eROI Days Email Agency

Here is my twitter stream from this morning’s Portland Business Journal Power Breakfast event where Ziba Founder, Sohrab Vossoughi, inspired me from a creative and entrepreneurial standpoint.  Sorry for the upside down notes, but you’ve got to start at the bottom and read up:

1. Craft culture is mostly anti-Big which is why #portland has few fortune 500 companies here about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

2. Sohrab – branding portland – it has a craft culture. About the work, unpretentious, very real, natural about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

3. Tribal love – costco – amazing brand. costco members and employees love that brand. Costco does not care about wall st, but main st about 2 hours ago from TwitterBerry

4. Starbucks is trying to capture its dna that is there but they’ve lost their way. Now, more about efficiency and profit, not the experience about 2 hours ago from TwitterBerry

5. You need to create love with your consumers. All touchpoints need to fully connect with specific target market about 2 hours ago from TwitterBerry

6. Ziba has evolved from product design company to customer experience firm about 2 hours ago from TwitterBerry

7. Sohrab – design thinking is all about making the complex clear about 2 hours ago from TwitterBerry
   
   

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We just released a new case study and launched the below email to folks who have downloaded previous case studies, guides, and survey studies in our Resource Center. Check it out:

Email Design & Appealing Content Drives Subscriptions for The Smithsonian

Clean, targeted list? Check.

Excellent deliverability? Check.

Hot subject line? Check.

So why aren’t your email marketing campaigns performing like they should?

Our latest email marketing case study illustrates the effectiveness of appealing content and design in email marketing campaigns. Read how creative content offerings and precise brand presentation, combined with email marketing best practices, helped Smithsonian Magazine substantially increase both new & renewal subscriptions.

What’s more annoying than pop ups…the ever present intrusion to content? Yes, Orbitz, your games are fun and excluded from this conversation, but to the rest of you, go away.

So what can be taken away from these daily digital intrusions? How about some design mishaps. Surely once a design technique has worked its way into a pop up, it must be time to move on. Remember that jittery windows pop up. God that pissed me off.

Here’s a look at my most recent pop up encounter. Web 2.0 (shiverrrrr) in a nut shell. I’ve circled all the over used elements, but in case it’s not clear, here are the bullets:

• reflected graphic
• Beta button
• swirly stuff
• wings
• gradation
• repeated graphic background
• overly large call to action fake gloss jelly rounded corner button thing

Now, some of these elements work by themselves (or maybe I’ve just been told that by clients so many times that I believe it) but all together… look out! I use all these elements all the time, but my point is, whenever design starts to look like pop ups, maybe it’s time to take a deep breath, and hit the drawing board.