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eROI makes Inc. 5000 for 4th Consecutive Year

Ryan Buchanan — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:18:32 +0000

We’re definitely psyched to have made the list for our 4th consecutive year for the 2010 Inc. 5000 fastest growing, privately-held U.S. companies, sliding in at a cool #2844. Our employees have led the way with hard work, expertise, and customer-centric approach to allow us to continue to grow through 2009. I can’t tell you how appreciative I am of having the team that we have here at eROI.

Some quick facts:
3-year growth: 77%
2009 Revenue: $4.8 million
2006 Revenue: $2.7 million
Employees: 41
Founded: 2002
Industry: ■ Advertising & Marketing
Industry rank: #252
#27 in Portland, OR

See the Full List of all Inc. 5000 honorees

Click above to see our Inc 5000 profile

5 Email Marketing Tools You’ve Never Heard Of

Ryan Buchanan — Wed, 12 May 2010 05:44:35 +0000

I gave this presentation at Innotech Oregon last Thursday and talked through some really useful tools that email marketers should consider using: Flowtown, Unbounce, Which Test Won, Email2Mobile, Email on Acid. Check out the presentation below to see some visual examples of what these tools can accomplish for you.

5 Email Marketing Tools You've Never Heard of

View more presentations from Ryan Buchanan.

Oregon Software Community Moving on Up

Ryan Buchanan — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:14:48 +0000

Last night, I gave a speech at the Annual Member Dinner of the Software Association of Oregon (SAO) and I must say how good it feels to be part of an organization that has such positive momentum – the feeling in the air was palpable and is really encouraging given the challenging economy. Portland has always prided itself on a collaborative business community, but often at a surface level. At this event, there were software companies from across the state, top government leaders, and some clear innovators in clean technology. The keynote speaker was Google’s Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl, and the crowd of 300 people was overflowing. Here was my SAO Board address to the audience (in semi-shortened format):

“For some of you, this might be the first SAO event you’ve been to in a while. For many of the rest of you who have been to a recent event, you have likely felt the buzz – that positive momentum – that SAO is fueling in the software community in Oregon. There are some awesome new opportunities for you to get involved:

With SAO’s goal of drawing more CTOs and CIOs from tech and non-tech organizations into the mix, we are especially pleased to be attracting great speakers like tonight’s Bill Weihl, Czar of Google.
We’ve also rolled out a Leadership Exchange program where leaders and managers across each department of your software organization are gaining insights and perspective that are simply not possible within the walls of your own company. I know it’s had a game-changing effect on my company saving me from some pretty huge mistakes that our execs or I would have made or we would have missed some major opportunities that I would have never known about had it not been for these monthly roundtable discussions and follow-on discussions.
Police Chief Sizer has already touched on the value of SAO and the tech community reaching out to the public sector through our Fireside chats. Other gatherings have included also included Portland’s Mayor.
Finally, the social gatherings and networking opportunities have gained critical mass. The last SAO Blazer game I attended was double the size from a year ago.

One thing that hasn’t been talked about tonight, but it’s been bugging me for the past 6 months. In conversations with some software folks about how to grow the software community in Oregon, I often hear complaints that Portland and Oregon as a whole does NOT have 2 things: CAPITAL and TALENT. It’s been the same complaint for the past 20 years and I’m getting tired of it. I think we do have the talent – a lot of it is right here in this room. IT’S UP TO US to grow our own companies here, start new ones, and invest and mentor promising Oregon start ups. No one is going to save us. WE ARE THE ANSWER. SAO is part of that answer. If we’re making the same excuses and complaints 20 years from now, we’ve failed. Together, we can create a stronger, growing tech community in Oregon. I firmly believe this!

I really encourage you to get involved – it will likely be the most valuable and even selfish thing you do this year – to help your career and your company. Thank you.”

What I’ve Learned from Jim Collins

Ryan Buchanan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:39:11 +0000

In an effort to be semi-thoughtful in this blog post, I’m not going to simply copy my Jim Collins notes that I had to write fast and furiously and therefore missed them in my Inc. 500 twitter stream. I’m going to reflect on some of the stand-out items from his speech and after reading in 2 days his book, “How the Mighty Fall, And Why Some Companies Never Give In.”

