The Email Wars

That’s right boys and girls… a new Email Marketing Guide in the Resources center @eROI. And not just one… but 3 new guides. And hold tight… wait for it… wait for it… wait for it… now - Look next week for the RESULTS of our latest email study there as well. 

I know you say this is TOO good to be true, like the Flowbee or the GoateeSaver, but it is not it is 4 for the price of 1 visit. I know these guys at eROI really go above and beyond to think about what is working in email marketing and how to share this knowledge with the world. One would think that they are a 3000 strong global force of Ninjas and Revolutionaries (we are but less that 60 with 2 offices) but alas we just like to make you smarter to do your job better. 

Now if we share like this with everyone can you JUST imagine what we share with our clients and customers? I would wager that some AWESOME ideas come out of here and some campaigns that rock. 

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So today I will be wrapping up my vacation in Southern California. And you did not even know I was gone. Amazing how that works with a blog? I told you I would make sure to keep the posts active and the news flowing as it was my vacation and not yours. How could I let you starve for 7 days? I care too much I guess. 

But the real reason for my return is the news that eROI was infiltrated by a spy. Yes that is right. I was sitting here checking my email the other day only to have this float into my Twitter stream of a crazy Bronto employee heading all the way across the USA to make it all the way to my office. HE had made his way through 3 floors, our security guard Sharky and into my office. Only to sneak up behind one of my team with my AMA Award baseball bat to strike a blow for the Carolinas. 

Looks like his use of the eROI Bloggers Unite t-shirt might have bought him some time and got him past the crew. I am going to need to sweep my office (shown in this photo) for bugs, mics, camera, and bronto poop. (Speaking of did you see the front page of the USA today Tues the 5th? They state that plastic Bronto’s are harmful to the environment and maybe poisonous? A must read.)

So on a flight tonight back to Stumptown (aka Portland) to survey the damage and make sure we arrange a surprise attack back to the (L)east Coast. 

After a few years of writing this blog I was wondering what percentage of the readership is subscribing to our weekly email updates? From what I can see a large percentage of the visitors are subscribed. BUT what percentage of the readers are just using RSS or have this blog bookmarked in their tool bar. Hundreds of daily readers make up this amount as well. 

So today is the day that you sign up for our weekly (once a week) email fed by RSS goodness blog recap newsletter. Now you not only get the rich nuggety goodness that comes with The Email Wars, but you also get a taste of our newly designed blog eROI Days (was Email Days for years) from our CEO, and the soon to relaunch blog Return on Subscriber penned by Alex Williams and Jeff Mills from our Sales and Strategy team. That is a 3 for 1 ROI for you on just one email subscription. What a shockingly good deal for you.

Now you can be kept in the loop mid week about all the exciting articles we write, learn about new white papers, studies, surveys, awards, parties, and our critiques of campaigns we see each and every day. So your next step is to look to the right hand side of our blog and sign up. Easy? Yes. Feel good? Of Course. You also have the option of signing up for the eROI Monthly newsletter at the same time. WOW too good to be true is seems? I know the hits keep on coming. If you want to review the past eROI Newsletters from 2003 to present, we also have them all stashed right over here. 

We will also be sharing with our blog readers a new eROI Internal Culture blog shaping up as an East Coast VS West Coast office battle. 

Looking forward to seeing you subscribe in the old fashion Web 1.0 type of way… 

If you had had the pleasure in the past to peruse our portfolio of FRICKING AWESOME work, yes this is a shameless plug, our team last week made some changes. We are not showing work that is just FRICKING AWESOME, we are showing and sharing with you work that the inspiring and awesome… all at the same time. 

Hats off to the eROI creative team for continuing to rock, roll, play hard and turn out some of the best email, web and campaign work out there. 

I know I might be a little biased here, but when I see the stuff we are doing now as compared to this old stuff in the portfolio my heart skips a beat and my eyes tear up. Are you ready to come over to our side and start doing some great work, take some risks and go in a new direction? I know you are and we are here for you. 

For those of you that know me, you know that I have a hard time with vacations. I really like the whole concept of leaving work for a few days or a week, but I have a hard time not being connected. It is a wild thing in this day and age that we are always connected and always reading email to stay in the loop. Some are better at unplugging than others. Not me. 

