2. CRM and Email Automation
–- In challenging economic times, all companies will adapt to become more sales and service focused through email triggers on their sites from Resource Centers, Product Purchase, Lead Capture, etc.
1. The Economy will grow in ’09! Optimism will Conquer Fear.
– As I mentioned in a previous blog post, fear is so 2008 (actually, I said “fear is so Bush,” but let’s not split hairs here). One of my colleagues who runs a public relations firm told me that much of the media simply will NOT publish any optimistic, success stories – they don’t sell. So, there is the reality that 2008 was a slightly (and let me emphasize ’slightly’) down year overall for the economy. Then, the AMPLIFIER effect of the media has greatly exacerbated the depression perception on the financial markets, consumers, home-buyers, and businesses. After 4 months of doom and gloom reporting, real humanizing success stories will begin selling again. I’m not predicting that the economy will come roaring back, but it will steadily rise throughout ‘09.
When I was a financial analyst for Intel supporting their Sales and Marketing Group, the theme for one annual worldwide sales conference was “Believe it and Achieve it!” Yes, it is a cheesy theme, but there is merit to it. Believing in your success is so much more productive to build your company whereas fear is like acid and it eats away all productivity. The second ingredient to bringing the economy back is hard work. It’s doing more with less. In the recent past at eROI, as soon as we won several new projects, we would hire more employees. Now, we are putting more programs in place to retain and reward our rockstar employees and working with contractors in high-demand and high-growth times throughout the year. Since Labor Day, I am personally putting in 30% more hours (65 hrs/wk vs. 50 hrs/wk) in nearly every aspect of the job of CEO, CFO, strategic planning, sales, marketing, PR, blogging, client outreach, networking, high-level product development, and employee management. I’ve always prided myself on a work-life balance, but that will have to wait a bit until all signs show a strong recovery. While 2009 may not be a life balance year, I predict it will be a strong economic growth year overall for the U.S. economy, but especially in the online marketing industry.
4. Social TV on your computer will become more popular than Regular TV among core online users.
One example of this is a partnership between two startups – SplashCast Media and Hulu.com. The two companies are innovating and creating a whole new experience of Social TV for re-runs of my favorite shows – 30 Rock, The Office, and others shown below. Tech entrepreneurs have been espousing the advent of Interactive TV for 15 years, but Social TV is so much cooler – it feels like hundreds of your friends are watching the same TV show at the same time, commenting on it, IMing, and doing so in text, voice, or video comments.
3. Advanced site search is becoming so natural and intuitive – marketers will prioritize this as an easy implementation with huge ROI for their site.
Search applies to more than just Google. In the business world, we want to be as productive as humanly possible and find a needle in a haystack within milliseconds – this is becoming possible within your own website or web applications with intuitive site search.
6. Email campaigns and customer life-cycle email triggers will integrate seamlessly into social networking sites and tools.
–Yes, this functionality has already started to happen within a few Email Service Providers (ESP), but it will become much more prevalent. We have started to see the easy use of ShareThis or AddThis type of technology in some ESPs but we will start to see true use of the integration into Facebook, Twitter and other micro-blogging systems as the year progresses. What will make any of this impactful to your email campaigns will be IF the consumer adopts using it. It is the new FTF (Forward to Friend) of the social age and may be seen as less intrusive as a medium than forwarding an email to someone. The benefit of this: 1. It will permeate more than just 1 person and can be seen by others following or “Friends” of that person you send it to in their update stream. 2. It has some SEO lift with content being placed into the social media stream of consciousness that sticks past the inbox and gets deeper into the web. This means that you should be more cognizant of the terms, links and key words you are using in your copy as this can only help you organically. And yet at the same time it can also attach content like Google AdWords and other keyword relevant ad servers against your content.
5. Email is a whole lot more mobile today, but the formatting is still crap. You’ll see this improve dramatically in ‘09.
–10% of social network users are already using mobile as the main way that they are accessing and updating content. This ties into the email use as well on mobile devices. They go hand in hand in uptick. And we are also seeing data plans for mobile web going to unlimited status of use in plans while mobile carriers are still sticking to the old notion of minutes of airtime as a billing method. To me this means that more people will use the mobile web more than voice as a way to control costs.
8. Skype and other easy video-creation apps will take off in ‘09
– I know Skype has been around a little while and it has been incredibly easy and cheap for people with MacBooks or other laptops with built-in cameras and microphones to video conference with their families or business colleagues for a couple years, but Macs only have a tiny market share and PCs are finally getting the picture with affordable add-ons to older machines or built-in cameras/mics in new machines. The Logitech laptop camera was the most popular gift for Christmas among my wife’s extended family this year.
Ok – so this prediction is pretty predictable. Video sites like Hulu.com have won awards and gained massive popularity in 2008, but new applications like Ontier, SplashCast, and others will take video sites to the next level. Hardware has also become so much more affordable to produce decent quality video – besides video being built into most digital cameras, the big game-changer in ‘08 was the Flip camera which will become even more prevalent in ‘09 and drive even more user-generated video and social video.
