eROI NYC Interactive Agency

What? Right…Everyone has done the old say a word hundred times in a row….like my title it starts to sound like some weird alien language. The same rings for our industry buzz words….you hear them so much they start to loose their meaning.  This has come up a bunch lately so I wanted to spend some time with it….the brand evangelists. We all talk about them and hunt them. I can’t go 24 hours with out hearing some one utter the phrase. But why are they important? Why should we care and how do we recognize them? I need examples. Got some. I found a couple campaigns today that illustrate brand positive ways to take care of the people who engage  most with your brand (the aforementioned brand evangelist) and give them cool sh*t to do.

In the Email Insider today Morgan Stewart talks about engagement in an enlighting way. He states…

“That is where the idea of building our own audiences comes in — and email marketers have a leg up on other marketers in this capacity. We know how to create programs that deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. We know that getting people to sign up with us means that we need to convey the value subscribers will receive in exchange for their personal information. Now we need to figure out how to transform this knowledge into creating audiences that are truly engaged. Not engaged meaning they are opening and clicking our email newsletters, but engaged meaning they are contributing to our platforms.”

In other words….now that we have you, let me show you some cool sh*t to do.  But how? He sites his client Scott’s Miracle-Gro. After a 10 year email marketing program they send “seasonally relevant content tailored to subscribers based on where they live, the type of grass they have, and their level of expertise.” Sweet. Makes total sense. Grass grows differently in FL than in does in WA. Hit me with what I need right…right. But how do we go deeper? I will let him explain:

“About a year ago, company strategists launched a community-focused Web site.  By providing a site dedicated to solving lawn care issues through blogs, online communities, forums, and photo galleries,  they created a logical next step for newsletter subscribers. Enthusiasts now have a place to show off their gardening skills.
Also interesting to note is that the company saw a few of its newsletter subscribers opt-out of the regular program, but this has not been a concern. After all, those former newsletter subscribers are now online community members. They are still interacting with the brand. The difference is that these consumers are now more engaged with the brand as they receive email updates related to the online community itself. Even in these instances, Scott’s isn’t necessarily sending less email, just different email.”

Love it Scott. Great job. When I hear that my minds says….”yes that’s what I mean when I say relevant and engaging”.  But I need another. The Scott example is good but this one is better.  I will let you experience it how I did….Organically. I was forwarded this video by “The General” otherwise known as Mary Schwichtenberg, MBA local eROI kick ass Account Manager.

Of course I clicked through to learn about it and I was shown this:

Wow BBC…rock rock till the break of rock.  User generated content 2.0. Here they say…take our creative, take our clips, take our IP. Rip it up. Cut it up and create. How respectable and on the money is this contest? I have a love for video in general as you can see from my posts so this was super relevant. Unfortunately I can’t enter…I shot this to fellow blogger Dean Hunt in the UK. Maybe he will enter. So to end this exercise….say evangelist 10 times and tell me it doesn’t sound Russian.