eROI Days Email Agency

eROI made the Portland Business Journal’s Top 100 Fastest Growing Companies in Portland list for the second consecutive year.

Our ranking dropped from #15 to #36, even though we grew absolute revenue by an equal number. From a % perspective, it’s hard to maintain a high % of growth on a much larger number from ‘05 to ‘07.

The management team all attended the event and we were excited to be included in this prestigious group of companies.

The skeptic in me says “I’ve never heard of this entity before,” “seems fishy,” “never heard of the award before,” “why did they send it to sales@ – a spam-related email.”

But the optimist in me thinks maybe there is 5% validity to this award.

Should I be a skeptic or think it’s real. Please comment below to tell me your thoughts.

Mashup: The compounding (“mashing”) of two or more pieces of complementing web functionalities to create a powerful web application. This is usually achieved through the use of APIs.

On May 22nd 2008, eROI took home the first everWebVisionary Award for Best Mashup, winning the award on the strength of our project with the Oregon Golf Association – Explore Oregon Golf,

Oregon Golf Association invited eROI to create a dynamic online web application that enables users to search for golf courses using criteria such as course type, location and rates, providing detailed information back to the user about each course. Details for each course may include ratings, scorecard information and each course’s policy and services. eROI then integrated the mapping capabilities of Google Maps into the site in order to provide users with search results that include maps and printable driving directions to each course.

eROI and OGA then took the site a step further by integrating an event calendar tool and club membership section, making all regional golf-related events and clubs easily searchable. This system required eROI to develop a custom database, managed through a password protected administration tool, to store all course, event, and club information. By empowering courses, clubs leaders and event organizers to keep accurate and relevant information readily available online, eROI achieved OGA’s goal of supporting Oregon tourism by creating a single Web destination for detailed golf course information and activities in the area.

In addition to the awards, the Webvisions Web Conference as a whole was a smashing event! Our web development team took advantage of the workshops, sessions, and guest speakers before coming back with an award in hand. Great job guys!

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eROI Wins eec Email Marketing Award, AMA-MAX Award, and MarketingSherpa Email Summit Gold Award.

Winning one award would have been great, but 3 awards in 3 weeks was an amazing honor for the eROI / Wacom PowerofthePens.com campaign.

Being the winner of the first Email Experience Council award for an email marketing campaign was a huge honor for eROI this month. Voted on by eec members and held February 11th in San Diego, eROI and our client Wacom accepted the prestigious award for PowerOfThePens.com. We had some stiff competition with AOL, Genetech, and REI, but came out on top with the members all voting.

At the American Marketing Association – Oregon, eROI was honored with the AMA-MAX Award for Best Web Campaign. This is our second AMA-MAX award in two years for our work on client campaigns.

This campaign was the start of bigger things for Wacom, and a testing ground for development of an online community and the power of social media. eROI has already begun additional work, building off this strong start and will be releasing new work for the Wacom Community over the next 9 months.

PowerOfThePens.com was also the recipient of a Gold Medal for Best Promotional Blast – Direct Sale or Lead Gen Offer (Consumer) at MarketingSherpa’s Third Annual Email Marketing Summit, held on February 26th in Miami.

We heard it from Google before we heard it from MarketingSherpa. They can send us our award, but it would have been fun to be there to accept it. However, with the power blackout that hit Miami, maybe it was better to be in Portland working on new client email marketing campaigns.

I finally got the professional photo today. Here it is:

Here are some more casual pics from the evening:

Here is the email I sent to the eROI team after our big win last night for the only category we submitted to – Best of Web. This is the second award that we’ve won in collaboration with our client Wacom for a really powerful community site we built called “Power of the Pens.”

________________________________________
From: Ryan Buchanan [mailto:ryan@eroi.com]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 7:15 AM
To: eROI team
Subject: Huge congrats to eROI for winning AMA MAX Award for Best Web Campaign (Wacom Power of the Pens)

The entire team,
We should be very proud of our accomplishments. When I’ve had one on one discussions with each of you last year, nearly everyone said that collectively you wanted to make your mark on the world through inspiring creative and we’re finally getting recognized for it. For the second time in a row (2 for 2), we won among all finalists the AMA Award for Marketing Excellence for Best Web Campaign for the Wacom Power of the Pens website which built a powerful community online where the target audience (designers) truly connected with one another in that community.

Needless to say, we celebrated heartily last night.

Great work to all,
RB

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Here are some fun videos of the evening:

And, the acceptance speech:

Here is the email that I sent to our employees yesterday. We are all riding a high this week because of our move into creative new space and now this huge honor that was rather unsuspecting and humbling:

———————————————————-
From: Ryan Buchanan
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 5:34 PM
To: team
Subject: Wow – huge honor given to eROI today

Team,
At the Portland Business Journal award ceremony luncheon for the Oregon’s Most Admired Companies (voted by 2,000 CEOs from around the state), eROI was honored today in a pretty big way. There were 8 industry categories (Financial, Real Estate, Professional Services, Non-Profit, etc), and the 9th one was the “Across All Industries” category which is like the ‘Championship Series.’

I’m still pinching myself to see if it was real, but was on stage with the CEOs and a few company representatives of all 1,000-employee companies or bigger as the top 10 most admired companies in Oregon. We are the underdog and the little guys/gals, but we’re getting recognized on a huge scale by CEOs/companies around the state.

