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

Google updates to add report a problem link, “near me now” link – using augmented reality 11:27 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Google maps. Create a dedicated page on maps. Sentiment analysis help sort reviews. 11:25 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Google onebox: local business. Manage coupons, reviews 11:23 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Customer reviews have a big impact on local search 11:19 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

@kentjlewis speaking about local search #forge. Entertaining as always. 11:16 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

@dayn great personal local example of discount tire giving him a rebate after the fact through Twitter conversation 9:51 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Intel has a good set of social media rules. Check em out 9:38 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

2010 will be the year of consumers switching over from evite to facebook events 9:31 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Not hiring a blogger. Hiring a head of consumer conversations. 8:40 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Doc martens Kimberly says invest in engaging content #forge. It still is all about the idea, but the requirements are much higher 8:38 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

Key is focusing on a few marketing channels of disproportionate influence. For doc martens, it’s product seeding to influencers 8:33 AM Jan 28th from Tweetie

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:

1. Email, Search, AND Social (the 3rd staple of online marketing)
In an online marketing survey study that we did with eM+C in December’09 on 2009 trends (which will be published in mid-January 2010), we asked online marketers which online marketing channels they used.  By far, email, search, and social were clearly the 3 most used channels.  Within the social media channel, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs were the areas that marketers spend the most time and energy into building.  This trend will only increase in 2010 to the point where Email Marketing and Search Marketing will be joined by Social Marketing as the 3 pillars that make up the backbone of online marketing.

2. Location, Geo-Based Apps
Mobile, mobile, mobile. Yes, mobile has reached critical mass. Marketers have noticed. At eROI, we’re being asked to launch mobile-friendly websites and for our client’s primary site, integrate feeds for location-based social media tools.  Additionally, there are several apps that take advantage of broadcasting your location to friends -  like Foursquare, BrightKite, and even a little Portland start-up named Shizzow that are basically like Geography-based Twitter.  The purpose is to get your friends or business associates to meet up through happy accidents of learning you are nearby and stumbling upon a quick informal meetup.  In our voyeuristic times, these apps take transparency and over-sharing to the next level.  And, of course, email alerts are the backbone of this channel so you know when your friends are nearby.  With smart phones automatically detecting your location, this new channel of geo-based mobile apps is incredibly intuitive and its uses will take off in 2010 (pet companies rolling out mobile apps to find nearest dog park or doggie daycare; coffee shops and retailers promoting mobile coupons when you are within 100 feet of the store; the uses are endless and our addiction to our mobile devices and their community of apps grows deeper).

3. Real-time web
Twitter started this trend (and Facebook and Friendfeed quickly caught on) and now the demand is there from consumers to constantly want to know what the collective human consciousness is around any and every topic.  People want to know what is happening NOW and what people are thinking/feeling/perceiving/eating/breathing/doing NOW.  Marketers will adapt and drive this trend even stronger in 2010 by creating ways for people to rate, review, and comment through their mobile phone or laptop on what they are thinking/feeling/perceiving/eating/breathing/doing and those apps will be searchable and able to be filtered so others can gain insight from what’s happening now.

4. Advanced collaboration, online community
To many companies, collaboration tools for internal communication or to create branded online communities for customers were expensive and time-intensive to get off the ground.  Now, Google steps in with a free tool Google Wave that isn’t perfect by any stretch, but is a great start to prove the value of collaboration and idea-sharing within companies.  As far as external communities where customers share insights, tips+tricks, examples, and resources with other customers, there will always be some extra effort put into strategy and user-design to make sure this is thought-out and customized to your brand.  There are some great open source tools like BuddyPress and other enterprise tools like Kickapps, Jive Software, and Microsoft’s Sharepoint.

5. Integration of database apps (OpenID standard)
Email Marketers have seen the advantage of smart integrations between their email marketing application and their CRM (Salesforce.com is most common), social tools (Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and publishing RSS to Email), ecommerce apps, and other database apps. This is a big push for us at eROI in 2010.

From a web user perspective, open platforms like Facebook Connect and Twitter allow me to seemlessly scrape my profile info and my friends profiles and connections into new applications (cool client examples to check out are Moonit and Wacom).  In 2010, you’ll see more web applications and online communities really start using OpenID as a standard to port your profile information and have 1 single username/password across the web.  There is such information overload that users are going to demand standards like OpenID to keep it as simple as possible.