7. Open-source, powerful tools like WordPress and Magento will become more like social apps and promote UGC (User-Generated Content)
– Last year’s predictions mentioned white-label collaboration software platforms like KickApps, Clearspace, and Ning. Each of these apps gained significant traction in ‘08, but open-source platforms like WordPress’s BuddyPress will gain market share in ‘09. WordPress has already become the standard for blog software and is being used by more web developers as a solid content management system for websites. It only makes sense to extend WordPress into the social networking realm as BuddyPress will do when it launches in ‘09. Additionally, one open-source e-commerce application called Magento which has risen to the top for its stability, feature-set, and ability to customize each interface. Magento already has social networking capabilities like UGC customer reviews, but they will have more developments in integration of social platforms including e-commerce widgets, etc.
It’s that time of the year again. If you want to see what my predictions were last year, check them out here. One of the topics that is dominating the hearts and minds of most of us over the past 3 months is the economy. I wanted to think outside of the context of a stilted economy and talk about all the things that could be possible in the online marketing world based on emerging trends and technology. So here goes:
10. My Dad will use Twitter for first time and get hooked
— Most of us in the online marketing industry have been using Twitter for a year or more, but it hasn’t been commonly used outside the technical demographic. That will change in ‘09. Twitter has reached the tipping point where this new communication channel is promoted and used throughout traditional and online media. Twitter is being promoted as another channel on NPR, NY Times, and hundreds of other media companies. Thousands of Corporations have set up corporate twitter profiles and manage them daily (automatically through RSS feeds like the eROI Twitter profile or manually through Twitter.com).
But, let’s talk about my Dad for a second. He’s turning 66 in two weeks. Like many 60-something business execs, he is pretty addicted to his Blackberry. True to the culture of his age group, I’ll often get 1000 word manifesto emails that he typed out with his thumbs over the course of an hour on his Blackberry. However, I see less and less long emails sent from his Blackberry and my Dad is adopting a quicker version of things on his Blackberry. I think some of his younger partners or employees will introduce him to TwitterBerry and he will enjoy the benefit of keeping updates on close business colleagues and friends. Then, he’ll start to use TweetDeck on his laptop and soon he’ll be hooked. Maybe, he’ll turn into a Binge Tweeter like me.
9. My Mom will get on Facebook and get addicted to chatting non-stop with family and friends
— Facebook is becoming the essential social web app for all demographics. Over the holiday break, I’ve been lounging online (something I never have time to really do in the productivity of the work week) – playing around with Facebook and it’s amazing how much social value it has as more and more friends join your network. My wife created her profile on Facebook a month ago and is already far surpassing me with her use of it – chatting with her girlfriends, uploading and sharing photos, videos, commenting on other photos. She hasn’t gotten into a lot of Facebook apps, but that will happen next week, I’m sure. Men, let’s face it. Women are far better communicators than we are. Case in point – play Taboo, Cranium, or any communication-based board game where it is women vs. men and women will win every single time. Therefore, women like my wife and my Mom thrive in the Facebook environment. In fact, I predict that my wife introduces my Mom into Facebook and then there will be no more secrets. Game over.
This post was written the day BEFORE Christmas and is a reminder to myself that I didn’t open up my laptop on Christmas day. Hope everyone is enjoying time with family and/or friends today. If you’ve got a good Christmas story, please share it in the comments below. We will forever appreciate it!
Like most of you, I got dozens of corporate “Happy Holidays” emails. Most had great intent behind them (donating to good causes instead of sending a paper card or gift), but these email campaigns lacked creativity and fell flat in their execution. GoDaddy’s holiday email and flash landing page was so tame and off-brand from the edgy stance they’ve taken with their Super Bowl ads. Some of our vendors sent me holiday emails that were strong sales pitches – not appropriate for a time of reflection and authenticity. Most other emails had generic subject lines like “Happy Holidays from x” and generic email design with low or generic results to their campaigns. I liked 2 holiday emails (beyond our own holiday email) – the first was from Michelle Obama – the main thing I liked was that the Obama campaign FINALLY didn’t ask me for money for themselves – they did ask me to donate to my local food bank.
The second holiday email campaign (see above for email design) had such compelling and humorous, original content on its landing page that it made up for a slightly expected subject line and simple email design and copywriting. Basically, this email from Sandstrom Partners was incredibly effective at getting me to click on the main call to action and even better at getting me to laugh as I completely connected with the agency gift conundrum. See if you think their video landing page is funny too >>
Thank you to everyone at eROI who donated to the Women’s Shelter! I’m really appreciative that you ran with this whole donation effort on your own and got so many employees here to give so generously. Garrett, Summer, Chuck, Meaghan and Kelsey delivered the boxes of various warm donations to the shelter on NW 5th and Burnside in Portland this morning. They were very grateful and surprised by the amount of donations eROI had collected for them. I am sure we have made many Women happy (and warm) this Holiday Season.
