eROI Days Email Agency

If you haven’t read any of Seth Godin’s books or his blog, you probably aren’t in the eMarketing, online marketing, interactive marketing, viral marketing or just plain old marketing world. He’s phenomenal, he’s candid, and the insight you learn from each of his books and blog posts is power-packed with solid, proven ways to improve your marketing and steadily grow your company by doing lots of little things remarkably well.

I just finished his book “Small is the New Big” which is a compilation of hundreds of his blog posts over the past 4 years. On a local level, I find that I learn from some small, entrepreneurial companies that specialize in a certain niche and share their learning with the world through their blog and with me at lunch or happy hour. Stephen Landau with Substance is one of those people. He and his business partner David have one of the best blogs I’ve seen on Flash and user experiences. Their idealism in truly changing the world is infectious and they are already making a difference. Check out their blog >>

Another blog that provides some creative inspiration as one of the smallest of the “big guys” (although they are the largest independent advertising agency in the country) is Wieden + Kennedy’s Portland blog and their London blog. Both of these blogs are either inspiring or so insanely obscure that it’s pretty funny.

My colleague Kent Lewis and I spoke at the Annual conference for the International Association of Business Communicators.

Our topic: Building brands and community via e-marketing

Date: Monday, 25 June
Time: 10:30 – 11:45 a.m.
Track: Marketing & Brand

If you’re trying to get your head around terms like search engine marketing, blogosphere, podcasting, RSS and social media, this is the session for you. This presentation will provide an overview of effective e-marketing strategies and tactics as well as case studies and helpful resources you can use to develop and implement your own e-marketing program.

In this session, you will learn:
The definition and proper applications of e-marketing
Effective e-marketing strategies and tactics
How do develop your own e-marketing program

There were roughly 1,100 people at the overall event and 250-ish at our session. There was a lot of great dialogue between us (the speakers) and the audience on the importance of the blogosphere and social networking. Search marketing and email marketing were known entities as must-haves in any marketing mix.

The debate around whether or not a blog is worth the effort reminded me of a worldwide Intel conference for employees 10 years ago when then Intel CEO Andy Grove said that every company would be a “web company” (meaning every company would have a website) within 5 years. Guess what – he was right. I think the same thing will happen with corporate blogs in the next 5 years. It is not a question of “if” – it’s a question of when your company will support the 1 hour per week required for maintaining a good blog.

Here is our presentation if you didn’t get a chance to see it at the event: (the file is a bit big, so I need to upload it to the server when I talk to my tech guys at the office – sorry about that).

by Bryan Boyd, eROI, Inc.

MoveOn.org the politically progressive group based in Berkeley, CA organizes and informs a rapidly growing online community currently estimated at more than 2 million people. The group aims to promote grassroots advocacy by its members through various political activities including running a PAC (Political Action Committee), voter registration drives, political advertising (especially in swing states).

MoveOn.org has easily become one of the most influential and powerful grassroots organizations. They have been a fierce force in shaping in the way that politics utilize online based campaigning. I have always been impressed at how they capture ‘leads’ so smoothly. Here is MoveOn.org’s insight regarding their online success:

#1: Web supports building a constituency through “word-of-mouse”.
MoveOn.org was the first web petition to support word-of-mouth emailing. The simplicity of this “viral marketing” allowed the interest group to grow dramatically in just days, with stark simplicity on the webpage — no graphics, no content, no links to other sites. By design, we decided to focus on the simple action of signing up and sending on. Links divert attention. Graphics are slow to download. And highly designed sites are tedious to change to fit the needs of a “flash campaign.”

The technique was soon replicated by others on the same issue (www.impeach.org, etc.), and continues in broad use.

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