Normally, I don’t mention anything in one of our press releases, but this was a recap to 2006 and I’m feeling a bit philosophical from a business perspective. If things go well for us this year (’07), we will grow smart and build employee evangelists and customer evangelists. Halleluiah! (I’m not religious, but I couldn’t avoid it with all the evangelist talk). There’s a lot more to it then that, but let’s start the discussion there. I hope to gain a lot of insight from other creative agency owners in an Agency Owner Roundtable (among Portland agency owners) discussion that begins tonight and hopefully will continue to happen every couple months.
Our Press Release: eROI Delivers Strong Finish to 2006 with 61% Revenue Growth; Adds Over 150 New Clients and Expands Management Team
PORTLAND, Ore. (January 22, 2007) eROI, Inc., a full-service e-marketing company, today announced that the company continued its pattern of profitability, recording its fourth consecutive profitable year as a 4-year old company. In 2006, the company grew their revenue 61%, making 2006 their strongest year. Last year, the company brought on over 150 new clients, including The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, Montinore Vineyards, Annie’s Natural Foods and Digimarc Corporation. Furthermore, eROI grew to 32 team members and expanded its management team through well-deserved promotions.
eROI’s positive growth continues partly because of its consistent high quality of service and distinctive creative approach to online marketing. Additionally, the strong momentum is fueled by an increase in the demand for email marketing, e-commerce functionality, and social media tools and platforms. New and current clients such as retailer Dunderdon, gamer Konami and foodie Kettle Foods are realizing the value of direct consumer feedback that social media tools provide. “We’ve helped implement some very successful online viral marketing campaigns for clients by using customized versions of available social media tools. Social media allows organizations to build online communities of loyal brand evangelists,” said Maureen Pimley, recently promoted Vice President of Client Services. “These tools are key to tapping into a much larger audience of interested prospective customers.”
8. User-generated content will be a component on most new websites. Many companies are just starting to realize the great potential of websites with user-generated content that enable customers co-create with their brands. Ultimately, allowing users to post their stories through text, images, and video, helps to build community and long-term brand loyalty. In short, it works, and companies large (Diesel-U-Music) and small (Dunderdon Workspace) will employ this strategy much more frequently next year.
9. Viral campaign websites will have a purpose. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been forwarded hundreds of quirky sites that are experimenting with the whole viral marketing thing and that have no further purpose whatsoever. There are no calls-to-action or indications as to why these sites exist. A few examples of pointless viral sites include: Patron’s SimplyPerfect, eROI’s WearShortShorts, and the pointless but popular CareerBuilder Monk-e-Mail/. Next year will feature more substantial viral campaign sites like Philips’ ShaveEverywhere, Kettle Foods’ PassportToFlavor, and Snakes on a Plane.
It’s Thanksgiving Day and it’s that time of year again when eROI makes its outlandish predictions for the year to come. In prior years we have given you a mix of business and personal lifestyle predictions, but this year we’re sticking to just the online marketing world. We busted out our omniscient crystal ball and this is what it told us:
Top 10 Online Marketing Predictions for 2007
10. Social networking will get more and more niche. Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools for communicating with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People use specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups. For this reason, there are many types of Social Media now and there will be five times this many by the end of next year:
Sometimes the best emails are from close friends who want to share a really positive, inspirational story that they received from another friend or saw in the media. Amazingly, the video has NOT been posted on YouTube, so I couldn’t embed it in this blog posting, but it is a great video on the link below. Enjoy.
“Fathers/Coaches…
Spend a few minutes and read the story below. It appeared in Atlanta’s paper (AJC) today. It will only take you 5 min total and is worth it.
It will make your Friday….
Disabled student the unlikeliest of players Banneker’s Gerard Robinson lives out his dream by running the play of his life
By CURTIS BUNN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/16/06
In a noisy moment at Banneker High’s homecoming pep rally, coach Benny Crane felt a tug on his sleeve. It was not a yank, but a slight pull, enough to get his attention. He turned and glanced down into the excited yet concerned eyes of Gerard Robinson.
