As an email marketer, you’re probably well-versed in strategizing your content across a variety of platforms, and you mobilize your resources to do the most with what you have. But are your emails mobilized? In this case, we mean optimized for mobile. Get it? Mobilized! Defined as: streamlined or otherwise mobile-friendly version of your email content.

Mobile is here to stay, and it’s growing exponentially each day. Many people are using their mobile devices to check their email in places ranging from their commute and standing in line to previously unlikely rooms for emailing such as the bedroom and bathroom! Email has always been a quick and immediate form of communication but the growth in mobile use creates even more immediacy within the medium, since one of the most popular ways people use their mobile devices for email is to quickly scan, delete, and flag for future follow-up.

If you’ve put off thinking about how your email marketing campaign renders on a mobile device amidst all of your other tasks (we know, you’re busy!) there’s no better time than the present to consider it. Ensuring that your emails are effective on mobile platforms is only going to become more critical as time passes.

Luckily, there are a few fairly easy things you can do right now to make sure that your emails are just as effective on a mobile device as they are on a computer.

1) Readability: What do your emails look like in different email clients and on different mobile devices? If your emails don’t render effectively on a smartphone or tablet, you run the risk of not only having a bad user experience and ignored email, but damaging your brand as well. But as scary as the possibility of poor rendering on mobile devices is, it’s also one of the easiest fixes. Since devices will all render emails different, to have the most effective reach across all platforms and devices, consider creating a text-only version of your emails.

Devices that don’t support HTML will typically revert to a plain text version with active links. Try creating a simple HTML version that’s designed to work in all mobile browsers.

2) Optimize Your Subject Line and Preheader: What’s a Preheader, you say? Don’t worry if you don’t know. Email marketers typically treat the preheader as a throwaway. Which is a shame, because it’s a golden opportunity to continue the story the subject line introduces to further grab the reader’s attention.

The preheader text appears after the subject line on mobile devices and is usually reserved for text like, “Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.” or “Viewing on a mobile device? Click here to view this email in text.”

Think about using this space as the next part of your subject line; like a subheading to a headline. Get creative and optimize this otherwise dead text. I guarantee after reading “Having trouble viewing this email? Click here” mobile users won’t click: they’ll close and delete.

For more on subject lines and preheaders, Media Post (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/116661/) has a great article with examples and critiques of actual emails using preheaders: (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/116661/)

3) Design with Mobile Screen Sizes in Mind: If a specific template for mobile versions isn’t enabled in your ESP, create a mobile-friendly HTML template to ensure it’s still viewable on a desktop computer and a tablet device in addition to mobile screens. This can get tricky since different devices have different screen resolutions and screen sizes. And for email, you need to be primarily concerned with the horizontal display of your email.

Typically, mobile screen size ranges from 350px X 380px but this can vary depending on device. iPhones generally size the HTML to fit the screen, whether viewed in normal or landscape mode, but other devices will show the email in full scale rendering. This makes for a potentially terrible viewing experience: the worst-case scenario is when a reader has to scroll horizontally back and forth through the email to read the content. Not good.

The solution? Use a fluid layout, which will allow the message width to adjust to the size of the device screen and optimizes readability no matter what device your customer is using. And make sure to test it on multiple devices.

4) Mobilize Your Call to Action: What are you asking the recipient to do? Typically, CTAs in email marketing messages involve clicking through to a landing page. This means that the landing pages need to be optimized for mobile devices. It also means rethinking your call to action: your mobile email reader is on the move with limited time and limited internet browsing capability. People generally use mobile email in order to sort through their email and decide what they want to read later. So that might change your call to action from ‘”Click through to buy now” to “Save this email. It contains your coupon code!” Consider testing various CTAs on different devices and ensure they are attention-getting and clearly defined. Do they lead to a mobile-friendly landing page or site? This is the true test of an effective CTA. If it’s effective on a mobile device, they’ll be even more effective on a computer.

5) Keep it short: By definition, everything on mobile is smaller, lighter, and shorter. That translates to shortened subject lines, shortened links, shortened texts. If your email marketing messages must be content-heavy, consider providing a link to a mobile-friendly version on the web or to mobile-friendly landing pages.

