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:
Aaron doing a great job getting audience out of their shells at #oms
Tip to event organizers – learn from aaron – institute the “boo” rule. It liberates the crowd.
Aaron opening – marketing in a recession. Fear will cripple your decision-making
management is all about cya, no future vision to give marketing any resources at all.
Overall mktg budget wacked, but bigger piece of the pie going online #oms
100 percent of people prefer to communicate online
Pillar 1 is search. Pillar 2 is email marketing. Pillar 3 is analytics. Across all pillars is social media
@aaronkahlow – guessing on aaron’s handle – what % people here at #oms will tweet immediately vs email a couple days later from your biz card
Email is like yesterday’s fax. Even facebook uses email to pull you back into the online community
Need to customize web analytics reports to align with business goals #oms
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
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.
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.
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
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
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 >>
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.
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
The End Of A Chapter – My Next Move - Just like a good book, there are never really any endings, only beginnings. I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am leaving my position at eROI as of January 31st, 2011. I will be starting a new position at a company outside of the email marketing and interactive agency business [...]
Join eROI at DMA 2010 in San Francisco – October 11th-14th - Alex Williams, Strategy for eROI, will be presenting in San Francisco at DMA2010 on email, social, mobile and ecommerce. DMA2010 is the global event covering all marketing channels — from traditional...
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1. Before you start