But I have actually not really “worked” as work is something you do when you don’t like what you do. I happen to be one of those sick individuals that loves to take some time off, relax, hang with friends and family in a warm locale, but I also love the industry and the agency/esp we have created at eROI. It is one of those places where I am excited each day to wake up and go to work. Crazy huh? But not so crazy that I need to be locked up in a white coat. Well some might tell you that at times. But I thrive on the innovation, creativity and family that eROI brings to the table. If you have not worked with us you should, but only if you like to do great work and have a blast while doing it. 

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Well we want you to tell (Us, aka Me) what you think about each post. Now we are not going to ask you to comment, as well that could be a SCARY thing to do on the interWeb. I hear sharing your opinion and social media are just a fad anyway, so why waste your time commenting on a post right? Right. (more…)

Yes, we have reached and passed a milestone. 

For the record, there were 275 days in 2005 that I was blogging. Of those to present there have been 82 in 2005 were weekends. In 2006 there were 105 weekend days. There were 104 weekend days in 2007. And in 2008 there have been 56 thus far. That makes 347 days. Why is this important? Well I typically do not post on the weekends, just the week days, but this is when I do a majority of my writing. So out of 1201 days I have reached over 1000 posts on this blog. Quite a milestone for me and a lot of time and thought for one person alone. Here is to more posts, more comments from the rest of you lurkers, the great work, the bad work and news worthy finds to rant and rave about. The best part is the majority of the content is original and not just email news regurgitated.

I really want to thank all of you for consistently reading it, even with rushed thoughts sometimes my typos, I blame the latter on fat fingers and a racing brain. It is more of a place that I use to journal things for myself and let them be shared with everyone else. I get asked all the time how I keep up the pace. I can tell you that truthfully it is not easy to keep up the pace. It takes constant clipping of emails that float through some of my inboxes (yes I have more than 2 and less than 8) and remembering of why I wanted to save them. 

So here it to you and to me as a collective community of knowledge. Here is to more posts from me and more comments from you!

I am sorry I was just so tempted to write a fun teaser line for those of you subscribing by RSS. I really just wanted to highlight some new work that eROI just finished for CBS Sports. I was not personally involved in this project but it came out great. 

All the details are here, and PSSST if you like Fantasy… Sports, sign up at CBS. 

It is  not just about what you see here but all the newsletter creation as well as the process. It has been a great project to work on and everyone here at eROI is happy to be involved with not only a project but a passion of many sports junkies here.

Notice how we keep it simple.
 

Well it was a night to remember. Second year in a row for little old eROI to win a place on the 100 fastest growing companies in Oregon list from the Portland Business Journal. Now last year was of course major coup hitting the list at 15th, but it sure is hard to sustain incredible growth at those levels. So funny as it might be we were there waiting our turn as they rapid fire through the list and CEOs stumble across the stage in a sea of hand shakes and hugs (Ryan B reference here, as he is loved by the Portland business community) and we made a bet… what number would we be this year? Many wanted to hedge low as they thought others had not had as impressive as a string of years as eROI has, I tried to be pragmatic and doubled plus six. Yep 36th.

I was dismissed by most eROI peers, but being the VP of Sales I think I have a pretty good pulse on things. And low and behold, the eROI logo popped right up at 36th. So I guess I won. Won what, who knows. But here is to the eROI Team, those that have been with us and have moved on, our clients, friends, supporters, evangelists and most importantly the people that believe in what we are doing.

And now we are left to bust our tails even harder to stay in this list. We need one more year of growth by the terms of the Business Journal to get a Lighthouse Award. Sleeves are rolled up and a year of innovation is ahead of us. Keep your eyes peeled around this time next year.

For many of you that we not able to make the eROI Annual party last Friday, I wanted to share with you some photos from the event. To sum it up… it was crazy.

We had 3 DJs, a live hip hop band, 12 local fashion designers, 60 models (3 of which were eROI employees and in my opinion were the best of show), and we estimate somewhere between 1200 and 1500 people in attendance. Wow. Maybe next time you should think about making it. 

Here are some photos from the event for you to enjoy:

Some of you might have already noticed that this blog went live this week. It was a little premature as I still had things to change and add to it, but none the less, here it is. Now it is not a completely new look, just an updated look on a new blogging platform. We are in the midst of shifting all of our blogs over as well as adding 3 more blogs. I think you will like them as our blog network unfolds over this summer. 

