eROI Days Email Agency

In our new study, Leveraging the Mobile Web, we discuss the relevance of the mobile web.

With a leap in American users of over 14% from 2008-2009 it is undeniable that mobile is the way of the future.

In the study we examined our process for creating and launching three completely different mobile sites with very different goals.

“With mobile gaining more and more attention, now is the time to develop your mobile strategy to stay ahead of the pack, and your competition.”

Decide if you’re ready to go mobile »

eROI’s newest case study, Wacom: Progression of an Online Community, has just been released.

This study takes you through the development of an online community of designers from testing to launch.

Below are the three main goals of an online community, we take you through how we met each of these goals with the Wacom Community.

1. Starting a relationship with your customers that can’t be duplicated by the competition, encouraging loyalty and providing value.

2. Maximizing customer interaction time with your brand, as well as building mindshare and influence.

3. Gathering an advanced level of CRM data informed by user interactions, preferences, interests, etc.

Read the whole case study »

Here was my presentation from the Lake Oswego Chamber of Commerce FORGE Marketing Annual Summit – great event!

As usual, I learned a ton from the other speakers:
Kimberly Barta, VP of Marketing, Dr. Martens Shoes
Dayn Wilberding, Dir of Technology, Grady Britton
Kent Lewis, President, Anvil Media

Enjoy this eROI presentation!

I also included a few of my tweets below as well:
@kentjlewis nice. “remember your marketing budget is unlimited” 11:41 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Top paid placement is based on Quality Score, not just on highest price. 11:32 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

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As I looked over my online marketing predictions from last year, what struck me was my tone of optimism in the face of doomsday articles swirling about for 2009.  To some degree, 2009 has much to be optimistic about for online marketers. Finally, there is a broad agreement in organizations that the web is an important business and marketing medium, and a greater percentage of marketing dollars are going online (even though overall marketing budgets are flat or slightly down compared to 2008).  On the flipside, online marketers are expected to do more with less resources than ever before.

While you may still have the title as Email Marketing Manager, you are likely expected to have some expertise and drive inbound marketing, marketing automation programs, coordinate integration with social media and potentially be the online community manager for your company, closely tie into your search engine marketing program, and all of this is on top of the strategy and implementation of your marketing plan for the year.  It’s exhausting and the pressure is on – 2010 is about action and results – and the tension between marketing and sales is going to increase with the demand for quality leads that convert into real sales.

So, let’s cut to the chase and dig into what will happen in 2010.  Here are my 11 Web + Email Marketing Predictions:

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eROI Case Study: Online Strategy for a Successful Product Launch
Get the full study

Sleek and chic – how can you not love the new Intuos4 tablet from Wacom.  Very psyched how this integrated campaign turned out.  For all the marketers reading this blog post, there are some really good insights to this case study.

Wacom Technology Corporation worked with eROI to launch their brand new product, the Intuos4.  As you will find out, it is more than just a sleek site.  This case study outlines the integrated online strategy used by Wacom, including results of the multi-pronged campaign; email, microsite, and offline channels working together to seamlessly promote the unique aspects of the new Intuos4 tablet.

Check out the finished site »

“We’re absolutely happy with the number of visitors. We believe we’ve received a 70% awareness of our target audience. I mean, that’s really good. Not many companies are going to achieve that kind of awareness for a new product launch.”

~ Marketing Director, Wacom

Download the Case Study

Something that we preach at eROI is to TEST TEST TEST.  We believe that testing should be an integral part of every email marketing campaign.  Our latest free guide gives you instructions on how to test, what to test and how to measure success.  We have given advice on what metrics you should be wary of and which ones are more solid, for example, your read rate may be leading you on.  Basically, what we are trying to get across is that testing helps to take out the guess work.  This is a great resource for anyone getting ready for, or in the process of, an email marketing campaign.

“Even with all the numbers and ideas that fly around during the process, testing can be fun! Not just because it eliminates guesswork and settles arguments, but because of the surprises waiting around every corner. This bevy of information and direction is what proves the value of testing again and again.”

DOWNLOAD THE FREE GUIDE »

MediaPost’s Email Insider recently did an article on the importance of holiday emails.  As email marketers, it is our duty to not only create quality emails but also give our clients consulting on what kind of email will help their businesses grow.  Holiday email marketing goes beyond Cyber Monday campaigns or even general “Happy Holiday” emails, it is most effective when it starts slowly into an aggressive campaign.  The article pointed out that there are even great opportunities to not only drive business to your e-com site but also to stores with offers like “ship to store” which make up-sells and complimentary sales easier.  The main point is to plan.  Don’t throw together a sloppy campaign a week before Christmas, take it seriously to get serious results.

Here are a few examples of holiday emails eROI has done in the past.

Are You Ready For The 18 Phases Of Christmas?