Here is the list:
1. Nike
2. Columbia Sportswear
3. Intel
4. Leatherman Tool Group
5. Precision Castparts
6. Umpqua Bank
7. OHSU
8. eROI, Inc.
Tied: NW Natural
10. A-dec, Inc.

We should all be incredibly proud as this is a MAJOR deal. Thank you for all the amazingly talented work and hard work you’ve put in this year and throughout your time at eROI. I truly think we can make our mark on the world if we keep on our current trajectory of amazing creative and innovation in everything we do.

Cheers,
Ryan

RYAN BUCHANAN | CEO
www.eROI.com | Inc. 500 Company
505 NW Couch, Suite 300, Portland, OR 97209
TEL 503.290.3199 FAX 503.228.4249

[become empowered]

We’ve Moved! Please see new address and direct line above!

This blog post isn’t an effort to toot our own horn, although I’m definitely proud of my team for this accomplishment. This entry is about sharing the feedback from the evening and showing my appreciation for organizations like OEN (Oregon Entrepreneurs Network) who provide the foundation for entrepreneurial learning, networking, and mentoring in this great, underappreciated (from a business standpoint) state.

eROI was chosen as 1 of 3 finalists for the OEN Company of the Year Award in the Working Capital category. This event celebrates Oregon entrepreneurs and businesses as if we were in Hollywood (which is a welcome change from the other 364 days of the year when we are in the trenches with very little recognition or pause for celebration). I was getting a little bit nervous as the time approached to lead up to the 3 finalists (eROI, AuctionPay, and Cayuse). On 3 huge video screens, videos of each of the 3 finalist CEOs played. The videos were shot 2 months prior and I was self-conscious watching the video from the audience (of 900 people), but fortunately the video editor chose the best of my rambling answers and focused on my primary point of truly listening one-on-one to my employees and transforming the process and the culture based on their input.

Many of the eROI employees at the table appreciated that I didn’t focus on sales or marketing success, but very candidly exposed a problem that became a strength. Here’s what a fellow business owner emailed me the following day:
“Hi Ryan,
Just a note to congratulate eROI on making the finalists for the OEN Awards! I enjoyed watching your interview video for the OEN Awards last week at the awards dinner… especially the part about asking each and every employee for direct feedback on how they were feeling. Very brave ;-)”

We didn’t win (AuctionPay was the deserving winner as they’ve built an amazingly scalable company), but eROI is doing a few things right to even be in the running.

I’ve really been impressed by the meticulous process, screening, surveying, and especially the writing of Inc Magazine and its journalists during this month’s issue of the Inc. 500. This is the first time I’ve been through this process as the leader of a high-growth company, but I’ve been in other award ceremonies, and I’m blown away by the Inc. 500 thoroughness.

Let’s break it down for all of the email and phone contact for information (and I’m missing at least 1/2 the steps and contact points below):
1. eROI submits 2003 and 2006 accrual revenue figures on the Inc. 500 website in April’07.
2. A few weeks later, we get confirmation that eROI could be considered for being an Inc. 500 honoree.
3. Sarah, an Inc. 500 journalists, emails and calls me to interview me and get the entrepreneurial backstory.
4. Sara, an Inc. 500 fact-checker, makes sure that my accountant and tax files and loads of other company and personal information is correct and complete.
5. I get Sarah and Sara mixed up in my head and continue to follow up on this “eROI: Startup Grows Up” potential story (that hasn’t come to fruition yet) with the wrong Sarah. Finally, Sarah and I chat and there is potential to run the story after the Inc. 500 magazine issue.
6. I’m strongly encouraged (multiple times) to take an in-depth CEO survey of my personal, business, and even political preferences, which proves to be one of the most interesting pieces in the Inc. 500 September ‘07 issue.
7. Final fact-checking via phone done.
8. June 26th – I received official notification (via physical mail) that eROI will be in the Inc. 500. Elegant presentation of materials and an invite to the Inc. 500 Conference that happens in Chicago next week (9/6 – 9/9). I will be there.
9. More e-invites follow (almost on a daily basis) to the Inc. 500 conference.
10. I just received another survey request last night.

Next week will likely increase in messaging as a huge lead-up to the big event. I’ll keep you posted on what the conference is like. I’d imagine it’s going to be a memorable conference with keynotes like President Bill Clinton. Tune in to the blog for more coming soon…

Well we are very excited to end up 15th in the top 100 companies in the State of Oregon for Fastest Growing. I can only say thank you to all of the companies and people that have believed in us and honored us by allowing us to be their emarketing partners.

And of course a big hats off to the whole eROI team for the amount of work, drive and love they bring to the table each and every day (and many late nights).

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Ending the week on a high note and excited to crack the Top 10 next year for this award category. Who know what else might be on the horizon for us and our clients.

Thanks to everyone and come to the party July 20th at the eROI offices if you are in Portland, Oregon. We can celebrate together then. Until then… back to great ideas, great work, great partners/clients and the best team.

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Well what do you know. We were honored this AM to find that we are one of the email marketing blogs up for the ClickZ awards 2006. Please give us your love with a VOTE. (Not fair that 2 out of the 3 blogs are ours!!)

Finalists were selected from reader nominations for the ClickZ Marketing Excellence Awards 2006 that met eligibility requirements. Voting is open now through the close of business, 5 pm EST, on Wednesday, November 8, 2006. One vote in each subcategory per person (we have our ways of knowing). Winners will be announced on Monday, November 13, 2006.

Please VOTE for Us