Thanks for your patience while I was dark for a short time. We had the honor of winning Battle of the Portland Ad Fed bands last Wed, we were awarded the 36th fastest growing company in Oregon on Thursday, had our annual party on Friday (look for a post with pictures from the madness) and then I was in NYC Sat PM to Thursday AM in client meetings and speaking at the Digital Publishers Conference. 

Busy week. I will be back at running my mouth next week, don’t worry.

In light of only being 12 posts away from the 1000 post mark, I thought it was timely to go “dark” and reflect on why I am blogging, do you care and what is next for The Email Wars. Well here is where it is going…

Look in the next week for a completely new look, look for a new Twitter feed at Twitter.com/eroi to be feeding in content and updates as they happen, look for new content, new snark, new weekly email recaps (redesigned) on Thursdays at 10am PST (Weekly Frequency automated by emailROI’s legendary RSS to email platform), and feeds that contain MIND blowing email marketing and new marketing ideas, stories, hate mail, reviews, industry gossip, where to snipe me at the next speaking event, awards we win, non profits we volunteer for, parties we throw and yeah, email stuff on delivery and the Email Wars we all fight each and every day.

I am even thinking of publishing the longest blog post I have ever written on a crazy story I want to share… need some encouragement here to be really transparent…. but it will be worth it.. I think.

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Big Props to eROI Design team for winning our first ever Logo/Brand design award, really it is titled “Best Logo Design”. It was for a massive rebranding project we did for our client Perkins Accounting. We did the site, email, business cards letter head copy and even, yes, the logo.

Here it is in ALL of it’s glory in our Portfolio, don’t be shy…

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AAM Marketing Achievement Awards
AAM-MAA Forty Awards Distributed to Honor Top Marketing Tactics

San Diego, Calif.. - The Association for Accounting Marketing distributed 40 Marketing Achievement Awards (AAM-MAAs) to 30 different firms to recognize their outstanding achievements in the areas of accounting marketing and communications.

A panel of judges, including professionals in advertising, consulting, professional services and marketing, judged nearly 250 entries in 19 different categories. Accounting firms from all over the United States and Canada competed in two divisions - under $15 million in revenues and over $15 million in revenues. Categories included Web site design, collateral/identity materials, niche business development and print
advertising for CPA firms.

This was the 14th year the annual awards were presented. Winners were announced at the organization’s 19th Annual Conference, AAM Summit 2008, Wild on Marketing in San Diego, Calif. on June 5, 2008.

If you are in NYC June 25th and looking to learn from some people much greater than myself, come to the Digital Publishing Conference. http://www.dpaconference.com/. Should I be scared? Nope, I am ready to rock this!

A Case Study: The ABC’s of Digital Publishing: The task of managing and delivering your content into a digital form can be a daunting task. Just about all publishers and content companies have an online and digital presence today, but are they headed in the right direction? Do they have an A+ distribution strategy, use of advanced technologies, the right online approach to connect with and engage their audience? What is the right mix of web, digital magazines, email, podcasts, video, online communities, and mobile to fuel growth? And what digital advertising solutions, formats, and integrated sales strategies are they using to please advertisers and increase their revenue? Find out about the ABC’s of digital publishing from the leaders in the field who are winning the hearts and minds of their audience and their advertisers.

Moderator:
Tim McHale, Managing Partner/Editor, Madison Avenue Consultants

Speakers:
Chuck Cordray, VP General Manager, Digital Media, Hearst
Christy Tanner, VP, Marketing and Editor in Chief, TV Guide Online
Ben Mosse, Director, AP Mobile Product Development
Rich Murphy, SVP, BPA Worldwide
Dylan Boyd, VP, eROI

eROI featured in the Wall Street Journal this week. Nice to see us and others like Vidoop and Jive Software getting some national coverage. With Oregon hit so hard with the downturn in jobs in many sectors it was great to see smaller companies like the ones above help to offset the job loss.

If you have not heard, Portland rocks. Our new Neighborhood in Old Town PDX is bringing all sorts of tech companies back to downtown.

Bring your company to Oregon today and become a Portvangelist!

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