« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
March 31, 2008
11 Great Site Finds
From juggling multiple devices to polishing writing skills - Here are some websites that can impact your interactive marketing success...
http://www.dopplr.com/
- Traveling a lot? Well this application lets you connect with others you know on the road. Never know where you might met up.
http://www.tumblr.com
- Easiest way to share yourself from all of your social media, twitter, blogging etc.
http://www.boompaste.com/home.php
- Great Marketing and idea aggregator.
http://shifd.com/
- Shifd easily allows you to shifd content including notes, places, links between multiple devices.
http://www.conceptshare.com/
- Design and collaborate anywhere with anyone.
http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/
- Keep your eyes on the skies with Fire Eagle landing publicly soon.
http://www.brijit.com/
- The World in 100 Words.
http://readwriteweb.com/
- A Resource for what is happening in the fast moving space of whats Next.
http://gridskipper.com/
- Cool guide to urban travel.
http://www.copyblogger.com/
- Need the next subject line? Look no further for great ideas.
http://www.skrbl.com
- Draw, text, scribble & share on this simple & useful whiteboard. We use it for remote wire framing.
Comments (0) | Posted by mitchell at 9:01 AM | Permalink
Buying Remanent Email Space
Buying Remanant email at yahoo/msn etc? Have you ever heard about this? I heard this topic from an email marketing person that said that they do this every once in a while for clients through MSN and Yahoo. What this immediately made me think about is:
Does it have an impact on delivery? Does this help with getting more email from your brand into the inbox through these ISPs and help on your reputation with the links, domains and sender from lines you use?
Does it help protect feedback loops if timed with house lists? Why I thought of this was if I was dropping a massive double opt in confirmed campaign for a client from their house list, would there be an impact in delivery scores IF I had a timed drop with in house ISP remanent emails? I would think that in the grand scheme feedback, unsubs and other scores would be better balanced if I was doing this?
Is this a trick? Is is a way to leverage the ISPs to deliver 3rd party emails on your brand's behalf? Seems a little fishy to me? But then this is the first time I have heard of doing this?
Anyone have any experience with this practice?
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 28, 2008
ISPs Need To Overhaul Spam Reporting System: Survey
From Mediapost by Tanya Irwin
The definition of spam has changed from the permission-based regulatory definition of "unsolicited commercial email" to a subjective, perception-based definition centered on consumer dissatisfaction, according to a recent survey.
Jointly conducted by Chicago-based Q Interactive and Warren, R.I.-based MarketingSherpa, the survey's goal was to reveal consumers' perceptions of what they consider to be spam, why they report emails as spam and what they think happens when the "report spam" button is clicked.
An overwhelming number of consumers misuse and misunderstand the definition of spam, ultimately hurting legitimate marketers--but also consumers themselves who are seeking the messages they want, but instead are automatically being unsubscribed, said Arend Henderson, Q Interactive's chief analytics officer.
There is confusion among consumers regarding what they believe will happen as a result of clicking the "report spam" button. Over half of respondents (56%) reported it will "filter all email from that sender"--while 21% believe it will notify the sender that the recipient did not find that specific email useful, so the sender will "do a better job of mailing me" in the future. About 47% believe they will be unsubscribed from the list by clicking "report spam."
"The people I found to be really interesting were those who thought (by hitting the spam button) they were notifying the sender that they didn't find that particular email useful," Henderson said. "The marketer then has to reply to this potentially very engaged email consumer by never ever messaging them again. Who knows how valuable those people are, because most responsible marketers never email to them again."
When it comes to utilizing the "report spam" button, nearly half of respondents (48%) provided a reason other than "did not sign up for email" for why they reported an email as spam. In fact, underscoring consumers' varying definitions of spam, respondents cited a variety of non-permission-based reasons for hitting the spam button, including "the email was not of interest to me" (41%); "I receive too much email from the sender" (25%); and "I receive too much email from all senders" (20%).
The survey found that a large number of consumers (43%) forgo advertiser-supplied unsubscribe links in email and simply use the ISP's "report spam" button to unsubscribe from an advertiser's list--regardless of whether or not the email fits the consumer's definition of spam.
Of those surveyed, 56% reported: "Marketing messages or newsletters that are "just not interesting to me" from known senders as "spam" and 21% knowingly report email that is not spam as spam. Furthermore, 43% believe using the "Report spam" button will unsubscribe them from a list, and 21% believe clicking the "Report Spam" button will notify the sender they did not find that specific e-mail useful, so the sender will do a "better job of mailing me" in the future. About 50% of respondents consider "too frequent emails from companies I know" to be spam, and 31% cite "emails that were once useful but aren't relevant anymore" (Respondents could select more than one answer for multiple questions in the survey.)
To address this problem, Q Interactive calls for ISPs, marketers, advertisers and publishers to come together with industry associations such as the Interactive Advertising Bureau to agree on a solution that is beneficial to consumers and all interested parties. The firms are calling on ISPs to replace the "report spam" button with buttons that more clearly indicate consumers' intentions, such as an "unsubscribe" button and an "undesired" button. ISPs should categorize email senders based on their practices to identify and reward senders who follow best practices in transparency and permission, Henderson told Online Media Daily.
In the meantime, marketers need to do a better job of educating consumers as to what they will receive if they sign up for an email list and what the mechanism is for unsubscribing. They also need to continuously look at the frequency of their email blasts and the relevancy, Henderson said.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:40 AM | Permalink
March 27, 2008
Auditing Your Email Programs
We are frequently asked by clients to "audit" their current email programs. We have a lengthy process that take a few weeks to go through and return a audit and recommedations document that they can use to implement changes to their current programs. What I wanted to put out to the readers to hear about is do you have an audit process in place? If so what are the key things you look for? Are there things you would like to share with the audience?
I have been working on a series of guides on the new eROI site that we are planning on launching that cover the following areas:
The Opt In Audit
The Opt Out Audit
The Email Delivery Audit
The Email Frequency Audit
The Creative Audit
The A/B List Test and Time of Day/Day of Week Audit
The Competitive Email Audit
What are you testing for and are these things that you are looking at?
Love any comments on this as they may help shape my guides.
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 4:02 AM | Permalink
March 26, 2008
Manual VS Automated Email Marketing
I was thinking through a topic this week (when a Microsoft Director was presenting on Advertising at OMMA). The topic is - "Should You Be Automating or Manually Delivering Email Campaigns?" There are pros and cons to each side.
I would heavily lean towards automating double opt-in welcome emails, and a customer education/value email flow about the brand, services, expectations of emails/outreach. These are things that SHOULD be done and it makes the most sense to automate. But when I say that, I do not mean to let them lie static. These automated campaigns must be always reviewed, analyzed, tracked to goals AND tweaked constantly. So although you have automated, you actually are manually working on them ALL the time. Kind of a double standard here right? Well not really as most of these are going to be flowing in and out every day and it is your job to watch them and see which minor changes can make an impact.
But then what is truly manual? Reporting, idea generation, opportunity identification, and segmentation based on behaviors - some of these one-off campaigns, and maybe even your newsletters (that is if you are not already using our RSS to emailROI platform to automate that content). But the majority of your manual process will be the copywriting... one of the least favorite parts of the job, I often hear.