Since we are full believers in OPTIMISM at eROI, we wanted to get everyone in the mood to do a little holiday partying and heavy drinking. KillROI is back in action and mixed some killer beats – 3 FREE downloadable mixes (an hour of blissful listening). KillROI also offered himself up for Free – he has no shame and apparently no price. To check all this out, go to the landing page from our email campaign.
Seven Planet is a viable, for-profit business with a do-good cause of building the brand to save the planet. The company has a vision of becoming the world’s first chain of green general stores with the backbone of its sales happening through its world-class website. Work on the site initially began on 7/7/2007 by several friends looking to produce a sustainable business. Similar to a Co-operative, the company is all about giving back to the community and for all who help Seven Planet further its cause. One entirely unique piece of its model is that it gives HALF of all profits to its constituents – Advisors, Store General Managers, Local Suppliers, Global Suppliers, and Patrons.
…time to put a penny in the old man’s hat. Sorry – inside joke among friends here.
But, back to the point at hand here. KillROI is mixing it up with some Christmas dignitaries in my house. It’s getting a little out of control here as this guy really gets around – hanging with some Nutcracker royalty, then he makes his way onto the Christmas Tree hanging with Big Bird, and now, he’s chilling with our angel – don’t get any ideas. I’ve been a bad boy with missing a couple Haiku Mondays recently, so let’s get our groove on with haikus about KillROI. Comment with a passion below.
Yellow Warrior
Why do they call you KillROI
When you just spread love
A friend of mine, Michael Berkeley, is founder and CEO of a very cool startup called SplashCast Media that is making a huge impact in the online entertainment world – their recent success was with integrating with Hulu.com. The two companies are innovating and creating a whole new experience of Social TV for re-runs of my favorite shows – 30 Rock, The Office, and others shown below. Tech entrepreneurs have been espousing the advent of Interactive TV for 15 years, but Social TV is so much cooler – it feels like hundreds of your friends are watching the same TV show at the same time, commenting on it, IMing, and doing so in text, voice, or video comments. Ah, innovation is a beautiful thing. Remember how I wrote in an earlier blog post about December being The Month of Optimism. Well, here it is. Check out a snippet of their press release below.
At eROI, we launch a quarterly email marketing study on things that make you scratch your head and do a bit of a double-take. Conventional wisdom says that EMAIL IS DEAD among high schoolers and college students. So, we decided to test that hypothesis, and this report has some fascinating discoveries.
Our latest survey uncovers exactly how high school students, college students, and recent college graduates communicate online. 283 high school and college students participated in the study and 29 states were represented.
These survey results reveal eye-opening trends and preferences of this demographic in how it communicates digitally. We also get valuable insight into the effectiveness of marketing messages received through email, and discover areas of opportunity for marketers to connect with this in-demand group.
Students can be an elusive demographic for marketers. From this study, you will learn about a lot of new trends and valuable information about students. You will also learn specific data on which marketing channels will carry and present your message most effectively.
Our fearless NYC Director, Chris Masagatani, has been scouring the streets of NYC for 374 days. He and his fiance (now wife) moved there Dec 2, 2007. They moved straight into Hell’s Kitchen and Chris commuted all of 25 blocks to the eROI NYC office in the Flat Iron District of Manhattan where we still operate. So much change in a year – his wife is one of the top designers at nationally-acclaimed design school Parsons, and Chris is truly coming into his own as an expert online marketer, leading email design and web projects for CBS Sports, CBS Watch magazine, CBS Star Trek store among other key eROI clients like digital publisher Zinio, real estate companies like Shares of New York, The Marketing Directors and dozens more unique and amazing NYC-based clients.
What makes our year anniversary in NYC even better is that Chris has found his voice blogging on our new blog in the eROI blog family. Check out the phenomenal, unique video mashups, and photos of NYC life on THE REBIRTH OF SLICK >>
You will feel like you are in New York City when you read the blog posts and watch the videos at www.eroinyc.com
As this blog is about “days” at eROI, I thought it’d be relevant to talk about a Friday ritual other than our morning yoga in the office. This ritual has caught on like wildfire. It was a great idea that came from our creative team and fully embraced across every department in the company. It’s called Brews & News and it’s all about our creative and account teams sharing new client projects we’ve launched and what went into the strategy, design, and all the custom web development tools, database builds that went into building these websites, blogs, contest sites, online community sites. We talk about the results and what helped to amplify the early success of several of these launches. Check out a few pics from our last Brews & News:
13 Brands Examined: New rules for sexy subject lines - If you do not read iMedia Connection then I wanted to share with you an article I wrote last week for them where I looked at 13 email marketing programs for the good and the bad. We can learn from...
