EIS: Email Insider Summit 2009 – What I am Looking Forward To
Dec 01 2009
The annual winter event in Park City, Utah is almost upon us. In just a few days email geeks, brand marketers, ISPs, email agencies and ESPs will be sending their best and brightest to meet up for 3 days to talk about what we have learned this past year and what is upon us to think about next year.
Now this event is not like all the others. What makes it so special is that it is organized by members of the community and run by them with the help of Mediapost who facilitates this gathering. And it is not one of those monsterous conferences where you have to seek out the people there you want to meet. This event is a 200 person event that is run more like an open, intimate conversation of people that are passionate about what they do.
We are fortunate this year to have brought in leaders from Razorfish, ShareThis, Microsoft, Ball State University, Rapleaf, REI, Orbitz, Turner Broadcasting, ESPN, Nationwide, Groupon, Walgreens, Ogilvy and many more. The line up will be beneficial to all levels of knowledge and the conversations candid and challenging. Just what I like. We can only hope that our brains at that elevation can handle all of this great shared knowledge we are about to receive. So thanks to all of you in advance.
But on top of that what I am really excited for it to gather with peers, competitors and new and old friends in a place that we all look forward to meeting. I am excited to see people like (yes I will lead with him) DJ Waldow, Greg Cangialosi, Loren McDonald, David Baker, Stephanie Miller, Dennis Daymon, Andrew Kordek, Morgan Stewart, Lisa Harmon, and more. These great people whom are all great thought leaders and people I like to call friends will be on hand to catch up and not only talk biz, but be with.
Some of you cannot make it this year and I am really sorry to hear that. You will all be missed and I hope that next year we can get you back.
It is like a little Holiday gift that Twitter, Facebook, Lists, phone calls and sightings at conferences just don’t make the same. A little face to face with these people is one of my favorite ways to end every year.
For those of you that I have not met yet I am very excited to see and meet you as well. I am thankful to all of you that work as hard and tirelessly as you do to help educate and advance consumer marketing through email and continue to make it one of the strongest performing marketing channels still on the web.
See you all soon and note I will be bearing some gifts from the PacNW.
Posted by Dylan Boyd at 6:03 AM
Published in Email Insider Summit on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Here it is, your March Email Marketing Calendar.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:05 am
Sorry I won’t be able to join you this time :-( Will do my best to attend the May one.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:18 am
Dylan,
I too am looking forward to this event and meeting a bunch of people I have either talked with either over the phone or via twitter. Lots to share and lots for me to learn.
I will represent Groupon which is turning out to be an exciting place to work.
Cheers,
Andrew
December 1st, 2009 at 8:29 am
Be honest: it’s an email MARKETING insider summit.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:16 am
JD – I always love your love of this industry and your ability to jab at the whole premise of what we all do. Good that you work for a company like return path that is in this same business.
Remember a product you used to have that did ECOA? Isn’t that MARKETING? Isn’t deliverability MARKETING? Can you tell me what about email is not about MARKETING?
As a note on this conference it is amazing. Steph Miller will be there representing RP as always. She is wonderful and I am excited that she likes MARKETING email conferences. I think it would be great to see you at one of these in 2010 to get to meet face to face some of these people (sorry Marketers) that your help. It might change your feelings. Or maybe I am wrong?
December 1st, 2009 at 10:57 am
Dylan –
Thanks for the blog love. Wow! You even led with me, followed by Greg. How nice of you to include a link back to Blue Sky Factory and/or our Twitter handles. Oh wait. You didn’t do that.
See you Sunday. Beers on you!
Seriously though, thanks for the shout out. EIS is one of my favorites.
DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow
December 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
There’s no doubt that email marketing is a part of the email ecosystem, and likely always will be. But it’s disingenuous, and bordering on dishonest, for conference about email marketing to claim to be about all email. It gives the impression that the organizers believe there is no aspect of email (or no aspect of email worth discussing) which is not entirely in the service of marketing.
Get out of the echo chamber for a while, and you’ll quickly discover that marketing is not what anyone (except email marketers) values most about email.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:22 pm
JD. Are you familiar with our business at eROI? Are you aware of the complete marketing work we do outside of email? You might want to learn more about us and the online and offline work we do. I am happy to get on the phone with you and share with you the kinds of work we do outside of email. Might help you to understand the breadth of understanding/experience we have outside of email.
I will completely agree with you that there should be more conversations around the mechanics of email, transactional, relationship, deliverability and more. BUT this is a conference for email marketers to talk about email marketing. Just as MAWG and others service others in this space.
We gather to talk about what is working for one another in an open forum that we do not see in really any other conferences that might have a channel about email. Note that your team will be there and hopefully (as she always does) Stephanie Miller can bring up the issues that are relevant and important to what we are all talking about.
OR better yet why not next year can you organize some tracks and speakers to participate that talk about the issues you see are missing. I know we would all love it if you participated.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:25 pm
DJ looking forward to seeing you IRL or F2F as you like to say as well.