I leave you with this, not really a resolution on this topic, but days are too short in most of our lives, so finding ways to automate will win every time.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 25, 2008
Yahoo!: Don't Hate the Players - Hate the Spammers
We participated in this article for ClickZ with many other ISPs this week . They got 98% of what I said right, but missed my complete explanation. This line is not too accurate: Deliverability issues still persist with eROI.
What this means is that our servers get varying results each day depending on the tests. We see some days with Yahoo at 100% globally, and then some days that the US rates fall to 12 to 18% missing in TEST results not live campaigns. So we have seen improvements over the past 60 days, but the problem still can crop up from time-to-time based what Yahoo decides to do that day.
We are watching, seeding, and monitoring our IPs everyday and we see great live rates, but Yahoo is a daily challenge.
I actually have moved my wife off Yahoo, as she was missing emails from friends and family everyday. Then they may or may not appear a few days later in the inbox or junk box. So sad. I think that this is a bad issue for Yahoo that is impacting EVERYONE not just ESPs and email campaigns.
Here is the article
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628827
BUT my favorite part is what Yahoo responded with. So to all those ESPs that we have shared this issue with, seems you are BAD according to Yahoo. Thanks Yahoo for sharing the HATE on a Friday and not moving to solve this problem. I think it would have been better to use that old break-up line of "It's not me, its you".
March 21, 2008: Don't Act Like Spammers (From ClickZ blog)
While reporting on Yahoo Mail's deliverability issues I spoke to a lot of great sources, including Yahoo. Here's a few spammy tidbits I left out. "Whenever we deploy some tighter, stricter filters, spammers are sometimes the first to complain," said Mark Risher, group product manager for Yahoo Mail. "No one considers himself a spammer; they just consider themselves aggressive e-mail marketers."
Risher closed with a word of advice for e-mail marketers. "Do whatever is in their power to make themselves look like good guys by not using tricks that spammers use, which will in the long run hurt them."
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 24, 2008
11 Days on Mobile Email
A recent experiment that was FORCED on me the past weeks while at SXSW and OMMA West was not having the ability to send email - from either the wifi at SXSW (I started this article there) or at my hotel via wifi or ethernet. Then at OMMA in Hollywood same issue again, plus while trying to tweak my configuration with other ports (yes total geek speak here), I killed my ability to receive email. I was blind! Unable to use my trusted inbox while on the road, what was I to do? Could I survive? Would someone send a search party to pull me out of this situation and see if I still had a pulse?
So what happened when email was turned one way to the inbox? Well it changed the dynamic. I became a listener and not a participant. How was that you ask, as I am never one to be quiet. It was different. Not complete hell, but close. It drove me to thumb bending feats of danger across the city of Austin, the airports of Denver and LA, and the city of Hollywood. I was a corporate road warrior and I had no inbox pillow to rest my head.
I survived. I reverted back to IM, Blackberry, Twitter and shouting across rooms. Hell I even picked up the phone and had conversations using my voice with people I would typically email. I first thought that it was the massive amounts of free booze that they were supplying to all SXSW attendees. Later I figured out that the REAL reason for the free booze was the BAD wifi and fear of a GEEK revolt. ( I mean you heard about what happend with soda and Sarah Lacey, could you imagine redbull and vodka?) Keep the natives intoxicated and they will fear sending email. It was a localized comunication shift based at this event. But then it got comfortable.Not just for me but for everyone. The iPhones and Blackberries were blazing, on the streets everywhere, text thumbs flying at every corner, bar, restaurant and concert. We were a mobile society.
Did I need an inbox? Or was the inbox defining me? And really what is an inbox? This is the bigger question in my mind, Where does communication need to take place? One device, one location, one way? No, it happens everywhere. You are reading communication right now, Thoughts from me (sorry to pain you with the hamster wheel always running in my head) that I place out there in the open in a blog post. Or on Twitter the entire SXSW. Note to self: You don't want to follow me on Twitter unless you are truly looking for odd and flash updates acrosss the US.
I was still slightly blind when I returned to Portland, with some IP lockdown wifi hell continuing, but I can still see through other devices and systems. What I did realize with blackberry only access is how many brands, agencies and publications DO NOT actually format the text version of their emails in a nice way at all. Many of them just trust that the ESP or in house email system they use will make the right version. DO NOT TRUST the automation of a TEXT ONLY version. Take the time to edit it. Make sure to narrow it down, place more focus on the content and the usability rather than all the tracking links. And here is a novel concept, send it to your other another's mobile device and look at it.
I know I am an anomaly of the corp road warrior, but this was not a choice for me. It has opened my eyes to where mobile is going, How WE should all be thinking different about it, and these lessons learned are going to make me strong and my clients campaigns even more impactful.
Imagine a world where communication no matter the system all aggregates into one device or location. It will be here in 2-3 years and we will be ready.
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 20, 2008
Take Our New Email Marketing Survey
Here at eROI we go to great lengths to keep you up to date on the latest trends in email marketing. Our latest survey asks for your input on the Subscribe/Unsubscribe Process.
This survey should take just a minute or two, and we will share the results with you when complete.
All survey participants will be automatically entered to win one of a handful of iPod Shuffle mp3 players!
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 17, 2008
Just in Time for St Pats
We have a few loves out here in PDX. Sure we are not the Chicago, NYC or Boston, but hell we love our Irish bars and our St Pats day. If you have not been to Portland, Oregon during St Pats, make some plans. The place starts a few days early and runs about a 5 to 7 day party at multiple venues. Even small borrough parades take place with wagons, bikes and kids. It's infectious.
We took the love to a new level by helping out Paddy's in Portland (personal favorite bar) get a new site launched just in time for big day.
This site was thought out by the eROI Creative team, not too over the top, and if you spend enough time on it, you might even find some of the hidden features (aka free drinks). But you need to search for that 4 leaf clover my friends.
Take a look at the new Paddy's site >
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 14, 2008
SXSW 2008: Social Networking and "Your" Brand
About your personal brand in social media.
Interesting that the whole panel started with asking everyone to submit questions to the panel via twitter. What an interesting way to bring in the audience prior to starting your panel. Love it, but then I am a Twitter maniac, as was EVERYONE at SXSW.
Steve Ganz: Linkedin
Steve Smith: Ordered List
What is social networking?
Any time two people connect. Can be over twitter, linked in, myspace, fbook, flickr, email, im, etc.
Ways to use personal brand
Wanted to promote services and knowledge as web designers. Used the main person to sell design and services. Use social networking as a sales tool
Gina: Sushi and Robots:
Her brands is energetic and young. USes that in all of her writing. She uses SM to get speaking and writing opps
What else besides blogging etc? New real time networking tools.
(side note we got a beta invite to socialthing.com, and they threw a good party at SXSW, but it allows you to aggregate 10 social media platforms into one UI. Love it so far.)
Story from Gina: Addicted to Social Networking. Used something obscure to create the brand, sushi and robots. But using her real name makes more sense. She has used multiple screen names and using her own works better. She said that her changing her avatar and screen name does create issues.
Steve Smith had another challenge. His name was too normal and does not stand out. HE had to go pick up something unique or memorable. Once he picked it he had to stick with it. Does cause a little confusion at times in public events.
