The eROI presenters, Dylan Boyd, Alex Williams, and I, have traveled all over the country to give presentations on various topics from Building Community Online to The Value of a Welcome Email Program to New Trends in Measuring the Success of your Online Marketing & Social Media Efforts. This blog post is an overload of resource material for 3 great presentations - enjoy!
This year’s theme for our company appreciation party was put to a vote. After the votes were tallied the theme was shrouded in mystery until a team email was sent with the reveal in true eROI Rock star fashion. This year it was fated to be… Summer White Party! Using our new eROI Event system we created a totally themed event that the email linked to. Check out the process for creating The eROI Summer White Party.
The finished product, see how it was done below.
It’s that time of the quarter again for you to be involved in a really cool study to see how many of us in REALITY actually practice what we preach when it comes to testing our email campaigns. The “Email Testing Survey” should take 2-3 minutes and you’ll probably learn a bit in the process of answering some pretty insightful questions. Also, you have a good shot at winning a Flip Ultra Video Camera - take the survey here >>
Fill out survey, and you could win this
The results should be fascinating as everyone in the email marketing world always talks about testing, testing, testing, but not everyone has time, patience, $, or know-how on how to do testing right.
Once again, take the survey and you might win a fun new toy.
I’ve attended hundreds of marketing conferences over the years, and spoken at a few, but this one was pretty unique in that the speakers and content were the best of the best from all over the country on leading topics such as email marketing, search marketing, and social media. But more importantly, Online Marketing Summit delivered in making a lot of personal connections primarily through its founder, Aaron Kahlow, who ran an online marketing agency for years and understands the subject material inherently and the crazy breed of people known as online marketers. Here are my tweets from Aaron’s opening session at the Washington DC OMS on May 14:
I highly recommend you attend another OMS - there’s also a good chance you will see eROI folks like Dylan Boyd, Alex Williams, or me speak at some of the upcoming cities - Chicago, Austin, Denver, Minneapolis, San Fran, Portland, Seattle - there are others as well - check it out here >>. I will try to dig up where my presentation from this event is posted - stay tuned.
Many companies have treated email as the “red-headed stepchild” of the online world, but as money gets tight and targeting become more important, “rock star” becomes a more appropriate term for the direct marketing technique. Natalie Zmuda’s article, How E-mail Became a Direct-Marketing Rock Star in Recession, shows that not only are businesses talking about beefing up their email, they’re actually allocating a budget for it. Because of the relatively low cost of using this form of marketing during a recession, email has been looked upon with new eyes. While other forms of marketing have flourished in the past, the interactive nature and sustainability of email has proven most effective. One of the most important aspects of a strategic email campaign is that it is trackable. In Zmuda’s article, Zappos.com mentions that segmentation will be a big part of their strategy moving forward. By looking at the data from their previous “mass mailing” technique they can start to identify what to send and to whom to send it to. A case study recently done by eROI lays out the importance of this and using the full potential of the data that is driven from email campaigns. Below is an excerpt from the Advertising Age article.
E-mail has emerged as a recession darling, as retailers look to proven programs that are cost-effective and results-oriented. That’s led to increasing investment in technologies that better target customers and serve up more enticing messages.
“The economy has energized this channel,” said Ryan Deutsch, VP-strategic services and market development at StrongMail. “It’s become the rock star of direct marketing in a lot of these retail organizations because it’s the most cost-effective and most trackable.”
Alcoa presents (sorry, that’s the beginning of a TV commercial of “The Catch” in the 1982 NFL NFC Championship flashback when Dwight Clark levitated to grab a perfect pass from Joe Montana to lift the 49ers over the Cowboys). But, I digress. My mind faded to the dramatic music to Monday Night Football, but it’s now back on the prize - bragging rights to the Third Annual PAF Battle of the Bands at Someday Lounge in Old Town / Chinatown, Portland, Oregon where the creatives show their true colors after dark. If you want to take a look at videos from prior year’s Battle of the Band, now is your time to really soak in some entertaining video for 2008. It’s going to be almost impossible for eROI to win it for yet a third year in a row, but we’re going to bring our “A” Game. Check it (this is PAF’s main event email and all the info is below):
BATTLE OF THE BANDS
DATE:
Wednesday June 17, 2009
TIME:
6:00 pm
PLACE:
Someday Lounge
224 NW 5th Avenue
Portland, OR
COST:
$300 per band
Register your Band!