At 5-foot-3, Robinson is shorter than most of his classmates, but his audacity and charisma elevate his stature. As Coach Crane bent over to listen, he could see Robinson’s mouth quiver.”
This holiday season brings upon us the daunting task of getting a gift for your Mom, Dad, grandmom, granddad, brother, sister, nephew, neice, or friends. For each one of these people, Gifts.com created a creative question and answer online system to suggest gifts based on the intended gift recipient’s personality. The fun part of this excercise is to see what your own personality is like. Are you the type of guy/gal to call the repairman or bust out the wrench and fix the plumbing yourself? Do you go to a concert or get drinks with your colleagues? Read books or watch TV? Play golf or chess? It keeps telling me I’m a “Country Clubber,” when my real interests are quite different. I’d like to think I’m more of a “Mr. Field and Stream,” however the gift ideas are really compelling and it’s a fun way to come up with new ideas.
No I am not going to bang the idea that we can all shoot video. I am just going to share with you another brand that is getting into asking everyone to create an ad and upload it. With YouTube we are all now experts it seems. Or at least novices that can make some compelling stories that others will watch. Are we all voyeurs? Is it just human nature to want to watch others? Or are we creating a online community that owns the brand? Owns the content? And brands are just a way to express yourself around a feeling they emote?
I have lot of questions around what is happening with the social and video sites.
Not sure, but what I do know is the JACK in the BOX is hit a few times a week by the eROI team and I have a digitial video camera in my office. Maybe we might hit the Jackies.
Social Networking has blanketed the news for the past 18 months because it works. YouTube and MySpace have built loyal communities through entertaining user-generated content and great tools to communicate with other like-minded people. However, Social Networking is going NICHE. People enjoy specific tools to connect, recommend, rate, and communicate within their niche groups.
For this reason, there are many types of Social Media:
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.
OnlineMediaDaily reported on Oct 31 that Media Titan and NBA-player-wannabe Mark Cuban received an email from the Pho List, a media-related exclusive email list. The OnlineMediaDaily article further stipulates that this email (which can’t be substantiated) revealed:
“One reason YouTube’s price tag was so big is that nearly one-third of the $1.65 billion has been set aside to deal with potential legal issues, with the rest being distributed to shareholders, including VC firm Sequoia Capital.
Google realized that $500 hundred million may not be enough (there could be hundreds of thousands of copyright suits here), so they decided to let certain media companies in on the sale. Once major labels got wind, they used the “most favored nation” clause to ensure their piece of the action–about $50 million per major media company from the Google buyout.
Instead of receiving cash, the media companies received an equity position in YouTube, which means they won’t have to pay their artists any royalty fees (most record label contracts call for artists to get 50 percent of license deals). Since it’s an investment, they’re no longer required to share the spoils.
Google basically bought a six-month exclusive on widespread copyright infringement. It figures that deal will ensure that their competitors will slowly fall by the wayside. As a result, expect a legal claim of collusion between Google and big media companies as other video companies begin to spiral downward.”
eROI President Ryan Buchanan writes in iMediaConnection about the Dove campaign:
“Dove no longer sells soap. The company is so much more than a set of commodity products. Dove sells real beauty; natural beauty; non-superficial beauty. The Campaign for Real Beauty website features a one-minute film that shows the transformation of an average-looking woman into a strikingly gorgeous supermodel. Only by seeing this process can we truly comprehend the illusion that the media has portrayed of these fabricated dream girls. The beauty of this site is that it doesn’t end with just awareness of the problem. It launches immediately into an actionable item for eight to 12-year-old girls to sign up for Dove’s real beauty workshops. These workshops teach girls about the importance of identifying beauty within themselves in the pre-teen years before the peer pressure to be like the mythical supermodel drives them to anorexia or bulimia.
This site has generated major buzz for good reason. It is authentic, genuine, and true to the Dove brand. It is an extension of the type of values that Dove has demonstrated for the past several years as one of the first major brands to feature larger women in their ads. It challenges convention and educates. As a viral website, “Campaign for Real Beauty” employs all of the right strategies and tactics. It’s easy to send the website to a friend, it has a compelling call-to-action, and it positions the educational resources on the site as the main focus– a testament to Dove’s humanitarian reasons for creating the campaign. It is clear what is important here, and that isn’t just selling product. It’s helping women and girls redefine beauty to change their life in a positive way.