Your name can be an issue. With your brand and name, there could be 2 to 100's of others online indexed. It is a challenge with social media and search engines.
Your avatar (the photo or image you use to mark yourself online) is important as well. It can brand you visually. Photos of yourself are better to use rather than an image of something. It helps to connect online. People feel as if they know who you are. Avatar consistency is important. Did I really just type that? Avatar consistency? Wow need to get my avatar a new shirt and a hair cut....
Getting involved:
When you comment or post to a blog or Social Media site, you need to make sure that your frequency AND your relevancy is solid. Just jabbering away can reduce brand.
If people thought about themselves in from an offline persona instead of an online, they would be able to act as if they were having a real conversation, face to face, with others. Be who you really are.
If you are posting ALL your stuff out into the public stream you need to be very aware of what is out there. When you live publicly things can be fed into the stream.
Google yourself: Really? I personally think vanity searching is odd. BUT if you are living on a public plane, you need to know what is out there.
Think about how you use these tools. Twitter is one that is so easy to say something and share it, but there are not any "take backs or unpublish" with twitter. Your persona can be shaped by those that are following you.
Is there any rules around accepting people to follow and network with you? Not really yet, they are shaping, but isn't it odd sometime that people you don't know AT ALL follow you on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, podcasts etc?
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:00 AM | Permalink
SXSW 2008: The Future of Happiness
Tues Keynote: The Future of Happiness: Jane McGonigal, Creative Dir, Avant Game
Is it a game or is it real life? When you get right down to it, is there really a difference? Learn about the growing popularity of ARGs from one of the most innovative minds in this industry. Jane McGonigal explains what it is like to be a puppet-master of this exciting new genre.
Speech starts with a killer movie trailer for "The Lost Ring" At the www.thelostring.com. Worth checking out
It is the alternate reality game for the Olympics in China this year. About a sport that was lost and no one knows how to play. MUST check this out.
This game has been going on for a week now. Flickr photos are tagged with "tr01" for secret q's on the game. If you want you should go look these up as I think this is going to be massive.
Back to the panel (WHICH completely was 200% better than I expected)
Alternate Reality Game designer: Instead of making them more realistic, interactive, etc, she is trying to make the real world to be better designed, like a game. Odd idea, but let's see how it falls out.
"The Future of Happiness"
Doing research on the science of happiness. More growth and happiness going on in buzz.
Positive Physcology: to look at our brains not as things that can malfunction, but really that of what makes us feel good, function well, what is the best case scenario for the human brain?
She has found the amazing parrallel between what everyone is finding, and the impact of gaming and alternate realities.
This is a new kind of "happiness". It is finding out what are the optimal conditions about to have the best experiences in life. So many people are writing on it : Gross National Happiness, Worlds Most Livable Cities Index, The Happy Planet Index, etc. So why is everyone so consumed with happiness?
Are you in the happiness business? (Asking the panel)
She does not think that all of us are in the happiness business but thinks we should all be thinking in that direction in interactive and life.
Future Forecast for 2013 (actually moved in 4 years closer as things are moving so fast).
Quality of life becomes main driver in ads.
Positive phsycology influences design and UI/UA
Communities continue to form around different brands, services, things that help people connect and define happiness to them.
Well being becomes the "new capital"
HAPPINESS IS THE NEW CAPITAL:
If you want people to value and use your service, you need to be generating it.
4 Rules for happiness:
1. Satisfying work to do
2. Being good at something
3. Spending time with people you like
4. The chance to be part of something bigger.
Games do this. Multiplayer games do this as well on a larger level. "Multiplayer games are the ultimate happiness engine." These types of game enforce the rules above.
Signals:
Real life does not build all these people to go after the same goals and working together like multiplayer games do.
Feedback: You get real time feedback in games, score, wins, you get instant rec repeatedly. You have clear goals, purpose, etc. (I personally feel that if this is how you feel, then you need to find a new job in a new industry. at eROI I think this is how we work internally as well as with clients. Collaboration, feedback, props, awards, common goals, etc are the drivers of culture not matter online or offline.) But she reinforces that many of us at SXSW are in this business doing what we love doing already.
She sees: "A Global Mass Exodus: to games and computers instead of community in real work places." (I would personally agree with this as we see more people everywhere we go living on computers, devices, etc and having interactions on a digital level.)
We might want to take everything we have learned about games and make this work in the real world. It all boils down to quality of life - Virtuality is beating reality in the US. For the majority of people we need to help with this as interactive designers to TAKE these adventures and experiences into the real world.
Why aren't we taking an approach to games with online and offline games?
Some examples:
Chorewars.com - you can use it to get kids to do chores and get experience points.
Zyked - Treating exercise as am MMO and giving you points.
Seriosity: Giving you virtual currency at work to get co-workers to do something.
Creates virtual flows to show you who is important and doing the most work. Shows connection between depts etc. Attent™ with Serios™ is an enterprise productivity application inspired by multiplayer online games. It tackles the problem of information overload in corporate email using psychological and economic principles from successful games. Attent creates a synthetic economy with a currency (Serios) that enables users to attach value to an outgoing email to signal importance. It gives recipients the ability to prioritize messages and a reserve of currency that they can use to signal importance of their messages to others. Attent also provides a variety of tools that enable everyone to track and analyze communication patterns and information exchanges in the enterprise.
Citizen Logistics: What is life were a team activity. GPS works to get people to do good, adventurous things.
WorldWithoutOil.org
Game: World Wide Oil: told players that they ran out of oil and they have to go through their real lives as if this is true. You would know what the fictional parameters to know how to interact with people in their areas. Everyone playing was creating online and offline media and experiences of this game. Lasted 32 weeks, things got dark and apocalyptic. This game gave them an idea of how things would play out. Or may play out.
Signals: What do they mean in the big picture?
To imagine the future it is always important to look backwards at least twice as far as you are looking forward.
Games are not escapist experiences, but alternate (note not alternative) experiences.
HOW are alt reality games amplifying human happiness.
1. Mobbability: The ability to collaborate and motivate at really large scale
2. Influency: Being able to change your persuading abilities, motivations, approaches in any audience.
3. Ping Quotient: Maeasures your ability to be able to reach out in a network and vice versa get back to others that reach out to you. Being open to requests for engagemnt.
4. Co-operation Radar: being able to detect who would be the best at any given task or mission
5. MultiCapitialism: Money, introductions, carbon offsets, everyone wants someone different so how can you get everyone to learn to trade these?
6. Protovation: Means rapid, fearless innovation, the notion that failing is fun. If you fail quickly and learn you can learn and grow faster as an ability.
7. Open Authorship: Comfort with giving content away, know it might be changed, a design skill that won't be broken by others changes, or knowing that it will hold together with the changes of others.
8. Signal noise management: The ability to know what info, clue, data point, etc that you should hear and use at any given moment
9. Longbroading: The long term look at things
10. Emergentsight: The idea that you can spot patterns as they start o bubble up and you can deal with them as they happen. So much content from some many places, you need to be able to spot things in systems as they grow, get messy and be able to SPOT opportunities.