Contact Mike Terry at mterry@magnetoworks.com
I know, I’m a marketer, and I like visual things, which is why I always wondered why Twitter was so spartan with its notification emails. Below are a couple screen-shots of the types of email I’ve been getting from Twitter since 10am this morning. They used to be so transactional, bussiness-like, and dreadfully boring. Now, Twitter has elevated its brand massively through a wildly effective push-medium like email. The below emails really pop of the page instead of being completely forgettable. This is all the more important considering folks like me almost never go to twitter.com - instead, I always use Tweetdeck or Twitterberry, therefore I almost never interact with the Twitter brand in an environment that Twitter controls. So, long story short, I’m in love with their decision to go with HTML email notifications. Such a tiny little thing makes a HUGE difference to many of us. Take a peek:
Kevin Tate, a buddy of mine, had an awesome analogy featured on the front page of the Oregonian today in the article “Tech entrepreneurs defy recession” by Mike Rogoway. Here’s the excerpt from the article with Kevin’s quote that really got me thinking from a different mindset:
“Portland fosters the creation of small, furry mammals rather than dinosaurs — the really big things,” said Kevin Tate, 35, CEO of StepChange Group, a social media advertising and marketing specialist in the Pearl District. The “dinosaur” model of big corporate campuses and regimented software development (think Microsoft — or even Google) is going by the wayside, Tate said, in favor of more informal and collaborative arrangements. Portland’s current high-tech foment positions the state well to capitalize when the recession ends, provided its technology entrepreneurs have the appetite to take it on. “What happens when things start coming back?” Tate asked. “Will the small, furry mammals evolve?”
Nearly 9 years ago, 7 mainly tech start-up entrepreneurs co-founded a group called Starve Ups. We all survived the dot com implosion, but were influenced by really wanting to scale our companies for growth. Some Starve Ups companies have grown a little faster than others, but many contain a desire to do something world-changing with our companies through software, social good, amazing company culture or all of the above. I really like Kevin’s quote because it is accurate and represents a strong contingent in Portland’s software community, but I think we need to be honest with ourselves that our dream is to do something bigger and be more like a lion than a forgettable Chihuahua. So, how do we get there? Lack of capital is usually at the top of the list, but our biggest limitation is our mindset. Let’s grow game-changing, sustainable software businesses in Portland and tout Portland’s livability and balance as a BONUS, not a detriment to growth.
Comment below with your ideas of a more representative furry mammal for Portland.
I love that YouTube videos are timeless and all of us can re-live ridiculous moments years later. At eROI, we have dozens and dozens of those moments captured over the past many years on the eROI YouTube channel here >>. So, why am I doing a Flashback blog post? Yesterday, I had a client meeting with my friend James Adair and the typical client meeting turned into something so much better after watching the below video on our big screen. The second video is of distinguished Portland PR specialist, JulieAnna Little Giannini. She was the winner at eROI Idol, so it was only appropriate to include her video as well.
I recently wrote an article for iMedia Connection titled “11 Email Design Best Practices” and thought I’d share it with you if you hadn’t already checked it out. It starts like this:
Remember the last great offer you didn’t see? The savvy email marketer knows that you catch more conversions with honey than you do with vinegar, so make sure your email design is sweet!
If you’re starting a new email marketing program, or looking for an edge to take your email campaigns to the next level, consider these ideas for designing emails that get your compelling offer noticed. These tips and tricks will start you off right, and even help experienced email marketers amp-up existing campaigns, turning precise communication into profits and visibility.