Being at the right place at the right time is IRRELEVANT. Jim’s urging to the entrepreneurial crowd got his message across loud and clear – that the tough economic storm can NOT be an excuse for everything that ails you. We, as entrepreneurs, have control of our own destinies and our own company’s destiny. It’s up to us to dig deep and build great, enduring companies over the next 15+ years.

I learned a lot from reading his book, but one story that cemented in my brain was what Collins called the Jim Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Stockdale was a Vietnam prisoner of war. When Collins asked him about how he made it through years of isolation and torture, Stockdale responded that he had unwavering faith that he’d get out but was still keenly aware of the brutal journey and circumstances in front of him. Collins then asked who didn’t make it. Stockdale responded “the optimists.” Stockdale proceeded to explain that the optimists died of a broken heart because they always put a time-table on when they’d be released – by Christmas, by Easter, by end of July and so on. The lesson is to believe in your path for the long haul and don’t let short-term setbacks deter you from your cause.

Last thing that really stuck with me was the leadership success factor of humility and making your mission all about the company in every way, not about yourself. Many of the most successful leaders like Anne Mulcahy of Xerox repeatedly turned down interviews and coverage of most of the top publications as she focused internally to clean up a nearly disastrous cash situation at Xerox and attributed the success to everyone else but herself. Collins showed example after example of leaders of great companies who did this AND similar great companies with new leaders who didn’t instill that “it’s all about the company cause” mentality and those companies started their decline and ultimately fell from greatness.

My Twitter Stream from Inc. 5000 Conference

Ryan Buchanan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:44:56 +0000

The calm before the storm at #inc5000. Already connected with old friends and Inc magazine staff http://yfrog.com/0oqxmjj 5:56 PM Sep 23rd from Tweetie

One more photo from Gaylord resort in wash dc. Schwanky. http://yfrog.com/16vonyj 5:57 PM Sep 23rd from Tweetie

#inc5000 conf starting now. Largest attendance ever at 1,700 of us. Aggregate rev of $214 billion http://yfrog.com/0nxn1jj 6:14 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Tony hsieh of zappos.com about to keynote on topic of the science of happiness. Transformative to hear it at #sxsw. Now at #inc5000 6:20 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@zapposceo telling story of pizza co to online advertising to investing in startups, bored with investing, took on CEO role at zappos 6:25 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

All about customer service. Marketing dollars mainly go to cust svce so customers spread love via word of mouth 6:28 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@zappos did over $1 billion last year. All about delivering wow. Lots of surprise overnight ups upgrades. Package shows up 8 hrs later 6:31 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

50% of performance review is about fit with company culture and values @zappos 6:33 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zappos is about delivering happiness in a box to employees and customers. Core values shouldbe something you base hiring and firing 6:39 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Luck is about being open to new opportunities 6:40 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Book recomendation- Tribal Leadership 6:43 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

The big question: what is your goal in life? Ultimately to be happy and fulfilled 6:50 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Perceived control, progress, connectedness, vision and meaning 6:56 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zappos.com Tony Hsieh @zappos says you can email him for the pres but you can DL it from inc500conference.com next week (via @IncEvents) 6:58 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Randall grahm describes how everyone told him not to do wine cafe in his vineyard but he did it. Great intimate connections with customers 7:21 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Robert Johnson who sold BET for $3 billion a few years ago. Speaking about what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur 7:23 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 Robert Johnson talks about a cool concept in philanthropy called clubcharity.com 8:48 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 panel innovation: fostering it, managing it, profiting from it. David freedman moderator 8:51 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Founders of Emotiv, Atari, chuckie cheeses, and Heartland Robotics #inc500. Excited for this innovation panel 8:54 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