Takeaways:
Soon enough we will all be in the happiness business. - get learning
Game designers have a HUGE head start on human experience.
Alternate realities signal the desire and need and opportunity for all os us to redesign reality for real quality of life.
Reality is kind of broken and it is up to us to fix it.....
If you want research:
jane AT avantgame,com
SIDE NOTES:
Check out TRACKStick as a USB GPS tracker. Follow yourself EVERYWHERE
SF0.org - check out as a ARG where ALL missions are in the real world.
The Ministry of Reshelving
About Ministry of Reshelving:
The Ministry of Reshelving is dedicated to the proper classification of fiction and nonfiction books. The current Ministry initiative focuses or relocating a total of one thousand nine hundred and eighty four copies, across all 50 United States, of George Orwell's _1984_ from "fiction" or "literature" to more suitable sections, like "Current Affairs", "US Politics", "True Crime", or "New Non-Fiction." You are invited to join us in our reshelving efforts.
Visit the link below for full instructions and everything you need to conduct your own reshelving mission!
http://avantgame.blogspot.com/2005/08/ministry-of-reshelving.html
Tombstone Holdem Playing Holdem using grave stones.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:00 AM | Permalink
SXSW 2008: Tips for Blog Outreach
Here are some tips I heard about working on your blog PR/outreach from some film bloggers at ifilm and other properties.
Know who you are talking to or writing to. Think about personally contacting bloggers yourself and not using your PR firm. They get so many PR emails that they often ignore them.
Know what they write about and be up to date with last few months of writing, if possible. This way you can craft your email TO them not AT them.
Create a company feed on Twitter for bloggers to follow you easily and get info as they need it. This way they can watch, and they do watch, for things of interest.
When people are reaching out to you, you need to reach out to them. This in NOT a one way street, but a dialogue.
Be an active listener not always a talker.
Product sampling. Giving away snippets, premiers, teaser shots, product demos, video, etc so that you can empower them to experience, taste and get more of it. Downloadable content to give people the tools to build and make things. (Like our DTI, Direct to Influencer programs at eROI)
IS "Blogger" a bad word? When do people care about bloggers? Does the word blog mean something other than something good? Some people still feel that blogging/bloggers/blog is a really low hanging fruit thing. But it really does not when you are reading real people that are good writers, well read and intelligent, with daily updates and relevant content.
Many blogs have larger readership than many print publications so make sure you are leveraging your blog outreach growth strategy.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 13, 2008
SXSW 2008: Mark Cuban VS Michael Eisner
Yeah, just a hype title for this panel. But man it was good. I was not expecting Mark Cuban to be the one interviewing Michael Eisner, made it sooo much better than I could have expected.
Eisner and Mark Cuban: The Interview
Eisner comments:
Is this the time for internet delivered stories?
Yes the time is right, make a little money, testing right now to see what works and makes money. In a short time we should find this to be a new distribution stream that will give professionally produced content via this distribution channel.
Remember VHS? I have seen this happen my entire career. "People that watch movie screens will stop watching television..." People always want to say X will kill Y. Just not true. They can coexist.
How are you tracking success?
I would like to say that we have this great strategic group doing all this research, but we don't. We did a show called prom queen that I got the idea from Sam has 7 friends. I went out and found these guys, called myspace, and got it together. Had another idea? So he called Mark Cuban to do it online as well in HD Net.
They had a tough time finding a way to monetize this as everyone in this process wanted a piece and basically left them with enough to buy "breakfast". So he went to Chrysler and asked them if they want to be young and hip. Used the Nitro in the show and got some money. Actually the ways they have found to make money is product placement.
But what is that metric? I would like to say that we were going to promise on views, time, impressions, etc, but we can't yet. We are all trying to figure out to make this work.
Where is this market?
Well nobody knows that to do. All these smart people are still learning everyday. Eisner thinks that players like Youtube, bebo and others are now starting to get a clearer picture. Eisner likes people that tell stories. That is where it is at, storytelling. Not the big studios talking about doing a, b, or c, but those individuals that are passionate about telling a story. When people like this make a movie with small budgets they often times tell the best stories.
In the user generated arena, he is not too impressed with it, sometimes there is a break out, but not often enough. HE thinks that the group that drives some of the best are young ad execs, creatives, and some of the people in this fast growing online app world. 99% of it is awful, but that 1% is amazing.
The problem is the 99% Cuban thinks. How do we get rid of this noise or is this something that has to be done and out there to drive the rest. The intention is not to create crap, but sometimes you do, and often times you can smell it yourself during the process.
Cuban does not think that the pipes are going to be at the home fast enough. But the issue is that the house is hard to hook up inside. We expect everything to change, but he thinks that there needs to be something different. There has to be a shift in the manner.
Eisner thinks that in 5 years, that will happen.
But they really feel that the storytelling process, not matter the device, will always be the most important part. The issue is that the methods that exist for online media are not set up to make money yet.
Eisner's latest project:
Going to build a 50 day 2 minute movie leading up to a new book launch. Working with all the publishers and distributors (is borders) to drive hype, interest and media with side stories that fold into the book. Test to use online media to drive book sales.
Could shift the medium to being part of the story about the sale of a print story.
In the end it is new thoughts mixed with old ideas that are going to power this forward... in time.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:00 AM | Permalink
Project Honeypot?
Not sure if anyone else has stumbled upon this venture from UnSpam and a few others but it is an interesting site and operation looking at email harvesting, comment spam, domains involved, etc.
About Project Honey Pot
Project Honey Pot is the first and only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website. Using the Project Honey Pot system you can install addresses that are custom-tagged to the time and IP address of a visitor to your site. If one of these addresses begins receiving email we not only can tell that the messages are spam, but also the exact moment when the address was harvested and the IP address that gathered it.
Very interesting system. I will need to keep my eyes on this. As an ESP I would love to be able to search it by IPs and client domains to see if any clients or prospective clients are involved. Would be a great way to vet new clients before taking them on, as well as a way to audit their practices every so often to look for offenders.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 12, 2008
SXSW 2008: Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts
LOPP: "There is a lot of swearing at SXSW - Be Prepared"
What do we know about Apple? Great Design, new ideas.
What words are inside design? Sign, SIN, Dine, etc.... Lots of things that design can become or mean.
How many of you are designers> (hands up all over)
Definition: Design is a present, It is an unintentional discover you make.
The obsessive design story: really odd packaging, and really strange ads. The new Mentos Box, how many people know about it? Why did they change the packaging to a box? When he closed it it clicks. There is an actual latch on it. It really works. That to Lopp is great design. Not just a square box, but one that serves a function and works.
Process = peace: in design and engineering keep them from killing one another.
Apple designs in order to give "presents". Things that are worth waiting for. Like Apple packaging porn. They talk about how thought out the product packaging it at every step of the reveal when you open it. The stores are modeled after museums. The brand delivers the story about what you are getting for "Christmas". That is the reoccurring theme, they design for people that look forward to Christmas AM when they get to open something that they are so excited to find out about. Design to excite, stimulate, and drive the person to WANT to own something from your brand.
"HOW the fuck do you do that?" - From Lopp.
I can't tell you how, I can tell you of a few ways. It has alot to do with us screwing up alot. We keep the bar incredibly high. Pain, fear and blood is the norm.