1. Before you start
Prior to constructing your email, make sure that your message is clear and concise. Develop and refine what you want to say so that readers don’t lose interest or get confused about what your call-to-action is. What is your offer? How will reading and clicking through this email help the reader? Make sure they know what’s in it for them. Before and during the building process, continually ask yourself, “What would I think if I got this in my inbox? Would I immediately delete it? Or worse, report it as spam?” Rule No. 1 — don’t be spam.
Even the most compelling message can be rendered ineffective if it’s presented in an undesirable way to your readers. During this process you may encounter many challenges and obstacles. Your design team may want to create something striking and beautiful, but your audience may not want it. At the same time, don’t throw readers for a loop with a design that is off-brand. Your email design should be able to flow well with the look of your website as well as any pieces collateral offered. Consistency is good. Also, design the email around your readers by responding to their personality. Are they tech savvy? Parents? Students?
Marketers: know this - doing things the same old traditional way that you’ve always done it is not going to work anymore.
We, as marketers, need to innovate. We need to take a risk with our methods, our message, our mediums, our transparency, and our openness to listen to customers. We need to take a risk with new products, software development, feature roll-outs, user-interface design, cutting edge design, and pushing our brand to mean something in today’s world.
We meet with clients regularly who have almost waited until its too late to dramatically improve their results on increasing the number and quality of leads captured, nurture campaigns, resource centers, the works.
Start small - celebrate your wins even if it is something less than a website launch. At eROI, I am really psyched about a landing page we rolled out that is compelling and has a much higher conversion rate than we’ve ever had for our own marketing purposes - tell me what you think.
http://www.eroi.com/eroi-email-marketing-study-7-elements-of-email-survey-results-report/
Our internal agency Friday afternoon sharing and learning meeting called Brews & News yesterday focused on our favorite open-source e-commerce tool, Magento, and some of its capabilities upon implementation. Here was the email that went out promoting the learning session:
Shopping 101: Today we’ll look at how Magento as an ecommerce platform helps support a shopaholic’s online shopping addiction. We’ll look at the admin side of the software as well as share some sites that are currently utilizing Magento.
Quiz: Shopping is so popular that a single American Mall alone attracts more visitors in one year than Disney World, The Grand Canyon and Graceland combined. Everyone shops, but how much do you know about shopping?
Shopping Quote:
“Shopping is better than sex. If you’re not satisfied after shopping you can make an exchange for something you really like.”
~ Adrienne Gusoff
In case you missed them, here is one post with all 10 eROI Online Marketing Predictions for 2009:
10. My Dad will use Twitter for first time and get hooked
9. My Mom will get on Facebook and get addicted to chatting non-stop with family and friends
8. Skype and other easy video-creation apps will take off in ‘09
7. Open-source, powerful tools like WordPress and Magento will become more like social apps and promote UGC (User-Generated Content)
5. Email is a whole lot more mobile today, but the formatting is still crap. You’ll see this improve dramatically in ‘09.
4. Social TV on your computer will become more popular than Regular TV among core online users.
2. CRM and Email Automation
1. The Economy will grow in ’09! Optimism will Conquer Fear.
After the last week of blog posts looking forward into 2009, I thought it would be relevant for the first blog post of 2009 to be about the Best of ‘08. The key to email marketing is personalization and ultra-relevance. This email was to my parents, sisters, and brother-in-laws about a funny video on Saturday Night Live called “Jizz in My Pants.” My Mom’s response was so funny I had to forward it to all eROI employees. If you know my Mom, it’s even funnier.
—–Original Message—–
From: Ryan Buchanan
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 1:53 PM
To: Ryan’s family
Subject: Very funny, popular SNL video
Saturday Night Live at its finest - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4.
This is one of the most passed around video in the past couple weeks.
Cheers,
Ryan
—————————-
The video is below:
And my Mom’s response…
(more…)
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 >>
Here is a great example of making your transactional email more than just a notification. When done right, transactional email can be a great branding opportunity.
Check out this awesome shipping confirmation email from Cd Baby below (click to enlarge).
I saw this…
© 2009 eROI, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 505 NW Couch, Suite 300, Portland, OR 97209