So many innovative projects fail because people fall into trap of taking negative feedback from nearly everyone because couldn’t visualize 9:05 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Panel pic Nolan says politics is the killer of innovation. So easy to say no. Need to breed rebels http://yfrog.com/0git2hj 9:27 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Without a champion, ideas are worthless. Need to share ideas openly because it’s all about implementation 9:39 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Ian and cal with Wexley School for Girls on stage now. Old agency model is dead. 11:50 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Don’t worry first about Twitter or facebook or radio buy. Worry about spending 90% energy on the idea 11:54 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 Ian and cal showing short film winner take steve. Classic. Not sure if random humor lost on this crowd. Regardless, great stuff 11:59 AM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Scott Griffith of Zipcar tells a story of transformation #inc500 http://yfrog.com/0snpbj 12:02 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Zipcar transformation all about turning a political movement into a big company. Car sharing really gaining steam #inc500 12:05 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Bob williamson describes a really rough first 24 years of life, then went on to start 9 companies, sold Horizon software for $75M 1:37 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

#inc500 williamson got started at the bottom in the paint industry. Alcholic and drug addict. Credits his success to faith and work ethic 1:40 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Life is like a ping pong ball. It goes up and down. Williamson. #inc500 1:42 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Jill Strahan of Tastefully Simple advice: just start, know where you’re going, don’t stop. #inc500 1:53 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Share your dream with your customers. For Jill, it was being as large as pampered chef. Dream it. Believe it. Work it. 1:56 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Fear is the gatekeeper to strength. It’s like building muscle. Rip it down, then grows stronger after day of rest. Repeat. 1:59 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

The soul will not show us what we cannot handle. Jill Strahan. #inc500 2:00 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Hang out with the sunshine people 2:02 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Listening to Herman chinery-Hesse, the bill gates of Ghana. Many ghanians didn’t believe it was possible to start software co there 2:09 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

Herman started with small business clients. Some told him to go to hell. He proved the biz model and grew fast with multinational orgs 2:11 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie

@mark_lawler thx holmes. Definitely getting inspired and learning a lot @inc500 2:13 PM Sep 24th from Tweetie in reply to mark_lawler

#inc500 Jim Collins dynamically takes the stage. How to thrive in these crazy times http://yfrog.com/0hvjlj 5:52 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jim Collins is so engaging that I can’t tweet fast enough. I will blog it later 6:01 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jim Collins – best presenter I’ve ever seen. Wow. Hugely relevant and powerful conversation with this passionate audience #inc500 7:23 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

What is the secret to success? What is your definition? Barry Griswell, the adversity paradox, Principal Group CEO. #inc500 7:31 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Adversity is like a crucible. Going thru it often builds character. The adversity paradox – self accountability, be positive, and then some 7:34 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Who you are matters most. No substitute for hard work. Purpose takes the work out of work. 7:40 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

The power of knowledge and lifetime learning is transforming. A mirror is the most important tool. Introspection 7:44 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

David Neeleman, founder of jet blue airways and CEO of Azul now takes the stage #inc500 8:17 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Jet blue was founded to be a customer service company. Key is flawless execution. David emailed all customers to apologize for 6 min wait 8:25 AM Sep 25th from Tweetie

Your people need to love, absolutely adore where they work. Takes enormous amount of focus on culture to create employee evangelists

Customers feel that tangible element of employees loving that company

Make it right with the customer even if it’s more expensive to fix the mistake to keep the loyalty there

The 6 hour delay on icy NY tarmac. Jet blue got all the bad press because people expected more of jet blue. $34 million in free flights

Does your company matter? If it was plucked from the earth, who would care?

I am a Z. #inc500. Scary

Keith Ferrazzi is damn good on stage. Everyone in the room is in sales.

eROI Makes the top half of INC 5000

Ryan Buchanan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 14:30:18 +0000

It’s that time of year again when Inc Magazine comes out with its list of the fastest growing, privately-held companies in the country. We are stoked to make the INC 500|5000 list for a third consecutive year – I get really reflective and nostalgic of how far we’ve come as a company – very proud of our team.

This year, we achieved #1,876. It’s hard to believe that we have grown 169.7% over the past 3 years. Actually, it’s not that much of a stretch – we’ve worked our asses off to do great work and push the ball forward. We were also awarded #30 in the Portland Metro Area, we share the list with others like EthicsPoint, R2C Group and even Papa Murphy’s International.