FEAR of Design Feedback:
Fear of Blue - the idea that EVERYONE has an opinion on colors.
Python code - so many people don't know it. which is a barrier to entry is knowledge. Not creating a barrier of entry to give an opinion is an issue
Fear of Ponies: All the requests that a client gives that really are the best possible ideas all gathered into one place. They actually want a pony, Fun, cute, works, likable. The problem is that everyone wants a pony and sometimes designers must give the client what they really need. Maybe a racehorse or maybe a mule.
There are gems inside of all of this feedback that they get from the teams.
Where to Sweat:
We do pixel perfect mock ups. We give a complete feeling for entire product. The perfect pixel mock up IS hard.
10 to 3 to 1 Rule:
10: how many mock ups we do - 10 versions - there are 10 that are really good
3: We get those ten down to 3 - gives us a lot of room for iterations.
1: gives us the best
Paired design Meetings:
2 meetings each week.
- Brainstorm meeting. Just throw it all out there.
- Then paired with a production meeting. This is the opposite of the brainstorm. It is facts, how to, why, and when.
The Pony Meeting
It is the meeting for the Ponies.(The Ponies in this case are the internal clients at Apple aka Jobs) It is were every two weeks or so we present the design ideas to the decisions makers to give their opinion. It gives them visibility into what is going on and keeping some controls around it.
JOHN GRUBER: "THIS IS THE BLOOD PART"
Notion that is wrong: The better the design work, the less resistance it meets.
Better necessarily implies different. If what you are doing is not different, how can it be better if it is the same? Different = Scary?
Because of this many people NEVER go for GREAT design. They are afraid to innovate. If it is comfortable, it is not great.
"Exactly the same but better." It does not make sense. It is safe, not new, not disruptive, not game changing.
The PLEA Bargain:
Take the plea - or take it to court. Most people take the plea and not the risk. Design is like that. There is NO guarantee. Managers want to take the safe route on design. Others once they take the risk see the impact and success.
"Don't try to be original, just be good." Different VS Original? If is a conflation of cause and effect. You don't create great design by trying to create something good. You do good work to create something original.
When you try to get designs approved: you could give them some great design, and they will have opinions, but they could never do it. It is the idea that matters more than the execution.
Designers are EXPECTED to be CLEVER. Not expected to be expected.
Good work is always expensive. As soon as a client hears price they automatically expect more in return. If I pay you alot, I want to see ALOT of design. That is a broken idea. Clients should be paying for something that is done well and can be well executed.
APPLE logo: Why would they use the APPLE with the bite out of it. It actually represents the original sin. So why would it every have that idea? What does it mean? They weren't going to say, just teased the audience.
How can you make design that will stand the test of time. What will 20 year bring? Look back 20 years and see if your ideas would carry over for design ideas then.
DESIGN IS MAKING DECISIONS AND PACKAGING THEM AS A WHOLE.
It is not letting a client rip things apart, control direction, ideas, etc. You have been hired to deliver a total package. You have been hired to create the design. You need to stand up for your design, be able to present it, defend it, support it and sell it.
ARE you willing to be called an Asshole? If you are reading this and doing what he is saying, you better be ready to be called an asshole. They want to have input at the client, but they want you to compromise. Might not be the best idea. Compromise is about avoiding conflict. But design is about creating conflict. When they call you difficult what does it mean? Are you a jerk or are you more dedicated to the integrity of your work. you are not your work, it is not about you but about the work. Learn the word NO. Don't be araid to use it. No can be the word to get you to great design.
Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Great Design Hurts
The core dilemma for talented designers in any field is this: If you strive for greatness in your design, you will meet resistance; if you strive to avoid resistance, you can't do great design. Different is scary. Great design has to fight with the idea that many see "better" as meaning "more of the same". The better your work and the higher your standards, the more you'll have to fight against the urge to stay within the warm, safe confines of mediocrity.
Panelists:
John Gruber Raconteur, Daring Fireball
Michael Lopp, Apple Inc
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 5:00 AM | Permalink
SXSW 2008: Getting Unstuck: From Desktop to Device
So I went into this panel expecting to discover the holy grail of what the hell people should have in mind for mobile strategy, what can be done, what will be able to be done etc. Sorry to let you know that there is not a magic bullet or an answer. It was all over the board in regard to camps of thought around what you SHOULD do and HOW you should do it.
So where does this leave us? Leaves us still thinking that every client, application, idea and device might take a different approach. Not a bad thing, just the same as web browsers and email clients. No unified rules. If we can be developing all these great and open web apps, widgets and systems, why the hell can't we work on cross browser, email client and device standards?
Sorry, but that is all that I got out of this... more questions...
PANEL
Getting Unstuck: From Desktop to Device
User experience doesn't stop at the desktop. Twitter, YouTube, Google all have strategies for mobile devices and beyond. Yes, the convergence culture is finally here, and people are consuming content when and where they want. How do we shift our thinking (and our skillsets) to keep up? Learn from a panel of experts how to get unstuck from the desktop to go mobile and beyond.
Moderator: Liz Danzico Information Architect, Happy Cog
John SanGiovanni, VP of Prod & Svcs, Zumobi
Liz Danzico, Information Architect, Happy Cog
George Arriola, Senior Manager, Proposition and Portfolio, Sony Ericsson
Raj Singh, Skyfire
Evan Williams, Co-Founder, Twitter/Obvious
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 11, 2008
SXSW 2008 : Top 10 Lessons Learned in Ecommerce
First you should know I love Zappos.com. When you lead with a tag line of "Powered by Service" and you deliver on service so ridiculously that it sometimes makes me laugh when we order a pair of shoes and they are there the next afternoon (no request for overnight shipping). Really this model is driving them over the top. BUT what have they learned that we cannot only learn from for Ecom business, but for for web service levels and branding?
From the Speech:
1200 brands, 200,000 styles, over 900,000 UPCs.
4 million items in warehouse
100% of products inventoried, no drop ship
7.5 million purchasing customers (2.5% of US Pop)
3.3 have purchased in last 12 months
75% pf purchases are return customers
Repeat customers have higher order size
$111 in first time order - to 143 in returning customer average in Q4 2007
On the way to break the billion dollar mark in sales.
What is customer service:
free ship, free return ship, 365 -day return policy
24/7 / 1-800 number on every page (5000 phone calls a day) in the top left corner of the site on EVERY page - Customer contact is a branding opportunity for them
Fast accurate fulfillment - majority of orders get there next day - surprise customers with no cost next day shipping, even for orders placed after midnight - most orders arrive that day.
Randomly do phone and email surveys to customers
Occasionally even direct customers to other comp site - I actually think this is something that should be done as you might not be the right solution of fit for the customer and you lose the sale, but that short term loss will come back to you in spades for customer service.
Training:
5 weeks of culture, core values, customer service, and warehouse training for everyone, EVERYONE. Even legal, accounting, etc have to take 4 days of customer calls as well. Love it, looking at the long term culture fit and picture.