6. Email Campaigns: Doing the Unexpected
Email design best practices are great – they tell us all the components we need in a successful campaign – subject line, email pre-header, header, main body, footer, call to action, offer, concise copy with relevant messaging, landing page, lead capture, optimized auto-responders based on subscriber behavior, and the list continues.  However, following the book on everything, including a prescripted design, can make your email predictable and email recipients take notice.  eROI’s Dylan Boyd points out a few unexpected email design strategies and tactics:
Animated GIFs? You Bet.
The Test: Vertical vs. Horizontal Email

7. Analytics: Measure Everything Every Second
Marketers have always dreamed of one marketing dashboard that pulls tracking from all marketing channels (email, search, social, events, referrals, etc) and systems (CRM, marketing automation, POS, financials) into one screen – never going to happen – there is just too much to measure and specialized tools for each medium do a much better job than all-in-one dashboards.  The clear emerging leader in tracking and analyzing social media metrics is Radian6.  It will be fascinating to see how marketers will tie all their tracking data together from these many disparate applications.

8. Information Overload: Content Filters
Based on human behavior since the dawn of time, we’ve always been most influenced with our activities, our buying decisions, and our own worldview by what our friends and family suggest.  In today’s world, this is more tangible than ever – our friends become our filter for most content we consume on the web (Facebook Connect integrated into more and more web services is a perfect example of this).  News aggregators like Google News and MyYahoo will need to integrate friend content filters like Facebook Connect to stay relevant.

9. Augmented Reality
“Beam me up, Scotty.” As Kevin Arthur points out in his iMedia Connection article ‘Techie Toy or Targeted Tool’: “Augmented reality is essentially combining the real world with digitally created images. The technology gives users the ability to control their environment using sound and compelling visuals.  AR brings “tactile” imaginary element to the interactive experience.”  Augmented reality (AR) is really cool technology – it allows brands like Topps bring its physical playing cards alive in 3D interactivity with users. AR allows people to project 3D presentations from their smart phones. AR allows physical products come to life in retail stores increasing sales conversions at point of sale.  It’s the stuff of the future, which is why I think it’s going to take a couple years for people to adopt this technology.  It has a whole lot more value and user scenarios beyond the limited value of Second Life’s virtual world, and AR will be the talk of marketing conferences in 2010 (it just won’t be widely adopted until later).

10. Keep your monitor, Recycle your TV box
What’s the point of your TV box when you can watch most of your favorite TV programs, sports, and films online on Hulu, ESPN, Netflix, and others.  Simply, hook up your laptop or old computer with a wireless Internet connection to a killer flat-screen monitor and you’ve now got a Smart TV to go along with your Smart phone all the while taking advantage of the kinda-smart, real-time web where online video is becoming standard and more engaging then ever before.

11. Anti-ADD; Deep Thinking App
All of us have done some planning (business plan, marketing plan, 2010 marketing calendar) for 2010 over the past couple months, and it makes you very aware of all the distractions that we have throughout the course of the day, the hour, the minute, the second.  Our most effective planning sessions were out of the office, without laptops, in a simple room with a whiteboard and marker.  Even as I write this article, I have new emails pop-up in the bottom right-corner of my screen, tweets from Tweetdeck in the top right of my screen, and I turned my Google Chat off for a little focus.  Fortunately, I have an outline to work from that I actually wrote with pen on paper – so old-school.  For managers and executives (and everyone really), there must be an application that shuts out all other applications, emits soothing white-noise and allows us to really think so we aren’t constantly distracted and reacting.  More of us place a greater value on this “thinking time” for parts of our day as we live and thrive in this increasingly ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) world that we are perpetuating.  Thank you Deep-Thinking App of 2010 – you are my friend.

As fun as it was, the site could do a better job of lead capture by telling you what you get for signing up – making it more compelling.  It promised to enter me into a drawing for an X-Box 360 but the details were sparse and the questions they asked seemed somewhat irrelevant.

The most obvious dilemma I saw with The Prototype Experience is the issue of privacy.  In a matter of minutes I saw everything from my work information and political views to a family photo pop up on the screen.  Even though that information was willfully put on the internet by me it made me think more about how entirely accessible our lives have become.  As a marketer the more information I can capture the better, as a web user I just need to be aware that there is very little privacy anymore and just accept it.  All in all, this site is really engaging and, well, uber-cool.