The top 10 ranged from advertising & marketing to logistics & transportation but the business who earned the crown was insurance. Miami’s Northern Capitol Insurance topped the list with 19,812.2% growth and $95 million in revenue. Their business model changed from one of accommodating a more narrow margin of well-off home buyers to one that was focused on managing risk for large groups of re-insurers. The foresight to change their path greatly helped them achieve the #1 company status. Another great example of working to the market was #3 Harley Stanfield. They used a model of sustainable housing and flexible ownership for the unstable housing market.

This September 24-25, I’ll be in Washington D.C. at the Inc. 5000 Conference – I know some friends of mine from Brass Media and Ethics Point will be there. How about you? Let me know if I’ll see you there. It’s my 3rd time going to this conference and get a ton of value from it every year. I highly recommend it.

Ignite6 – Only in Portland do You see this

Ryan Buchanan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:43:46 +0000

Dawn Foster just sent out an awesome Flickr slideshow done by Aaron Hockley. I’ll figure out the iframe work-around to get the embedded slideshow working correctly when I get into the office tomorrow. As I was sitting next to fellow current, current, and former eROI teammates Dylan, Summer, and Garrett, I couldn’t help but commenting on all of the things that Portland creativity, informality, and general vibe offer that you simply can’t find anywhere else. For example: I would never see a toddler or infant at a late-night business event on the East Coast where “ear muffs” are needed in many of the presentations. I doubt other cities have women crescendo into near-real orgasms over vegetables during a presentation. So, to start off my twitter stream from the big Ignite6 night, I’ll pick the one that sums it all up – “What’s great about portland? So communal – techies bring kids to the event, casual, real, accepting, creative, inspiring.” Here’s the rest of my tweets:

# James keller on being a hooker in rugby. Great lessons, entertaining #ignite6

Eva – brilliant thinking

Authority – like librarians – its about what’s real

Anything happens at #ignite6 – veggies an aphrodisiac

Ice cold swim after sauna – shrinkage can be an issue #ignite6

Sauna cleanses you inside and out #ignite6

After intermission – sauna etiquette pres, #ignite6

# Kgw – lesson 1 – be careful who you call a hipster. Epic fail. At #ignite4

http://ohac.org – getting kids insured

Healthcare presenter – diy – ducttape your broken finger, mental stuff, manage risk. 1 of 6 americans don’t have health insurance

Pet your dog at shoulder, not on head.

Pet your dog at shoulder, not on head

Treat your dog like a dog, not like your inner child #ignite6

Bridget talks about how you can stop shitty little dog syndrome. Like junk-scratching in public

The turk was a machine in 1734 that beat chessmasters of the day ( actually a man hidden in the machine)

@magicseth is up now #ignite6

Myofacia – gotta learn good posture to optimize muscle memory in your body

Chris espouses mindful commerce in last slide – love it – thinking of @sevenplanet

Chris doing presentation on being a gentleman – great delivery

Multi-touch acquarium app on display table – art coming to life

Microsoft display costs 17k, todd’s team create display table for 1k and do it 2 weeks #ignite6

Todd – presenter 1 – multi-touch display like iphone

Startupalooza is oct 10, #ignite7 is nov 12

What’s great about portland? So communal – techies bring kids to the event, casual, real, accepting, creative, inspiring

@ignitepdx, very simply, I love portland.

PAF AE Bootcamp – A Cheer for the Creatives

Sydney — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:15:19 +0000

This past Monday the entire Account Department attended Portland Advertising Federation’s AE Bootcamp. Some of the best of the best of Portland’s advertising executive world (Peter Levitan, Phil Reilly, Jerry Ketel, Rebecca Armstrong, and Paige McCarthy) were brought together to share their wisdom, experience, and expectations on what is required to reach “Total AEness.” I thoroughly enjoyed each presentation and it was refreshing to have a PAF event topic that spoke directly to the accounts side of the agency.