Culture book: This is something that is put out once a year, all employee submitted content, unedited. Completely open and honest. (passing them out after speech, need to get a copy)
Interviews and performance reviews are 50% based on core values and culture fit
If you are not a culture fit - they need to go - belief if you get the culture right, the rest falls into place
Two sets of interviews: Hiring Manager, then HR afterwards to judge on culture fit. Culture actually improves as the company grows.
THE PLAN: There was not a plan, many mistakes made
Lesson 1. Ecom is built on repeat customers - or most successful businesses no matter ecom or not. Spent more money on BIG advertising, tracked sales, found that 2 sales generated from home plate sponsorship of PAc Bell Park in SF. Realized that focusing your efforts on customers would drive more sales and grow evangalists. From 2001: 20% of customers came back to buy, to 2006 51% are repeat customers.
#2 : Word of mouth works: Customers will talk if service is good
#3: Don't compete on price: Tested coupons: increased sales, but then as time passed behavior was not as loyal, customers were only price driven and not product and service driven. If they are not going to buy from us as they don't get a discount, then they are not the right fit for us.
#4: Make sure your inventory is 100% accurate in Real time: If your customers get notifications that order was out of stock, large percentage never shopped with them again. Really why do you want to buy something and get a note later that it is back ordered, out of stock, or not shipping till TDB?
#5: Centrally Locate your distribution: Used to be located in SF and shipped out of offices. Then moved north to ship out of Chico. Then to Kentucky: Reason. you can reach 70% of US pop in 2 days with ground shipping, costs were lower and service was faster. Cost them less and everything else rose with the tide.
#6: Customer Service is an investment not an expense
If you are trying to minize costs, then you can go the scrip and try to limit phone time. But does not win long term
#7: Start Small, Stay Focused
Don't try to go so big too fast. Mistake so many people make trying to go to market so fast. They learned that the original idea really was not the best idea. Being able to be flexible and able to tweak was better. Did you know that they sell clothing and other products? Well the reason is that they are testing other product sales, learning from behavior, and learning from cust needs to translate to buyers and model. Allowing customers to "Discover" clothing, and slowly ramp up.
#8: Don't be Secretive and Don't worry about competitors
Everyone is surprised at how open they are about their business. They have found that sharing the business info with partners has really allowed them to be better. Transparency is key. Having another 1500 pairs of eyes from vendors and partners helps them to run the business and makes the partners more invested in the business
#9: You Need to Actively manage your company culture
Not paying attention to WHO you are hiring and what they are doing impacts company.
They have turned away very qualified people because they are not a culture fit.. Want to make it a place that people WANT to come to work everyday. Trickles down to customers and service levels.
There is not a set process of script for everything. Culture actively creates positive processes.
#10: Be Wary of So-Called Experts: In creating s new business model, they have learned that so many consultants are typically not used to the way that their business happens and culture works, would set them back. They could have made more progress faster if they would have trusted their gut. It is not that all outside consultants are bad, outside perspective is good and can help, but remember that THEY are not running and managing your business.
If you want a tour of the HDQs, call center, HR, etc, just let them know. Email Tony if you want a copy of the culture book. Make sure to include mailing address as it is a REAL paper book.
blogs.zappos.com
Tony Hsieh CEO, Zappos.com - tony@zappos.com
Overview: Tony Hsieh joined Zappos.com full-time in 2000. Under his leadership, Zappos.com has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6 million in 2000 to over $800 million in 2007. Zappos.com is projecting to do over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2008. Tony focuses on continuing to grow the business at a rapid pace while maintaining the culture and feel of a small company. Tony's presentation focuses on Zappos.com's mistakes over the years and how those mistakes have shapedthe company's growth strategies. Tony will also talk about the importance of building a company culture that can survive for the long term.
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 8:09 AM | Permalink
March 10, 2008
Could OpenID Change Lead Capture?
OpenID is a web standard that is growing fast in the past few months. It has been around since 2005 but now the giants like Google, MSN, Yahoo. IBM, and others are joining up. I talked to Scott Kveton of the OpenID board and Luke Sontag at Vidoop (side note: they just opened a Portland office) to see what impact it could have on lead capture for businesses at SXSW.
My initial thoughts were that it would hurt lead capture on sites and slow the ability to capture data on visitors, leads and customers. If the process lives outside of the site with a 2nd and 3rd party hosting the data on an individual, how would you your your brand grow a list?
Here is what I learned:
Using OpenID and Vidoop you can get the information you require for a download, shipping info, membership etc with a data pass. The user is in control of their info and can choose to share or not share with you. The system tells users what info the site would like to get from them to continue. So if you want name, email, etc you just use the OpenID API to "ask" for that data. My thoughts around this was from a user experience would that kill the interaction. From them I learned that you can require certain elements and the API tells users what is requested and then allows them to approve what they want to share with you. So jury is still partially out there. I need to talk to some people and brands that are actively using it and see what the experience and changes to lead capture/membership etc is like.
But here is what I do like with it. It allows a user to rapidly complete a form or information with one click. It is similar in my mind to MSN's passport system, but slicker and has additional levels of security on the user side with the integration and use of Vidoop.
So where does this leave us? Not quite sure yet. Sorry. But if YOU have an experiences with it and can share some examples or ideas I would love to hear them.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 7:51 AM | Permalink
Moving Email Past the Inbox
Not sure how many of you are using widgets for your brands or clients, or are even using them yourself. (note, they rock) but it caught my eye, and of course I installed it, that GQ in a recent email launched a widget. Notice that the email is on point, clear, and not loaded with anything else you need to think about. Just click and load. Easy as pie (wTF does that mean by the way, I can cook, and pie is not fun).
View image
Point being, they have now taken me to a new reach system that they can push content or I can :pull: content as I want it. These are fairly easy to create and you can leverage content in RSS or XML or even MAT RSS (Media loaded RSS for audio and video). HBO audio intro each time it loads. Sonic branding through a widget ... great idea.
Is your company or brand ready for a widget? Could you measure it? Could you find a way to use it? Well maybe, but most importantly would your customers or prospects use it. Engagement metrics would help justify this as opposed to sales/Click Through metrics here.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:05 AM | Permalink
March 9, 2008
SXSW 2008: Day Two : Zuckerberg vs. Lacy vs. Crowd
So today started out with some good panels and people that wanted to share. That is good as that I what I think this is all about.
BUT the best part of the day, so far, is the interview of facebook's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerber, by Sarah Lacy, author, BusinessWeek columist and co-host of Yahoo Finance's "TeckTicker". The interview was rolling along for about 1/2 and was fairly boring. Not all the fault of Lacy as he seems hard to pull real long answers out of, unless you are asking him about conversation and communication. The best part was when the audience took control of the interview, well with the help of Zuckerberg, He basically started the downward, or upward spiral in my opinion, by asking Sarah if she was asking him a question. She was very conversational, but often times would state the answers first and then ask him to expand on her answer to her question.
The Crowd took control then. She did not help herself anymore from that point on. She statd something to the likes of "Guys don't you know my job is really hard, Jesus!" And then things like "Why don't you all email me afterwards and tell me where I went wrong on this interview and tell me why I suck." She blew it. She could have really channeled the energy of the crowd to capitalize on the reactions, but I think instead she got really pissed and started just saying things like "yep, uh huh, right" instead of getting back on her horse.