Finally, know the demographic makeup of your customer, how your customers interact with your brand, and what devices they use to browse your website. That means using analytics to track what devices your subscribers are using when they’re reading your email newsletters. This data will include not just browser and operating system data but will also include screen resolution data, so you’ll be able to gather a good amount of information on what kinds of devices your subscribers are using, so that you can further fine-tune your email designs to be mobilized!

By: Practical eCommerce

The impact of the mobile platform on every aspect of email and social media marketing is swiftly becoming the story of the online marketing decade. If 2011 was the year that mobile web-enabled devices became one of the most significant ways to reach countless millions of people throughout the United States and the world, 2012 will be marked in history as the year that mobile leaves conventional computers in the dust.

Morgan Stanley estimates that global mobile device sales will overtake combined conventional desktop/laptop shipments by the end of 2012 and will exceed them by nearly 25% in 2013. With a significant number of mobile subscribers checking their email and social network pages every hour, reaching this vast customer base is more important than ever.

Apply these top five tips for reaching your email and social media subscribers and followers to stay atop the cresting wave of mobile marketing:

Create a mobile specific website - The average user uses their mobile device for messaging an average of 671 minutes per month according to Arbitron Mobile. This remarkable amount of more than 11 hours per month is more than some people spend eating! It follows that no effort should be spared to facilitate mobile access but according to a Google Adweek Presentation 79% of the country’s largest advertisers still have not adapted their websites to incorporate a mobile specific presentation!

Add to that statistic the fact that the majority of mobile device users are more likely
to purchase from retailers which offer sites formatted for their smartphones, and you have a compelling case for setting up a mobile specific site today!

Spark love at first glance – In order to capture your customer’s attention on a smaller mobile screen you need to attract them at their first scanning glance. Keep the small screen in mind whenever you are formatting your email templates or social network pages.

Ensure that the text is legible on the variety of smartphone resolutions by running everything through a browser and device emulator or simulator. Shun large images which will require horizontal scrolling and replace them with properly sized thumbnails which can zoom to full screen should the customer want to take a closer look. You only have a second or two to grab them, so ensure that your layout especially above the fold is both rational and attractive.

In a recent post I wrote about getting started with SMS marketing, it is a cost effective way to reach customers in a very short timeframe.

Most of us keep our mobile phones within arm’s reach and check new messages within minutes. So it’s no wonder SMS marketing is now a popular way for marketers to connect with customers.

But have you ever considered how SMS can actually support your other communication channels, such as email? Here are some ideas to get you thinking how your SMS and email activities can work together to grow, maintain and engage your customer base.

1. Email acquisition

Web forms are a great way of capturing new subscriber details to your database, but they’re not the only way. You can also do it via SMS with something we call virtual numbers.

Virtual numbers are a mobile phone number that is connected to your database instead of a handset. So if someone sends a message to your virtual number, it is captured directly within your database. Virtual numbers are extremely effective for offline email acquisition campaigns as they provide a simple, familiar way for people to submit their email address.

You simply ask people to SMS their email address to your virtual number and they become instantly subscribed to your database. This is a very popular method with offline competitions aimed at growing your email database.

2. Update bounced customer emails

Before deleting a customer’s record from your database because their email address has bounced, try contacting them by SMS. Tell them you’ve tried sending them an email about “xyz” and that it has bounced. And ask them to reply with their current email address.

This is where technology becomes your best friend too, because e-messaging platforms like Vision6 can automatically capture your customer’s reply SMS and update your database with the new email address. You can even automatically re-send your original email message to your customer’s new address, so this whole process can happen in close to real time without you even lifting a finger.

3. Engage email subscribers

Integrating SMS with email as part of a promotional campaign can be a very effective way to capture people’s attention, particularly when people aren’t reading your emails. Consider this example SMS message that seeks to drive people back to their email inbox to register for an event.

“Matthew, last chance to register for Vision6 webinar. Registration closes tomorrow. See your inbox for more & hope to see you there. Reply stop to unsubscribe.”