The website is clearly targeted towards women and girls, but us men and boys are a big part of the equation. As for me, I think my wife is stunningly beautiful whether she is getting out of the tent on an early morning of a camping trip or dressed up in an evening gown for a swanky date. However, I must say that the superficial, heavily-altered, Photoshopped supermodel in the advertisement at the end of the Dove film is straight-up HOT! Men are a simple breed. My question to Dove is, what’s next? How can you break through to men?”
Crusty Demon is a advergame site for a new video game. It is a little racy, but spot on for the demographic. Simple and well executed. Keep in mind that advergame sites are used to build the viral spread of the intended KPI (Key Performance Index) that you have established.
The Shins was a site developed by the one and only James Hall from the eROI team. James has personally known the guys in the band for a while and he cooked up a great flash site to showcase the music, videos and quirkiness of the band. Try to find all the hidden easter eggs in the main page of the site.
We Are the Web is a humorous way to share the message about Net Neutrality Laws that are being fought in the high government courts and Senate. The goal is to educate, share and drive you to take action.
Tea Partay was an underground campaign used to promote a beverage company. It was launched without much promotion, but was done so well that many people took it upon themselves to load it up to YouTube and other video sites. If you do your job well, the online community will validate your brand and possibly even do your job for you.
The Viral Chart offers two main services to help advertisers spread and monitor their work, showcasing the most popular viral content on a 7 day and overall basis and tracking for your specific viral media campaign.
The Viral Chart helps advertisers gain insight into trends of viral media work’s implementation using a series of real-time tracking tools.
The Stunners is an off beat video story blog that was used to grow the reach of a large drug company about hair loss. If you have ever met notable baldy Ryan Buchanan you know how serious an issue hair loss can be.
Supporters is a simple site (following the lead of many) that uses consumer generated text to create an experience worthy of passing on to a friend. Just to cheer them up.
Google Image Labeler was a novel idea to use existing search technology and create a game out of it. It is not only a way to challenge people all over the world, but allows Google to leverage users ideas on how to tag an image. Great example of how the community is often more powerful than the technology.
All 2.0 Apps can be found in this aggregator site. It Some of the ideas out there that are launching almost daily might amaze you. The game is constantly evolving.
ClickZ (and every other media company in the world) just reported that:
“Google will acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion, marrying the dominant force in Internet search with the first and most powerful brand in networked Web video sharing, the companies announced. The deal is expected to close in Q4.
The agreement represents a big step into multimedia content and tools for Google. The company has long stated its enthusiasm for video, but has so far struggled to build a large audience around its own platform. With a value pegged at nearly three times the price News Corp. paid for MySpace only 15 months ago, the deal is also testament to the rise of social networking technologies.
“The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a statement. “Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”
YouTube CEO Chad Hurley: “By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners. I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.”
YouTube will retain its brand identity and keep its offices in San Bruno, Calif.”
YouTube graces the cover of Forbes magazine and has a write up in Newsweek. It seems everywhere I turn, I hear about YouTube and MySpace defining the next wave of growth of the Internet. The Online Marketing Media and Advertising show in New York City had 20+ speakers, panelists, and breakout sessions over 2 days that reinforced this message at every opportunity.
Crispin Porter & Bogusky and other ad agencies are creating such compelling ads (e.g. VW ad below) and online experiences (Burger King’s SubservientChicken.com), that loyal fans are uploading it to Web 2.0 superstars like YouTube and creating communities around these advertising concepts on MySpace.
The End Of A Chapter – My Next Move - Just like a good book, there are never really any endings, only beginnings. I wanted to take a moment to let you know that I am leaving my position at eROI as of January 31st, 2011. I will be starting a new position at a company outside of the email marketing and interactive agency business [...]
Join eROI at DMA 2010 in San Francisco – October 11th-14th - Alex Williams, Strategy for eROI, will be presenting in San Francisco at DMA2010 on email, social, mobile and ecommerce. DMA2010 is the global event covering all marketing channels — from traditional...
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