The crowd then started asking questions and it turned out well. The hook to this around email marketing is that Mark Zuckerberg stated that facebook was NEVER set up to be or replace email. That is why the "inbox" of facebook is so simple. So for all of you that keep talking about how these social media sites are replacing email, not so much. At least not yet as they have so many other things to tackle he stated. Launching in French tonight, did german, spanish and looking at other languages.
I am sure that there is so much more about this on the blogosphere in greater depth that I covered.
Off to next panel with CEO of Deep Focus and lots of film bloggers.
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 1:48 PM | Permalink
March 8, 2008
SXSW 2008: Day One
So a quick overview. We have been hitting all sorts of great panels. Some better than others. Some have been rather motivating, others have been informational, and a few a little soft. But overall there is a huge crowd here of people from all industries learning and interacting with one another. I have been blogging some and will possibly share them later this week when I get a chance to clean them up.
A few email service providers here, which was a little surprise to me, and some of them look to have pulled out the marketing dollar stops with neck hangers, stickers, postcards, 1-sheeters, and more. Will need to swing by the exhibit floor sunday when it opens.
Some of the people I have met on Day One have been very interesting. Some have been partners or clients, and still others are just Twitter friends from PDX. Love seeing all of them.
Had a chance to hit the bloghaus towards the end of the day. It was a hidden PACKED room of bloggers from all over typing away, swilling beer and blogging. Interesting as one of the people there was a rock accordion player that was playing classic rock and singing. He should stick to just playing music. But it was different and entertaining.
Came back to drop off the goods accumulated from the day, sort through the trash, post this and then off to Dorkbot (a performance and beer drinking opp - yes there is a repeated theme here) and then off to Ave A/RXRFish, Google, 16 Bit and frogdesign event. Should be a good night. Only worried about this daylight savings thing going to happen tonight. I predict that it is going to throw a wrench in a few people's works.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 6:11 PM | Permalink
Email Bloggers Unite
I love getting emails from people showing me them wearing the Tshirts we made for the Bloggers Unite panel at the eec Conf in San Diego in Feb. Makes me happy that I made a 100 of them for everyone.
Funny as I am still getting emails from people asking for them. Might need to make another run here soon as I am out. Gave my own to a guy they call SCO at Exact Target, it was REALLY the one off my back from the panel. Hope you are enjoying it SCO.
If you have one and read this blog, send me your photo in it at dylan AT eroi.com.
Cheers.
Comments (2) | Posted by dylan at 11:00 AM | Permalink
March 7, 2008
The New Media Disrupters: Twitter, Shifd, Pownce
So if you are still on the fence about Twitter, below is a video to help you understand it more. But just to throw you a curve ball, I want you to also look at www.shifd.com and www.pownce.com. Both very cool and all three serve similar and different means. Just wish I could MASH these three up.
Besides the fact that I lead strategy across all product lines at eROI and not just on the email side, I am constantly looking at what is going on across the marketplace. I look for email marketing disrupters. You should too. So many technologies hammering customers during the day. It is not just an IM/Email/RSS world now. It is an always on, uber connected, new new new, info overload world. And we all absolutely love it.
Hoping to find some great new ideas and tech at SXSW this weekend. If you are there, twitter me at twitter.com/dtboyd
Greatest thing about Tech, I just posted this blog post from the runway of PDX on the way to Austin. Imagine that one.... Place, time and technology shifting.
The Guys at CommonCraft do some of the best new media video. This one is about Twitter.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 10:42 AM | Permalink
Yahoo and Slow Delivery
Well not that I found the golden arrow, but I did stumble upon a Yahoo Corp email blog. Sheds some light on things and more importantly on changes and feature sets in Yahoo Mail. We have seen over the past 2 years email delays from Yahoo from 20 minutes to 2 days at times. And we are not just talking about delays with email campaigns sent from emailROI. We are talking about delays from personal email accounts to other users in Yahoo, Gmail and MSN, and even corp email clients.
Delays with email are frustrating not only from a campaign site, but also from a personal communications standpoint.
We use our ReturnPath account to test ISP deliverability daily by auditing not only our IP addresses but also the delivery of seeds to client campaigns. It is always shocking to see US based Yahoo clients have long delays.
Anyone else seeing this from time to time?
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 10:00 AM | Permalink
Your Inbox Management Issues
Interesting story today on TechCrunch about how some of these people cannot keep up with their email communications. I know that it is an issue. We rely on email more than any other application out there to communication to peers, clients, employees, loved ones, customers and prospects. So when you got a bunch of really smart people in a room and gave them 40 minutes to come up with a new life changing application, it was funny that they focused on inbox management.
I know many of us get between 200 and 500 emails a day. You can't truly respond to all of them in real time, some take thought and answers. I have told you before that I have a rule in my management style where I try to get down to under 40 emails in my inbox by the end of every day. Somedays I win, somedays I lose this battle.
But read on to see how they decided to solve this problem. Would this actually help us as email marketers, wait we already have tracking on reads, clicks, conversions. Just on on a standard email format....
Kevin Rose Can't Keep Up With E-mail; Blaine Cook Can't Wait To Speak With a Human
Posted: 02 Mar 2008 09:22 AM CST
On Friday, I moderated a fun panel at the Future of Web Apps conference in Miami (see photo above). The basic premise was to try to come up with a compelling web app in 40 minutes. There were a lot of good ideas, but the best ones centered around communications and how to use technology to get around the frustrations of e-mail and phone calls. It was clear that the panelists think these communication modes that we rely on every day may very well be in the process of breaking down. (CNet's Caroline McCarthy, who was covering the conference, notes this as well).
A lot of the ideas were about getting around current communications bottlenecks. Leah Culver of Pownce came up with a white pages service that uses SMS text messages to look up phone numbers. Blaine Cook of Twitter suggested creating a call-back service that would, in effect, allow you call companies and put them on hold until a human answered. In other words, you would specify what department you want to speak with at a company, and the software would call and go through the phone tree, and digitally push all the right buttons until it got to a human operator, at which point it would ring your phone. I thought this was brilliant.
But the app we ended up spending the most time brainstorming was one that Digg's Kevin Rose dreamed up to help him manage his e-mail. He can't keep up with it all, and wanted to come up with a way to stop offending people who he never gets back to by sharing some of his e-mail data with them. The concept was a site that keeps stats on your e-mail usage that your friends can check to see how far behind you are in responding to e-mails in general. ("It's not you, it's me").
The stats would show your friends things like how many e-mails you got today, how many you've responded to, average response times, etc. When you look at the site, you'd get a deeper view, including alerts on who you are responding to and who you are not (but should be) based on your past e-mail behavior. The way it would know how to prioritize your e-mail would be to figure out your social network based on who you email a lot (similar to what Xobni does for Outlook). It would create alerts like: "Email Mom!" We ended up calling the app Mail Model, per Matt Mullenweg's suggestion (other name suggestions were Mailr, which is already taken, Mail Stats, and Don'tBeAnEmailJerk.com).
