eROI Days Email Agency

I spent the last week preparing for a speech (to 100 marketers) at Innotech on “Bringing Sexy Back to Email Marketing“, and I must admit that I got pretty philosophical about the email marketing industry and the real definition of what sexy means to me and to marketers.

Download the Full PDF presentation of “Bringing Sexy Back to Email” here>>. It’s the second downloadable document on that page. Tell me what you think.

The genesis of the idea for this speech came from attending a panel on email marketing at MediaPost’s OMMA Hollywood show last month. At that panel, the nation’s top email experts, who I have a ton of respect for, all had a similar response to the question, “what’s exciting coming up in the near future for email marketing?” After a few chuckles and shrugs that it’s the same old same old in the email world, these top email software and agency experts’ answers included “email is a workhorse” and it “is the plumbing of the internet.” To paraphrase the response, email has the highest ROI of any online marketing medium, but it’s ultimately boring in its implementation.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Where is the passion? Where is the sex appeal? Email has been around for a long time, but don’t tell me it’s boring. Email is dead sexy, but first let’s explore who is sexy to you? Before you look at the images below, think about who you find sexy and why are they sexy? Great looking. Hot body. Amazing voice. Atheletic. Bad girl or Bad boy personality. Something luring you in?

Ignore these pics below, and tell me WHO IS SEXY to you?

What does this have to do with Email?

Email is Dead Sexy and here’s why:
–Email is the Killer App – only true push medium
–More brand touchpoints than any other medium
–Highest ROI – Email Works
–Core of Building Online Community
–Successful Email Trigger Campaign – Fosters 2-way dialogue

Don’t forget to download the Full PDF presentation of “Bringing Sexy Back to Email” here>>.

I thought this article from iMedia Connection – “10 Ways to ‘Green’ your Brand” was so significant that I needed to evangelize it and archive it in this blog post. Matt Heinz knows his stuff and puts the overload of green information into an easy top 10 action list.

Article excerpt:
Your green top 10 list for 2008
So you’re ready to get started. Here are 10 more things you can start doing right away, all in 2008, to create a comprehensive, compelling and results-driven green strategy for your business and brand.

Internally
1. Recycling: Surprisingly, not very many of us are doing it, and not nearly to the level that we easily could. Office recycling programs now easily tackle not just paper, but also glass, aluminum, cardboard, catalogs, magazines, etc. — all in the same bin. Think also about how your company recycles office equipment, computer supplies, etc. Much of these tools can be donated or sold to companies and third-world companies that will put them to good use, reducing the need for new equipment manufacturing, which itself creates an incredibly high carbon footprint.
2. Transportation: Encourage and subsidize more of your employees to use group and public transportation. Rethink whether or not you need that business trip, or if a phone call, WebEx or video conference could suffice.
3. Power management: Consider implementing a PC power management solution, such as those described above. This can have an immediate impact on not only carbon footprint, but also operating costs.
4. Office guidelines: Default all printers to duplex printing. Encourage employees to only print what’s necessary and to use “soft copies” for everything else. Encourage and reward activities across the company that demonstrate employees “living the green brand.” You’ll be surprised what unique and compelling green strategies individual employees come up with that can become internal and external sustainability strategies for your business and brand.
5. Supplier & partner guidelines: Encourage or require your partners and suppliers to maintain certain green-friendly operating standards. Several companies, such as Wal-Mart, are already doing this, and are thereby impacting sustainable practices well beyond their own.

Externally

6. Community engagement & activation: Encourage your customers to be green with you. If you’re enacting PC power management solutions within your business, encourage your customers to do the same. Getting them involved and participating with you in your green strategies is an excellent way to build community and create strong bonds between brand and customer.
7. Community participation: Find ways to actively participate in existing community activities, organizations and other efforts to be green and sustainable, especially efforts that align with your company and brand’s core values and brand message. This can be local or national organizations and efforts — focused on employee participation or widespread customer activation.
8. Channel choices: Consider the carbon impact of your marketing channels, and how you read, influence and empower your customers. Participating in a trade show, for example, is a carbon footprint-heavy strategy compared to an online-based, community-based activity that likely can achieve the same awareness or demand generation results. And if you’re making channel choices based on what’s most sustainable, tell your customers and prospects about it. They’ll appreciate the motivation behind your choice.
9. Competitive advantage: If being green is truly a key and possibly new part of your brand message and positioning, lean into it. Make it something that everyone across your organization — sales, marketing, customer support, etc. — is reciting as a mantra in their individual engagements with your customers and prospects. Make your green strategy a true competitive advantage.
10. Endorsements & associations: Partner with Energy Star, buy products from suppliers with strong environmental stories (such as HP for computers and printers), and work with credible speakers, writers and authorities already in the green and sustainable world to align with your brand, endorse your strategy and help tell your story.

(more…)

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…

A former Intel employee and current friend of mine sent me this hilarious and accurate video on Intel life. Four years of my life after college was spent near Pole J9 at Jones Farm campus AND Pole N3 at Ronler Acres. Great company, but brutally drab and hopeless interior space planning.