eROI Days Email Agency

Alex Williams in my office sent me this email. Not sure of the source, but it hits the mark

WIKIPEDIA

Benchmark: You didn’t create your own entry.

Perfect for: Filmmakers, playwrights, Ashlee Simpson.

When you’ve made it: No one has any idea that your best friend wrote about your “vast, impressive contributions to the modern cultural landscape.”

When you’ve really, really made it: You are no longer disputed for neutrality.

MySPACE

Benchmark: More than 10,000 friends. 50 comments. You are online now.

Perfect for: 12-year-olds, musicians, Dane Cook.

When you’ve made it: Your Top 8 is la creme de la creme of Bratz fans with saucy, up-to-no-good stares. Your comments cup overfloweth.

When you’ve really, really made it: You and Tom talk, like, all the time.

YOUTUBE

Benchmark: You’ve been downloaded 50,000 times and passed around more than a New York socialite in the Hamptons on a long holiday weekend.

Perfect for: That dude in Romania with the Web cam, comedians.

When you’ve made it: You are linked to on more than 100 different Web sites. The words “blog” and “spot” have never sounded quite so sweet.

When you’ve really, really made it: When your video crashes the site. You’re called to direct a music video.

TECHNORATI

Benchmark: You have more than 50 inbound links.

Perfect for: College students, Vanity Fair writers.

When you’ve made it: There is serious blogometric pressure. Serious.

When you’ve really, really made it: You made Cory Doctorow giggle.

FLICKR

Benchmark: You have been “favorited” more than 300 times.

Perfect for: People with hands.

When you’ve made it: You get tagged more than an NYU freshman on a highway overpass.

When you’ve really, really made it: You have just blogged your pants. You are not sorry.

Think back to 1999 when we were all going to change the world with the internet. Sites and ideas sprang up overnight and leapt into the media frenzy on a daily basis. The media controlled the game and companies had to pay dearly to leverage the saturated pages of every offline vehicle to get their messaging in front of businesses and consumers. Now, flash forward to 2006, the tables have been turned to a method of consumers running the show. Everyone from your co-workers, children and parents have begun to embrace the world of consumer generated content, blogging, social media sites and word of mouth marketing.

Today we have many online vehicles to move our messaging across the globe in a relatively inexpensive way, but it also leads us into new, unfamiliar waters of relinquishing some control. This may be the hardest part of the entire movement; where people outside of your ad agency or internal marketing group can make or break your message.
How have we approached it?

We have been fortunate to help many companies move from the sidelines to the frontlines of this next wave in marketing. We are not going to tell you that it hasn’t been without fear or trepidation on the parts of many VPs and Legal Counsels, but in the end it’s been an eye opener to the power you can unleash for your brand and campaign. So, before we dive into a quick overview of how your business might be able to use this medium, fasten your seat belt and throw some of your old notions to the wind, but not to chance.

Kettle Foods Dips Toe into Social Media
In the second year of the Crave campaign that was executed by Maxwell PR and eROI for Kettle Foods, all parties involved wanted to leverage the momentum of brand evangelism and consumer generated media. But what would be a simple way to move into this realm without releasing all control. The answer came in the form of the StraightUpFlavor.com site for voting on the next flavor of Kettle Foods chips. This provided a way for consumers to supply feedback to the company. After planning on the method of collection, the new site opened up to accept this media in an uncontrolled format. After the first week of results, Kettle Foods loved all of the consumer comments. Thus, the company has created a way to get direct consumer feedback for new concepts/flavors.

Jack Klugman Podcasts
Jack Klugman, the actor from the Odd Couple and Quincy MD, was releasing a new book on his life and friendship with Tony Randall. The national media tour was planned; book signing dates set and PR ready to roll. However, what about the audience that wouldn’t be hit through these channels? The idea for a TonyandMe Blog was born. This blog would allow Jack to create a new media strategy in a real grass roots way. Sitting down with his son over a long weekend, Jack started recording stories about the friends he had in his life and anecdotes about each. Besides sharing the stories with his own son, he was also able to share his stories online with many. The plan used RSS (Real Simple Syndication), Podcasts and grass roots efforts to let others pass and interact with his message. With a few calls to Itunes, Jack was placed in the home page rotation of featured content driving his podcast to unimagined highs and downloads. With this new organic visibility, small video clips were created from live events, old footage and interviews to keep the content library available and active and to keep the online audience engaged through the first few months of the book release and holiday season.

Mass Media and Our Love of Celebrities
DeliveryAgent approached eROI to help test the waters for a new site as well as support for the current paid effort for the ShoptheScene.com (NBC, ABC, Miramax, Project Runway, Queer Eye and more). A new blog and social media plan is what resulted. The idea was to use a blog to test efforts and define what types of media (text, audio and video) would be rapid drivers of organic search engine and social media traffic. A three tiered strategy was created as to not over extend the internal requirements of the DeliveryAgent team from current roles, and build a plan that could be ramped up or even killed off if deemed a liability. The use of a blog or disposable URL gives the ability to scale or kill a concept that is not ultimately tied to other sites or the brand.

How will you approach it?

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Working your tail off? Think you deserve more? Now you can use this AMAZING new web based machine to figure it out. Introducing the Salary-Matic.

It was created to promote an online recruiting service. The minisite asks you: “How much do you think you deserve to make?”. Just make sure you don’t share your answer with colleagues.., or boss.

Join us for a series of webinars covering a range of topics that will help you to fine tune your email and e-marketing campaigns.

January 24 and January 26 – 11AM – List Management: We will focus on list management within emailROI including, import, export (lists, with filters, etc.), new list creation, basic segmentation for new lists, and Master CRM overview.

February 2 – 11AM – Opt-in Best Practices: Difference between single opt in and confirmed opt in (also known as double opt in) including response rate difference, bounce management and spam complaint resolution. We will briefly touch on the state of authentication including SPF, Sender ID and Domain Keys.

These events are opt in only so please sign up here.

The recent newsletter from TrendWatching.com absolutely captivated me today. The following blurb is a quick overview of the in-depth online trends that over 7,000 spotters have documented from people’s online behavior:

“For the first time in the history of our still evolving consumer societies, tens of millions of consumers are pro-actively telling and showing each other, and you, what they’re feeling and doing in the broadest sense of the word, all in a centralized online arena, in real time (it has never been easier to upload your LIFE CACHE), whether it’s on (mo)blogs or on picture and video sites. They want to connect, to share, to create, to show off. Add to that a slew of new search engines helping you navigate through Web 2.0 (there, we said it), and the ability to link postings to personal profiles (TWINSUMERS) to put things in perspective, and what you end up with is a completely new way of observing, of keeping a finger on the global pulse, of inspiring yourself. Regardless of whether you’re a CEO, a researcher, a planner, an entrepreneur, a designer, an MBA or MFA student, or a fellow member of GENERATION C.”