You take Alex and I to In and Out and we will buy some beers. Bringing a stash of great Oregon wine with me to share with friends.
You and you links… someday.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 am
“BUT this is a conference for email marketers to talk about email marketing.”
Exactly! So why not call it that?
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Dylan, you say EIS caters to a segment that’s disjoint from that of MAAWG. So, what does EIS offer the senders’ (marketing) community that MAAWG doesn’t? Is there a reason to have separate events?
It seems to me that having a private dialogue among the senders creates an adversarial posture rather than one that’s co-operative with the large receivers whose inboxes you covet.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:28 am
Can you tell me what about email is not about MARKETING?
Well, everything that’s not marketing. I use email for:
business
catching up with friends
online discussions – both business and personal
monitoring activity on my social networks
maintaining a todo list (yes, my inbox is my todo list)
talking with family
None of these are marketing related.
Marketers somehow forget that people use email for stuff other than getting marketing mail. I had a session at a recent conference, and asked a group of marketers / senders how people use email and they couldn’t seem to come up with any non-marketing uses.
It’s tunnel vision, that marketers forget there are real humans on the other end of that SMTP session. Senders forget they’re invited guests into someone else’s home (or business, depending) and that they need to respect that place and the person who invited them. They also forget that they’re not the primary reason that recipient has a mailbox.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:40 am
I would love there to be a better event that brought all of these orgs together. Would help all of us. Would that be something you would like to help pull together?
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
JD: I did not name it. Call Mediapost not me. Email Insiders Summit. It is what it is. And I LOVE this event and am excited for it. Would love to see you attend some of these “email marketing/marketers” conferences so that we could have a solid conversation about it. And even better face to face would be good for you and I in 2010.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Laura:
Everyone in email marketing lives in a tunnel. Thanks – kind of a “Bridge and Tunnel” guy myself.
I use email for many things outside of marketing as well. And so do people that our clients send emails to. Alerts, Transactionals, news recaps, social media profile info/posts/messages/tags, and a host of other information like account data, password challenge/response/forgotten.
I hope that I am not so myopic in my thoughts that I forget to think about people when I am working on marketing using email or any other medium. We don’t approach anything in a batch and blast mentality. And you are welcome into my house anytime, consider that an invitation.
Your thoughts (with my thoughts in parenthesis)
Well, everything that’s not marketing. I use email for:
business (marketing)
catching up with friends (politics/marketing)
online discussions – both business (marketing) and personal (tbd)
monitoring activity on my social networks (marketing)
maintaining a todo list (yes, my inbox is my todo list) (marketing to yourself to complete/do/get something)
talking with family (politics)
I am sure we all use it for other things as well.
Anytime you would like to talk by phone let’s do it as there are 3-4 people out there like yourself that love to dislike people (excuse me – email marketers) that talk about email marketing. We all work here together Laura so maybe it is time we all figure out how to meet up somewhere besides a conference. Let me know where you are going to be there year and we can meet up in person and talk as well.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Dylan said: “I would love there to be a better event that brought all of these orgs together. Would help all of us. Would that be something you would like to help pull together?”
There already IS an event that brings the various players in the email space together for useful dialogue. You and I have both already named it.
I fail to see why there’s a need for an email marketing focus group when something much more comprehensive, with a more complete perspective, is already available.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Mark do you mean MAAWG is that event/group?
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
J.D.
You hate marketers so much, but if you take a moment and think…you realize because of “MARKETERS” you have a “paid” salary JOB! They are the ones who bring revenue to RP.
And maybe because of your annoying attitude many marketers SHOULD consider leaving RP and join a competitor!
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
MSK said:
There already IS an event that brings the various players in the email space together for useful dialogue. You and I have both already named it.
I disagree with this. I’ve attended MAAWG (for the last 3 years) and EIS last year (and hopefully this year.) They are at opposite ends of the spectrum. MAAWG is technical in nature, and IMO, a lot of marketers would be lost there. Conversely, EIS is very focused on the marketing side of email, and there is little discussion on infrastructure.
Maybe it’s best left that way, but perhaps it might make sense to have some sort of event that covers both sides, as there are *many* overlaps and both viewpoints can affect a sender’s bottom line.
–Jaren
Email Delivery Expert
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Thanks Jaren. I would agree with you as well from past attendance or speaking at MAAWG, EIS, Sherpa, profs, EEC, OMMA and all the other events in those realms.
I would love to have an event that brought it all together instead of dividing it up.
December 4th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
If you really want to broaden the scope of your meeting, I’ll be happy to give you a list of people you might want to talk with.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Thanks Kelly. Love to have a list of people to add to conferences like this and others. I appreciate your help and desire to expand some of the ideas, topics and knowledge shared.
December 5th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Dylan – Thanks for the great post. I look forward to catching up with you as well!
See you tomorrow evening!
Greg
December 10th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Email marketing still consider outbound marketing strategy, it has to be implemented probably to achieve better ROI.