With the right targeting, these sorts of messages can work really well to entice people towards opening your email and following through on your call to action.

1. 600px wide

Kindle Fire uses a custom build of Android. Just like other Android devices, it doesn’t scale content to the width of the screen. This means in portrait mode emails are lopped off at 600px wide. You can swipe to see more, but for an extra 50-100px its irritating.

Compare the Kindle Fire (left) with the iPad, which scales content to the width of the screen. With new devices being released all the time, a low maintenance fluid layout is looking more attractive everyday.

2. No Zooming

Pinching is not enabled in the default email client, which means users can only swipe around trying to remember what they just saw. Nielsen likens it to reading through a keyhole, users find this more work due to our lousy short term memory.

In my mobile email chat, I cover about how Android and iOS scale content, including horizontal layouts. I’d place crucial information aligned left, for Android smartphone and tablet users.

3. WebKit baby

Fire uses a WebKit browser called, “Silk”. I’m seeing curved CSS3 buttons, so it looks like we are good to go.  Animated Gifs and media queries are also supported, so that’s one way to get around the 600px cut off.  No HTML5 video though…

4. Touch screen

Although I can read more copy than compared to a smartphone, I can’t tap links if stacked on top of each other. You’ll still need to rework navigation, tables of content, buttons ect for touch.

When gripping the device, the base of my thumb can overlap the creative. I’ve already triggered a few stealth URLs by mistake. It might be worth leaving a buffer at the edges and bottom where the toolbar is positioned.

5. Degrees of mobility

We recently bought a 10″ netbook with WIFI for less than $300, its the same resolution and roughly the same size as an iPad. Its changed my whole view of, “what’s mobile”. On a recent trip, my husband coded his server while delayed in an airport lounge and I did some Photoshop in the hotel cafe.

There’s no magical cut off point where a device is no longer “mobile”, it’s just a matter of degrees. The smaller a device, the more chance we’ll keep it on us. The Kindle Fire is handbag sized, not pocket, but its much more portable than an iPad.

6. Orientation

The small physical size and weight, make it easy to hold in either orientation. I’ll be paying more attention to how my emails render in landscape.

You can also navigate one-handed, though the back button trips you up as its just out of reach of right-handed users.

7. Silk performance

I’ve received a lot of, “Download complete message” notices at the bottom of the screen. I’ve been viewing these same emails on an iPod for weeks over the same WIFI connection, and not seeing nearly as many download prompts. Could be a fluke, or maybe the Kindle Fire’ Silk – proxy/hybrid? – browser doles out files differently.

You can buy other email apps in the Kindle store (no access to Android marketplace), I’ve not tried them out. Though most users will stick with the default app.

I’m bracing for a spike in mobile email usage across all devices after the holidays. Smartphone and tablet prices are being slashed, and its the busiest time of year for mobile sales.

By: Return Path

Some questions asked during the holiday season may be best left unanswered: is Santa Claus real? How old is the fruit cake? Is this a regift? What’s in the egg nog? Why are batteries never included? Who invited the in-laws to stay for two weeks? Why is it OK to play any song by the Chipmunks and pretend it’s music?

However, if you’re an email marketer charged with driving revenue from the email channel and are expecting Q4 to heavily impact your bottom line, there are some questions that you can’t afford not to ask. In particular, questions about mobile email and how many of your subscribers are using their mobile devices to interact with your messages, browse your website and shop.

According to a recent PayPal and Ipsos survey, 46% of smartphone and tablet users plan to make a holiday purchase with a mobile device this year. If that doesn’t motivate you to create a mobile email strategy, perhaps this will. According to a Google AdMob survey, 45% of tablet owners and 34% of smartphone owners planned to start their shopping before Thanksgiving.

Where to start? As we often say at Return Path, you can’t plan for, adjust or fix what you can’t measure. The first step is determining what percentage of your subscriber base is using a mobile device to interact with your messaging. There are a variety of solutions that can help you with this, including Return Path’s Campaign Insight tool, which can break down viewing environments by email client, mobile environment and mobile device.

