eROI Days Email Agency

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

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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.

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Email is a direct marketing medium, and I appreciate this directness.  I advise clients to be direct with a clear call to action.  But everyday and sometimes 3 times a day can be too much.  Yes, I am talking about an email program that I have praised and defended - Barack Obama’s email marketing program.  McCain doesn’t know how to use email, and last week, Barack was using email far too much.

The following email was the twelth I received for the week yesterday and I just want to tell the Obama posse (Barack, Michelle, Joe, and the local Barack campaign manager) to stop asking me for money in at least one of these uber-frequent emails.  A recent email example with subject line “Deadline: Tomorrow”:

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My respected co-worker, email expert, and The Email Wars star blogger, Dylan Boyd, has made some excellent points about the Obama camp’s blown opportunity in VP Candidate Joe Biden’s email outreach with the subject line “Hello” in today’s blog post: http://theemailwars.com/2008/08/25/errr-hello-top-subject-line-ever/.  However, I challenge Dylan to tell me that he is truly “jaded” by the pure effectiveness of the Obama email program. 

I’d love to get Dylan’s response to Michele Obama’s email this evening with the subject line “Behind the scenes in Denver”.  The content of the email hit the mark - it was real, genuine, her voice, intelligent.  The timing perfect: she delivered a kick ass speech at the Democratic National Convention just 3 hours after her email hit my inbox.  The call to action was compelling, obvious, focused, and had intrigue and mystery built into it.  I want to see what’s going on behind the scenes in this historic presidential race.  Don’t you?

So, before you all get jaded from one mis-step out of 207 emails, get inspired by the good stuff.  To me, the Obama campaign displays Email Intelligence.  And, unlike his opponent, he can actually use the medium. Tell me what you think in your comments on this post.  Subscribe to this Blog in the upper right.

If you want to check out the content of Michelle’s email, read more here >> (more…)

I just read the recent Inc. Magazine issue cover story on the most innovative small company in America, Threadless.com. It’s a fascinating story of some geeky web design kids who started a social community website in college with frequent T-shirt design contests whereby the winner would get their design printed on a T-shirt and sold online (to that same community). They started selling a couple thousand T-shirts, dropped out of college, and it has since grown over the past 5 years into a $30 million per year, 50 employee company with great margins.

While the above story is unbelievably compelling and a reflection of the cultural shift of a new generation who shares all online, is transparent, and believes in the online medium, it is one of many case studies in the for-profit world. I recently went to a fundraiser for Portland’s best-kept secret of a non-profit, Friends of the Children. I recently joined the Board, and true to my outspoken, naive youthfulness, thought I could make huge changes right away. What I didn’t realize is how much good the organization does at a magnitude I never imagined before. The positive impact really hit home with me at this 600 person fundraiser, when young adult after young adult got on stage with their mentor / friend, and told of impossible odds of rising above their past of abuse or neglect early in their childhood to be the first ever in their family to graduate from high school, or to get to States in their freshman year in high school, or begin full-time working at a prestigious law firm in town.

What makes this organization, Friends of the Children, so incredibly powerful and successful is its innovative business model. It pays full-time salaries for professional mentors to be with a few kids one-on-one mentoring week after week, for 12 years. That loyalty and consistency in these young people’s lives that have never had that from anyone before is unbelievably rewarding, healing, uplifting. I was a mentor in college for 4 years in a program called Big Siblings in Charlottesville, VA. Up until a couple years ago, I still kept in touch w/ my little brother. I have my own kids now and can’t offer that daily consistency that paid mentors can and do provide and the results and emotional connection that occur from these relationships truly inspire all of us who witness it.

My hat goes off to entrepreneurs like Duncan Campbell who founded Friends of the Children and pours his heart and soul into a beautiful creation that transforms kids lives, and the community as a whole.

Thank you Friends of the Children.

Barack’s email campaign has hooked me during this election season. His emails have been relevant, ultra-local (great list segmentation here), and the content is inspiring. I give it a 10 out of 10.

However, one of my colleagues, brought up a good point. Here is what she had to say:

Hi Ryan,
Just my latest email marketing peeve. I was a John Edwards supporter. When Edwards endorsed Obama, I got an email urging me to register at Obama’s site. There was a specific link (www.barackobama.com/johnedwards). I signed up because I do want to support Obama now, and I also want the Obama campaign to be able to gauge how much support comes via Edwards.

Below is the first email I got after signing up. As if I’ve been a supporter all along. It seems like a missed opportunity to send me something relevant, ie. thanks for signing up, we really respect Senator Edwards and like him, we support issue X, Y and Z.

It would have been so easy. Sigh.

Cheers,
Jean

Begin forwarded message:

From: Barack Obama
Date: May 21, 2008 4:45:21 PM PDT
To: Jean
Subject: Thank you
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com

Dear Jean,

You did it.

Not just yesterday, but every day for more than a year, you did what the cynics said we couldn’t do.

You said the time has come to get beyond the same old tactics that divide and distract us, and you gave people a reason to believe again.

Because of your work, we won the Oregon primary by a large margin — and made it clear that at this moment, in this election, there is something happening in America.

There is something happening when Americans who have never participated in politics get involved and knock on doors, make phone calls, and talk to each other about their vision for our country.

There is something happening when people vote not just for the party they belong to but for the hopes they hold in common.

Change is what’s happening in America.

The momentum you created won’t stop now. Together we’re building a campaign that will compete in the general election — and a united Democratic Party that can lead this country for the next generation.

You can keep it going by taking a trip to Montana for the last primary in the country. Supporters like you are needed to help get voters out to the polls for their June 3rd primary.

Sign up now to help Get Out The Vote in Montana:

http://my.barackobama.com/cometoMT

We’re within reach of the nomination, and we are ready to take this country in a new direction.

Thank you for everything you’ve done to make this possible.

Barack

E-mail campaigns for donating everything from money to shoes are boosting relief efforts for people affected by Hurricane Katrina. While many businesses were quiet the first days after the hurricane hit, e-mail marketing picked up earlier this week.
KatrinaShoes.org, an organization of shoe companies, churches and individuals, set up its site Sept. 3 with a goal of getting 1 million shoes to victims of the disaster. The group got more attention when it issued a news release Sept. 6, which was then e-mailed among friends.

Christian relief organization Week of Compassion, Indianapolis, took a more measured approach, sending daily e-mails to its 4,500 subscribers since early last week.

“We’ve not only seen a growth in our [e-mail] list, but we have also seen a bump in the amount of online contributions,” said Doug Smith, Webmaster for Week of Compassion, which provides emergency and long-term assistance to people after disasters.

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Email Example #1:
“Hello friends, neighbors, and insurance professionals.

Hurricane Katrina will be remembered as one of the worst natural disasters to hit American soil and much help is needed. DCM provides appointment and lead generating services to agents and carriers throughout the entire country and to our shock and sadness, a number of our clients ‘ businesses were greatly affected.

In the month of September, DCM will donate 5% of our revenue from new campaigns to the American Red Cross - specifically to help out the victims of this horrible event.”

Email Example #2

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The silence on the business email front has been deafening the past 8 days since Hurricane Katrina demolished much of the Gulf Coast. I’m surprised that more businesses haven’t reached out to their customers or permission-based newsletter lists via email to show how easy it is to give to the relief effort.

The email below is the only one I’ve received out of 250 emails in my inbox every day. It linked to the donation page for the Mercy Corps Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort.

I got this email about a very cool craft art fair event in Portland next month (Sep 29). It’s a great cause benefitting Friends of the Children - Portland and an example of a great event promotional email.