“If you haven’t begun planning your holiday campaigns, then you’re already behind. The first salvo of holiday email marketing has already been fired, with 8% of major online retailers having already mentioned the holidays in their email campaigns. While most of those were running “Christmas in July” campaigns, a few were just getting in early references to be top of mind later in the season. August is traditionally a non-event for holiday marketing, but September will mark the beginning of a continued effort to win holiday sales that will continue into January…”

Read the rest of the MediaPost article here »

We, at eROI, just released a survey study called “Use of Testing in Email Marketing.” You can download the full study here – http://idek.net/Kxk.

In our last study, Use of Analytics in Email Marketing Campaigns, we showed email marketers how important metrics are in making decisions and proving campaign ROI. One major opportunity to improve metrics and strengthen brand positioning with potential customers is to optimize email campaigns through consistent, careful testing. So, in our newest study, we show how 623 email marketers are currently using, or not using, testing to improve their email marketing efforts. One of the key takeaways of this study is that 4 out of 10 marketers are not testing campaigns – but why aren’t they? And for those that are testing, what elements are being tested and what can we learn from them?

Some stats from this study at a glance:
• 37% aren’t testing
• Of marketers that don’t test their email campaigns, 33% say it’s because they do not know how
• 27% say they don’t have time
• 13% say their platform doesn’t have testing capabilities
• For those that are testing, they are testing a wide variety of elements including design, frequency, calls to action and day/time sent. Our survey shows this breakdown for email content testing: 85.2% test subject lines, 54.8% test calls to action, 50.9% test designs, 49.1% test copy, 41.7% test offers, 36% test timing of campaigns.
• The survey showed that 36% of marketers are testing timing, which includes day of week, time of day, and frequency. Although history shows that results on the most successful time and day are constantly changing, here’s the latest trends:
• Time of Day – 37.86% of marketers testing timing are testing time of day. Of those, 49.4% currently find sending mid-day (10am-2pm) to be best, while start of the business day (6AM – 10AM) showed to be second best at 31.5%
• Tuesday ranks as the most successful day, followed closely by Wednesday.

Let us know what kind of insights you get from the new eROI Study Report -

Use of Testing in Email Marketing!

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
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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?” (more…)

Recently eROI launched the newly redesigned SpiritMountain.com and with it an exclusive case study.  The re-invention of Spirit Mountain Casino’s online presence made it possible to achieve the marketing, sales, and customer engagement goals of their organization.  With a more organized layout, new functional elements and fresh content, it kept visitors interested and connected. These improvements raised Coyote Club signups 31% while turning more SpiritMountain.com visitors into Spirit Mountain Casino guests.  Our team had a great time with this project and Spirit Mountain was psyched with the results.  Learn how we did it and see the drastic before and after in our new case study.

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.

This morning’s article on eMarketer, “Marketers Moving to Digital Media” had some really encouraging and powerful data in it. For all of us in the interactive agency and email marketing industry, this is great news that validates our gut instinct that we’ve been seeing anecdotally. The article begins:

“Looking for an upside. In the wake of the global economic downturn, marketers worldwide are shifting more of their budgets into cheaper, more-measurable categories. In most cases, that means online.

Although the name of the organization might imply a slight bias, in a survey by the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), 81% of respondents said they plan to invest at least as much in digital marketing in 2009 as in the previous year.

More than 77% of traditional advertising agencies are increasing the amount of digital in their budgets by 1% to 29%. And over 10% are upping online budgets by 30% or more.

The unsung hero behind an amazing integrated, grassroots campaign of traditional marketing, in-person events, and social media (well, she was mainly the social media part) gave a great keynote speech at the eMarketing Summit of Innotech today.  Rahaf Harfoush was great.  I show my twitter stream below of notes from the event, but also noticed she just launched a new site and blog – http://www.rahafharfoush.com/

Here is my twitter stream from Rahaf Harfoush’s awesome keynote speech at Innotech:

Very progressive. We can’t go backwards now to restrict all info to public.about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Impossible to replicate. It was the perfect storm.about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Grant park had 1 million deliriously happy people. Thx for great presentation @rahafharfoushabout 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry

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While I was at SXSW this year, I attended a session that focused on techniques to improve PowerPoint presentations called Presenting Straight to the Brain. I was immediately interested because presentations are a way of life in the agency world. Okay – I also might have been a little interested to see if the panel were giving any tips for mind control that I could use to help in that next big presentation. Though I may have been a little disappointed on the lack of ‘How to Be a Benevolent Svengali’ content, I did walk away with some interesting insight and reminders of how our noodles work.

If you only have time to read to this point- here’s your Twitter take-away. Great presentations add a dash of caveman thinking.

The point being is that we all still essentially think, react and remember more like Fred and Barney than the evolved post-millennial beings we all think we are. Our mind battles with our brain, constantly sending signals to process thoughts, remember information and control our reactions. In the end, our brain typically wins the fight. We are programmed to be at our peak level of awareness when we perceive a threat or when a situation evokes a strong emotion. It’s fight or flight.
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