Having that information will allow you start answering the following questions, which could be key drivers for optimizing your email program:

Email seems to get shorted.

What’s the deal Forrester?

As Cotton Delo continues to explain the data’s she’s read, she quotes, “Email marketing is projected to have a growth rate of 10%, bringing it to $2.5 billion in 2016, but the total spending is kept down because of its low cost of reach 1,000 consumers, or CPM.” While I agree that email marketing is an inexpensive channel to use, this doesn’t seem completely correct. Now; I’m no statistician and I’m not an expert on industry growth, but this chart just doesn’t sit well with me – nor does the logic. The social and mobile channels are undoubtedly, “hot right now” and with the overall spend doubling there’s room for aggressive growth between the mediums, I just don’t see how with all the other mediums going balls-to-the-wall email isn’t going to leverage the data they collect.

The goal of each channel in this report is to somehow generate revenue. Most of these channels are measured via revenue through e-commerce as offline revenue is typically harder to trace back to online efforts. So, I think it’s safe to say that these are all evaluated by majority, online.

How do we do that? Websites.

What do websites need to process: sign ups, registrations, memberships, purchases, affiliates, renewals, rewards, alerts, etc? Data.

And finally; what’s email so-so very-very good at? Transaction-based messaging and providing a positive dollar-to-dollar ROI. I don’t see how tandem channels can grow around email to the tune of 38% and email manages to up-tick 10%.

Will Email Marketing Only Grow Ten Points?

I have to say no. I must say no. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Almost every social network that I can think of uses email, every website that I’ve purchased something on emails me, the majority of my mobile activity is email, and display and search all have a goal to either capture users or sell something – ALL mediums can leverage email in some capacity. And they will, once companies see how much measurable straight-to-the-cash-register effective email can be with their messaging. Data is the key for the internet’s future; the most successful outbound acquisition/retention channel for interactive data-driven initiatives is arguably, email.

While increasing the budget over the next 48 months is positive and any growth is good growth, I think Forrester’s selling us short emailers.

What do you think?

Viva la Email

Whitepaper – The Ultimate Guide to Common Short Codes by mobileStorm

What you are going to learn:
The use of short codes has exploded over the last few years. Shortcode/keyword combinations are used as a call to action on everything from print pieces to outdoor ads, television and radio – each asking people to “text-in”. This explosive new form of marketing and communication creates a unique and powerful user experience, allowing organizations to interact with groups and individuals that may be anywhere and, most importantly, interact with them nearly in real-time.
Read this whitepaper and discover what is really important to today’s marketer.

Topics covered:
- What is a common short code?
- Who oversees them, where can I buy them, and how much do they costs?
- What is the right strategy when choosing a code?
- What exactly does it mean when your mobile partner says your short code is “approved”, “provisioned,” or “certified”?
- Why does it take so long to get a short code approved?
- What is the difference between shared and dedicated short codes – and which is right for me?

Publish Date: 2011

Author: Jared Reitzin, CEO, mobileStorm

Number of Pages: 16

Whitepaper – How to Choose an SMS Vendor. A 30-Point Vendor Selection Checklist  by mobileStorm

What you are going to learn:
The use of email by marketers to target audiences has been in serious use for the past 8 years. Equally as long, has been the use of SMS (short message service) or “texting”. SMS has been used worldwide as a marketing, commerce and communication medium from everything from buying sodas from a vending machine to getting stock tips and sports scores.
Read this whitepaper and learn about the key criteria for selecting an SMS vendor when looking for expertise to help your enterprise make better decisions on reaching and building an audience.

Topics covered:
- How to choose an SMS Vendor

- What is SMS?

- What should be top of mind?

- Selection process

- Expert advice

- Technology & features

- Account management & customer service

Publish Date: April 2010

Author: Marwan Soghaier & Jared Reitzin, mobileStorm

Number of Pages: 9

It’s free to be on foursquare if you are a business. Yes, that’s right: FREE advertising! Perhaps even more important, it’s detrimental to your business to NOT be listed.

