled portrait of young, under-reported companies across all industries doing fascinating things with cutting-edge business models, as well as older companies that are still showing impressive growth.”

eROI provides online resources for marketing strategies–including websites, email campaigns, blogs and social networking sites–to small businesses as well as Fortune 500 marketing managers. Why are they growing so fast? eROI extends itself to work with clients even after the job is done by giving them the online tools to continue their efforts on their own. Oregon Business magazine named CEO and founder Ryan Buchanan one of the 50 Great Leaders for Oregon. Buchanan is also President of the Board of the Portland Advertising Federation.”

Read the full press release on eroi.com >>

See the eROI profile on inc.com >>

My values are still in tact, when I tell you that it’s okay to cheat this time.  We just launched our New Guide: “Pre-Launch Email Marketing Campaign Cheat Sheet”! 

As we mention in our Resources section of our site, “In today’s hectic email marketing landscape, it’s easy to overlook important aspects of your campaign. So, we are offering you this cheat sheet. Check and review each point on the sheet before your campaign is sent, and increase your campaign performance by catching something you forgot to double-check.”

If you think this is one of the cheesiest blog titles and opening two sentences, post a comment.  It’s getting late in the office, and I’m a little punchy.  But seriously, check out this Guide / Cheat Sheet - I really think you’ll find it valuable.

At eROI, we try hard to be a resource to folks in the email marketing industry, and one of the ways that we’ve done that over the past 5 years is to do a quarterly study (based on a survey or aggregate data from our email marketing platform) and present those results to everyone in the industry.  It always amazes us that there is a HUGE difference between what email marketers know to do as best practices for their campaigns versus what is actually done in the real world (where time, money, process, and other factors get in the way of best practices).

In this Q3′08 eROI study called “The Elements of Email“, there is a shocking difference of best practices vs. real world practices.  For example, only a quarter of marketers test their subject lines.  Fifty-five percent of online marketers don’t know how they authenticate emails (to ensure that more of their emails reach their email subscriber’s inbox.  Lastly, only 10 percent of us create mobile versions of our email campaigns.

People are talking about the study, so make sure you check out what they are saying.  And, if you’d like to draw your own conclusions, click here to see the full study >>

Articles on this study:
http://directmag.com/magill/0819-email-markers-slopping/ 
http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketers-missing-opportunities-040449/
http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/email-marketers-missing-opportunities-5665/

Please comment below to let me know your take.  Also don’t forget to subscribe to this blog.  Now that I’m refreshed from vacation, I promise to post blog entries more frequently.

The fact that I’m writing this blog post on a Saturday morning just 30 minutes before going backpacking in the Jefferson Wilderness area in Central Oregon says a lot about blog guilt and how crazy it has been in the office the week after returning from vacation (I know - don’t feel sorry for me - I’m stoked to get the longest vacation in my career).

This post is going to be a stream of conscience similar to Holden Caulfield’s rants in “A Catcher in the Rye.” I was actually out of the office for 2.5 weeks with the first 1/2 week at my Grandmom’s memorial service in Maryland. It was a hugely positive trip as different family units between my Dad and his 3 sisters and all of the cousins, nephews, and neices connected in a meaningful way that hasn’t happened in quite a while. My grandmom was the family matriarch and instilled in all of us the importance of family, community, and was the consummate hostess for social and family gatherings.

Basically, the whole 2.5 weeks were 3 separate trips, all with family. Trip 1: Maryland (with an incredible day boating, sea kayaking, and having a huge crab feast on the Chesapeake Bay). Trip 2: San Juan Islands, Washington with my wife, our two girls, and her Mom and Mom’s husband - a week on a cabin cruiser boat with the 6 of us island hopping to San Juan Island, Orcas, Stuart Island, and Lopez Island. It was our first real trip together w/ Shan’s folks and we shared some great memories and awesome discoveries of Dungeness crab, shrimp, fish, sea anemone, starfish, and amazing hikes along the shore. It was a bit chilly, but the kids loved it, and nice to get away from it all. Trip 3: Black Butte Ranch, Central Oregon with my side of the family - 20 of us in 1 house - 9 kids loving it and all the adults doing what each of us are passionate about whether it be the outdoors, golf, or eating/drinking - massive feasts.

I’m realizing that I’ve got too much to say to fit into this one blog post, but some of my realizations from being away from the office and with family for an extended time are this - family is everything and it feels fantastic when things flow smoothly and everyone can go at their own speed.  In a family where all of us are Alpha personalities, we’ve just now figured out how to do that - shocking.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think about work at all.  In fact, I got a lot of clarity and focus on what needs to be done at eROI  which are all about execution of 2 main things that we’ve been working on all year:

1. Do a phenomenal job with the roll out of our next generation event registration and database marketing software products over the next 12 months.  This is so critical to the company.
2. Continue to launch websites, community sites, blogs, and email designs that delight and inspire our customers (and us).

If we can do these 2 things over the next 12 months, we will be in a phenomenal position.  As a secondary realization, I also recognized that I absolutely love being part of the fabric of the Portland business community, and the way that I can have the most impact is for eROI to be successful.  As founder and CEO of the company, eROI is a huge piece of my professional identity and, if I’m honest with myself, it’s also a major part of my personal identity.  If we can execute the top 2 priorities above, it will put us in a position where we can have a substantial positive impact on the world.

Ok, so I thought for some reason that Ryan was going to be back by now, but looks like he’s gone until next Monday. You know what that means - more Mitchell-branded eROI Days blog posts! Don’t worry Ryan, I’ll keep the electro-breaks music in my headphones and off of your blog.

I hope that after that first Mad Men post some of you readers out there were intrigued enough to check the show out. (Sundays @ 10pm on AMC).

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