May 2, 2008

PDC Old Town / Chinatown Video Features eROI

The PDC (Portland Development Commission) worked with the Portland Classical Chinese Garden to create this video to show in several cities throughout China with the intent of recruiting more Chinese businesses to move into Old Town/Chinatown.

eROI has been in Old Town / Chinatown for the past 6 months and we've seen a dozen other software companies and creative agencies move into the neighborhood. We're big fans.

ENGLISH VERSION

MANDARIN VERSION

Comments (1) | Posted by ryan at 6:37 AM | Permalink

April 23, 2008

Surprising Results to Email Survey Results: eROI Report

We have finally published the Q2 2008 The Cradle & The Grave email survey results

The full report is at this link:
http://eroi.com/online-marketing-resource-center/resource-center/?sec=3

Respondents:
· Over 500 marketers were surveyed about the subscribe/unsubscribe process. While these processes are improving, they have yet to reach what we would call exceptional.

Key observations:
· People are not matching up other marketing efforts like they should
· People are not monitoring feedback loops and complaint rates
· The thank you page, prime visitor real estate is being wasted
· Not surveying subscribers at opt out
· Not allowing frequency changes

Some Results:

I. Opt - in:
--Only 30% of the respondents say they use opt-in; still below where the industry should be

--Of those that use opt-in; only a 4% provide more than 10 ways for someone to opt-in and the majority, three-quarters, have only 1-3 ways.

--Incentives/Content for opting:
§ 88% offering newsletter subscription
§ 29% offering access to preferred content
§ 24% offering discounts/coupons
§ 22% offering some kind of contest

--One-third of marketers don't do any segmenting at opt-in

--Landing page improvements needed

II. Opt-Out
--30% of marketers don't pass opt-in names onto other systems

--65% won't pass on when subscribers opt-out

--CRM Systems - lead way in third-party applications for opt-in/out

--90% of marketers don't follow up with opt-outs - potential for reaching through other channels

--One-third of marketers don't send a confirmation email after opt-out - which can offer the chance for the subscriber to change mind.

III. Feedback Loop:
--Nearly one-quarter of email marketers don't know what they currently do with abuse complaints, or how they are handled. Is this lack of education by the ESP or is it lack of understanding the value of feedback loops and the purpose of them?

--Only about one-half of email marketers currently monitor feedback loops.

Comments (0) | Posted by ryan at 4:40 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2008

We're Bringing Sexy Back to Email Marketing, Part I

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>>.

Comments (1) | Posted by ryan at 2:27 PM | Permalink