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.

It’s a place where you can evaluate and track your relationships, get advice on things happening in your life and catch up on celebrity gossip, all while Mooning your friends.  Really “Mooning” is checking your compatibility but that doesn’t sound nearly as fun.  We are so excited to see this dream become a reality.  For me, an internal brainstorming session for Moonit was the very first meeting at eROI I ever attended.  I feel an attachment to Moonit, I wonder if I put in the site’s launch date and my birth date if we would be compatible…

Beyond my fondness for the site, Moonit has been getting really positive reviews.  They had the honor of being a part of the TechCrunch50, in what felt like minutes after the launch, allowing them to showcase the site and even bribe a security guard to allow them access to a special room in exchange for figuring out his “crazy love life.”

The site is fun, easy to use and is a perfect compliment to your social media life (you can even use facebook connect.)  If nothing else, at least you can moon your boss.

Moonit Press:

The Moonit Blog»

Read the blogher Article»

Moonit on Forbes.com»

“Friend or boyfriend” in the examiner.com»

Upon my return to the grid (meaning my iPhone on the drive back), I realized that my longing for technology was really in communication of key information and emotional connection through my inbox (email is not, nor will it ever be dead in the foreseeable future), not through Tweetie, Tweetdeck when I returned to my laptop at home, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any website at all – it was spending 6 hours of catching up on all of the things that are hyper-relevant to me in my inbox.  Interestingly enough, I could only really scan and internalize all the issues brought up through hundreds of emails on my iPhone for about an hour, and the other 5 hours of digging way deeper and responding happened through my Outlook inbox on my laptop.  It’s a totally different mode of thinking on a 14″ screen than a 2″ screen.

There is a lot of chatter over the past several months among Email Marketing industry execs (over a hundred of us on a private email list) about whether or not Twitter is a complete waste of time or if it will kill Email, and it seems so obvious to me that Twitter is a useful conversation piece that has its place in the marketing mix, but is not yet the killer addictive app/platform/communication channel that email is.  In each of our daily lives, the large majority of us prioritize our Inbox over everything else.  It took almost a week in the woods to be able to articulate this simple gravitational pull towards email.

I’m usually curious enough to click on the links she offers and yesterday I found myself at her new site.  What I was surprised and delighted by was the ease at which she engaged the user in a multitude of interactions.  As a first time visitor to the site you are invited to “Get The Zoe Report” by simply giving your email address and zip code.  The call to action is straight forward and simple.

Next you are taken to a thank you page where they segment your gender, age and preferences with an option to add a category they haven’t listed.  I think this page starts to build the relationship with the user.  You are asked about what is important to you and given the chance to elaborate, in a way it sets the tone for the pages that follow.

Next you are asked to engage with Rachel Zoe via social network.  “Have an idea for the Zoe Report? Send your suggestions to Rachel through Twitter!”  Underneath the headline there is a text box set up to instantly @reply to Rachel on Twitter.

Finally they encourage more social interaction in the final thank you page with a call out to share on Facebook.

Each of these steps is voluntary with a link to “skip this” and with a full top and bottom nav bar to navigate away from the information gathering pages at any time.

Once you are done you are greeted with a thank you email with information on what you have opted into, a suggestion to add the newsletter email address to your address book, share on facebook and the option to unsubscribe.  The copy that surrounds all of these options make them a little more special.  For example “The Zoe Report will never go out of style, but if at anytime you wish to stop receiving it, you can unsubscribe.”

I think this is a great example of a website taking the extra step to engage their users and get them excited about visiting the site while collecting valuable information for their email campaign.  Well done Rachel Zoe!

Check it out for yourself »

Comment below and tell me what you think of the process.

One of the most noticeable new features was the integration of tabs on the page.  There are 10 tabs in all that help the user easily navigate what we offer along with content from each of our five blogs.  At eROI, we drink our own Koolaid when it comes to online marketing.  We have a clear call-out to sign up for our newsletter in the bottom section of our page, we invite people to become a fan of eROI on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or see our profile on Linkedin and even our most recent tweets are displayed to the right of the page.

Please give us feedback in the form of a haiku – tell us if you love our new homepage or you hate it or something in between, but please please do NOT be boring. thx.

# 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.