First of all, some of you may be asking: Just what is foursquare, anyway? In a nutshell, it is a location-based social media networking application that allows its users to broadcast where they are at any given time. Foursquare also lets other networks (such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) know the user’s location and status. It is available to anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile device such as a smartphone, iPad, or a tablet.

People use it to connect with their friends and to find new things to do in their hometown or other locations they visit. They can check into dental offices, spas, bars, restaurants, hair salons, sports stadiums, and parks, to name a few – virtually any venue that is listed. And if it is not listed, a venue is easy to add with a click of a button. Foursquare users can also see who else has checked in and leave tips about the food or other items of interest at their present location.

Foursquare is something like a game in some respects, since users earn points for each check-in and even badges (Adventurer, Super Star, Far Far Away, I’m on a Boat, Trifecta, NASA Explorer, etc.) based on where or how many times they check in to a particular location.

The ultimate status of any foursquare user is to become a mayor. To do that you must be the top foursquare user of a venue within a 60-day period, such as the person who checks in to Starbucks the most, etc. The cool part about playng foursquare is that many businesses offer discounts or incentives to people who check in and some even offer extra perks to the mayor.

So, why should your business be on foursquare? It is a bigger deal than you may think, and here is why a foursquare listing is important for your business:

1. Don’t miss the boat. You are missing the boat if people are checking into your place and you don’t know about it. As of March, 2011, foursquare reported having 7 million users! The numbers are growing exponentially. Would you prefer to have purposeful access to that growing number of potential customers? Do you want to monitor foursquare users’ critiques and tips about your products and services?
2. It’s your business – control the information. If people are checking into your venue and you are not controlling the information that they access, then erroneous details could be posted about you. Your business name’s spelling could be mistyped, for instance, or there could be other misleading data that would better serve your business goals to be managed correctly. Foursquare data is only as good as the people who contribute it. Make sure you are the one posting your business’s details.
3. Word-of-mouth advertising is the best. When you claim your venue’s listing on foursquare, you can post specials, get ranked, and utilize this popular social tool as a ladder on which you and your customers simultaneously attain more and more status. Some people want to become foursquare’s Superusers and mayors, and they will return and return to become your most active customers. As they attain status by posting all their check-ins, so does your business with all that free advertising – and the best kind of advertising too: word-of-mouth!
4. Location-based advertising is super-relevant. When users look up any business on foursquare, they can find other places in its vicinity that are running specials, so people take advantage of being nearby. This enhances your ability to publicize any promotions you may want to run, and it works synergistically for you and your business neighbors with great “buy local” appeal for users in your area.

In the grand scheme of how you build your social media presence, it is important to be Tweeting and posting regular updates to establish yourself. People don’t follow those who don’t Tweet. If you want to have a social presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you need to be continually posting updates, both relevant and fun. If you don’t post regularly, then no one is going to care who you are.

Takeaway: Foursquare is no different from the other social media sites: active participation is the key. You become a social media superstar by playing the game. If your business is not on foursquare, this one is a no-brainer. It’s time to get listed and take advantage of this free advertising medium.

Find me on foursquare and see The eMail Guide on foursquare.

Although we didn’t get to attend the Fusion Marketing Experience held in Brussels, our good friend J-P De Clerck, along with other social media gurus and online experts, collected at the stylish Maison du Bois for 1 ½ days of SUPER DUPER insight!

Fusion was the word chosen to represent this integrated, international, connected, multi-channel get-together created to share experiences and best practices. Indeed, there were tonnes of great marketing insights shared and the launch of the first ever – that we know of – Marketing Experience Collectable Magazine published by J-P De Clerck.

Now, enjoy a few slices of this gourmet Fusion Marketing Experience – our treat!

Check out some of the great videos by Chris Tompkins of  www.gomediaonline.com

Interviews with:

J-P De Clerck @conversionation

Jim Ducharme @hugeheadca

Joost de Valk @yoast

André Lejeune @selligent

Trey Pennington @treypennington

Chris Hall @_hallmann

Giedrias Ivanauskas @smcitizens

Olivier Blanchard @thebrandbuilder