I am not convinced this would actually be a viable service. If I think you are a jerk for not responding to my emails, getting a notice that I am No. 300 in your queue is not going to make me feel any better about you. But I thought the panel was instructive because it points to a problem that is starting to effect everyone, not just Kevin Rose. It's not just that people are having a hard time keeping up with email. It is that email is having a hard time keeping up with us and our insatiable need for constant communication. If an e-mail falls below the fold, which in my case on Gmail is the last 50 e-mails, it is pretty much lost. And anything more than 48 hours old is a dead conversation.
Why doesn't email work anymore, and what can be done to fix it?
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:39 AM | Permalink
March 6, 2008
Is Free Shipping Really a Perk?
I wonder sometimes about motivators for email marketers and shoppers. So many ecommerce stores offer free shipping on orders when they hit X dollar amount, so why would free shipping be such a draw? I mean our family shops at Zappos all the time for the kids as shipping is not even a consideration or driver. Actually it is the reverse by the fact that they never charge to ship, have it there usually in 1-2 days, and then allow you to return it gratis. That is a winning combination to me.
View image
But then again there are not any Zappos retail stores, so it is built into the business model. But with Diesel they have a few stores and some retailers that carry the product, so maybe the great leveler to them is the free shipping idea. To me it is not motivating me to click through as much as an offer to get free shipping when you spend X. Maybe it is just me but when shirts are $80-$90 I think that they should be leading with making me want to spend that much and not make the shipping an issue.
What do you think? Will we see shipping as a cost factor go away? Is it still a consideration or motivator to your shoppers? If it is to you, go ahead and use my code on this email....
Comments (1) | Posted by dylan at 9:00 AM | Permalink
Calling Out the Comp in Your Email
With a brand that stands for luxury and excess I was surprised to see SilverJet using the newsletter as an opportunity to tell you how expensive the competing airlines are to them. Typically the costs I have seen for a flight on this airline are in line with others. So are they discounting now? Is that on brand or a warning flag that they are scrambling for flyers?
Take a look a the the right hand column to see how they call this out. I think it is actually a great and interesting idea, but not on brand with such a young company.
View image
I have personally been watching them and looking for a reason to jump across the pond on SilverJet. If these prices stay I just might take the plunge.
What do you think about this tactic of calling out our competition's pricing in your emails? Love to hear your thoughts. I mean I could talk about a reptile named ESP changing their pricing recently to be in line with the rest of the industry, but why would I do that DJ? Just glad you made the move.
Comments (3) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 5, 2008
Makes a Difference When You Listen
So a few weeks back I posted about Nordstroms not listening nor using my subscription center preferences. Man, did my post work? Even from the ribbing I got from a few others out there about me and the women's product emails I was getting from them, I was excited to get this email this week. Actually an email that was 85% targeted to the male demographic. Nice work guys!
View image
As a tribute I got in my car today and dropped some cash at the retail store. (Yes not all purchases happen online - but email can drive the sale offline) Just my way of saying thanks for listening to me as a subscriber. Now I just hope that this does not revert back and it was just a fluke.
But the bigger picture here is that you NEED to listen to your subscribers if you have a preference center for email subscriptions. Whether is it frequency, content, etc, listen to what they tell you and make sure to drop targeted, relevant emails. It makes all the difference.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 4, 2008
New In Our Resource Center - Enter the eROI Dojo
Keep up to date with new Case Studies being released by eROI monthly in our new Resource Center. Recently added studies cover the multiple award-winning Wacom PowerOfThePens.com Campaign, Building Customer Value, Q3 2007 Time Study, and a new Email Marketing Campaign Launch Sheet from our Strategy Team (good to keep handy as a check list in deploying your email campaigns without missing a step).
Enjoy the benefit of our new Resource Center with an intelligent profile system that helps you remember what resources you access.
Start Your Training as an Interactive Marketing "Zen Master" now
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:00 AM | Permalink
Meet eROI at OMMA West in March
Once again we are on the road to OMMA. It is like a twice a year pilgrimage to a place that brings the interactive marketing world together in one place for 2 days. We are also, actually me, excited to be speaking at the email tracks again. I will be leading a panel this time around.
The title is: Email in 2008: One of your strongest media vehicles
The description is:
See how the market leaders are leveraging the power of email as the killer social networking app.
Driving interest, viral messaging and more, email is keeping costs down and sales high. Learn how to think beyond your standard media plan to incorporate email in new and exciting ways.
We have a great group of 4 panelists from different media and online backgrounds that are sure to make this a good learning experience. Sure if won't be quite as fun as the email bloggers keynote I did back at the eec conference in San Diego last month, as I am out of t-shirts to throw out to the audience (speaking of I have 6 left if a few of you still wanted one, let me know by commenting - won't publish them), but I am going to really try to take the topic level up a notch.
So if you are going to be at OMMA, come listen and participate in our panel event.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 3, 2008
Using an Offline Event to Fuel Your Email Newsletter
Every so often I stumble upon a good idea for copywriting a newsletter. Keeping a newsletter fresh and finding it's voice is a very important aspect of your communications. I am so tired of dry, boring marketing speak and even bravado at times to buy buy buy. But this edition (and many others I have looked at recently) from Revolution Health (side note they had such a hot and sexy site when they launched and it has slid IMHO) hit the nail on the head.
View image
I have seen some other tips in some copywriting blogs talking about grabbing ideas from the front of rags like Vogue and the Sun, like: "10 Ways to Drive Your Subscriptions, and "7 Things You Might Not Know About Your Email Program, these are ideas of taking the headlines on the covers and tweaking them to fit your emails. Basically taking your word and placing them in the seedy headlines to make them score.
But back to Revolution Health... this edition is focused on the Oscars from the other night and used the Movie titles that people knew as headers for the articles. I thought that this was clever. It's just to bad that the design blows.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 8:00 AM | Permalink
SXSWi Anyone?
Just preparing for a few days at SXSW in Austin this week. Six of the team from eROI are on the annual crawl to the Southland to get our fill of ideas, deep thoughts, revolutionary new product launches, and of course beer, bbq and music. Really did you think we were really just going to learn.
This annual trip allows 6 eROI team members to head out on a 5 day journey out of the office as a team as well as individuals to explore, interact and generate new ideas about what is going on not only now, but tomorrow. It is like a TED conference to us, although more focused on our profession than learning why trees and spores are dying off in the world. In a place where trees are everywhere and life is sustainable as a culture, in Portland, we aren't as worried about the end of the world as others (you have seen Postman right? Well that is where we live.)
Back to topic, we are all geeked to get down there and fill our brains with knowledge. If you are heading down, drop us a note as we would love to meet you in person.
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 4:00 AM | Permalink
March 1, 2008
The Un-holiday in Email Marketing
Often I am excited to see brand and marketers using days that really are not big shopping or real holidays to drive a sales event. So why not Leap Year? They thought it was and it stood out to me. Not like this one happens every year (every four actually, trust me I know as I was born in a leap year less than 2 hours from the day), so why not test it and see what it does.
The fact that with over 40 marketing messages I got that day, not one other made and event over the 29th of February. So good work Body Shop on seizing the day and the opportunity to stand out in the inbox.
Yes they used the "Free Shipping" plug, but still I have to applaud them for being different.
View image
Comments (0) | Posted by dylan at 9:53 PM | Permalink
Syndicate this site (XML)