In particular, I found Phil Reilly’s talk to be very interesting. He started off by posing the question, “how many of you have a difficult time dealing with your creatives?” There were many hands raised throughout the room but I was not surprised to see a that none of the ten eROI account executives had a hand in the air. I am proud to say this is something that we do not struggle with as an agency. This led me to ask the question “why?” The rest of the presentation brought up so many parallels, so why does this one piece not apply to the eROI team? What I think it boils down to is our collaborative process. From the kickoff meeting to launch, all project team members are involved; concepting, strategy, creative vision, Q/A testing are all a team effort. This collaboration from the getgo eliminates surprises and keeps the entire team in the know.

I must also give credit to the creative team themselves. I truly believe I have the pleasure of working with some of the most talented designers in the city. Their ability to take a brief and a meeting with a client and come back with a solid direction that meets every objective, and is also atheistically brilliant, is a skill that one just has to admire. There has never been an “us” versus “them” mentality across departments. We are all on the same team and advocates for both eROI and the client. This gives us the recipe for success – all the ingredients just work together.

I want to thank the Portland Ad Federation for bringing together these respected chiefs to speak to us. Many additional topics were thrown around for future sessions and deeper exploration. I found this workshop to be very valuable and will definitely be attending the next one. I will leave you with the words of Lynette Xanders “Be a cheerleader, not a policeman”- who’s with me?!

Eagles Visit the Software Association of Oregon (SAO) Golf Tourney

Ryan Buchanan — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:35:04 +0000

Over the past couple years, I’ve gotten more and more involved in the Software Association of Oregon (SAO), but never have I had as much fun on the golf course with my foursome sponsored and led by the local accounting powerhouse firm, Perkins & Company. With over 100 software professionals and 30+ SAO volunteers at The Reserve golf course on the outskirts of Aloha, Oregon.

The Tourney was a scramble and I had to contend with incessant smack-talking from the uber-outgoing, affable Dave Sullivan in my foursome. Somehow, thru all that smack-talking, I raised my game (not hard to do when one is as bad of a golfer as I am). Four holes into the match, Sullivan drilled a 75 yarder into the cup for an eagle. The foursome of Sullivan, David Uslan, John Hayden, and I celebrated on the green with a few chest bumps (yes, old men try to act younger with a few beers in them).

A few holes before the end of our play, the golf gods were kind to me. A perennial wicked slicer, I actually hit my drive 270 yards straight down the fairway to about 15 feet on the fringe of the green. As luck would have it, I chose my putter instead of the predictable Pitching Wedge and nailed a 45 foot putt for eagle (first in my life). Ridiculous.

What does this blog post have to do with anything relevant to eROI or the interactive communty? Nothing, other than to say that the Portland software community and SAO in particular is not only alive but thriving. SAO President Matt Nees starts in his role this Monday and we’re back in the saddle again.

Online Marketing Summit Portland

Ryan Buchanan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:34:43 +0000

OMS has been touring the country to spread the word on online marketing the right way. On June 29th, OMS set up in Portland for a day full of expertise. I brought something back from every speaker and got to watch. eROI’s own Alex Williams did a great job of breaking down the value of a good welcome email for the crowd. Here are some of my other notes from the event:

Aaron Khalow started the event off with key points like 63% of website visitors who don’t find what they are looking for will never come back. It makes a strong case for optimizing your site. He stressed that your website is your foundation but it won’t matter unless you have the tools to encourage people to find it. The three pillars were search – with SEO having the largest impact, email – the fabric that holds it all together, and analytics – customization is key.

Ray “Catfish” Comstock, from Business Online, went deeper into some of these subjects. He illustrated a search cycle that went from ranking to repeat customer.

Ranking – [SEO] → Traffic – [Landing Page Optimization] → Conversions – [Marketing and Sales ]→ Sale – [Customer Service] → Repeat Customer

Why is ranking so important? 90% of traffic happens on the first page of search engines which means you have to be in the top 10 results to have a chance. Like Khalow pointed out, analytics play a huge factor in how you get to the repeat customer. Finding out what keywords are relevant is extremely valuable, personalization and location are both key components.

Other strategies Catfish brought up were optimizing video, news and the use of internal linking. These techniques are effective because there is a lot less competition than with traditional searches.