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Email marketing effectively builds customer relationships, creates brand awareness and generates sales. Mobile email marketing gives us access to new markets and helps us to better reach our customers. It is imperative that emails should be as accessible on a mobile device as it is on a desktop or a laptop.

Let us consider a few mobile email marketing optimization techniques to make your email design more mobile friendly:

Short Subject Line: The shorter the subject line (not more than 15 characters) the easier is is  for a mobile user to view it and decide whether he should open the mail.

Simple Layout: Limit the email size to 50k because mobile devices are slower to load. Creating an email with a multi-column layout or heavy data content would make the reader abandon the email before it loads. 

Easily Readable: Use fonts and sizes easy on the eyes. Your reader may be on the move and if your email is not easily readable he may ignore it. Use white spaces and bullet points for easy readability.

Mobile Friendly Landing Pages: If your email offers the ability to click through on a link, make sure the page you directed them to is also mobile friendly.

Easy Handling: Mobile users use their thumb to navigate. So make sure while adding call to action links and buttons make sure they are positioned where it is easy for the reader to navigate to.

Click-to-Call: Add a regular text phone number or a buttonto your message for a "call to" function.  Mobile users will prefer to call rather than type a reply.

Quick Sharing: Icons for sharing social media information should be placed where it is easily accessible to the reader. Do not put them at the end of the email, place them within the content, as relevant, so they can share if need be.

Text Version: Always have a plain text version available. Place a link above your message so subscribers can 'view it online' in case their phone does not display the email correctly.

As a marketer, you have to keep experimenting to increase your sales. With the right optimization techniques, it is easy to tweak your email to see what works for your readers.

Everyday your inbox brings in emails intended to market something. You might spare a glance to the ones that stand out in your preview pane. A successful email is one that leads the customer to your product and generates sales. So what makes your email successful? Relevant content – yes, Interesting subject line– yes, but having just the right content and subject line do not always work. The first step to a successful email is a good design.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you design your email:

• Have a good contact list:  Carefully study the interests and habits of the people in your contact list. Design your emails to suit their needs and make sure they find it interesting.

• Branding: Establish your brand when you design your email. Your company logo should be part of your emails. Your emails should have a particular style unique to your brand.

• Be mobile accessible: Your emails should easily work in all platforms especially in the mobile platform as many people read their emails though their mobile phones.

• Readable messages: When you send emails with images, it may not be accessible to them because many clients disable images. Therefore include a description of the image to your email provider and add a caption for it in the email. This way the message will be clear to the reader even if he cannot view the image.

• Stick to a font: Select a clear and easy to read font. Be consistent in the size and type of font you use for all your messages

• Keeping it simple works: Forget complex messages and intricate designs. When designed properly, a direct and simple tone will convey your idea beautifully.

Retaining your existing customers costs less than getting new customers. Maintaining a consistent and familiar look in your email marketing campaigns will go a long way in establishing a comfort feel with your brand.

http://directmarketing.thomsonlocal.com/News-Advice/Email-Marketing/Try-standing-out-from-the-crowd-with-innovative-email-design/

http://thedigitaldivablog.com/email-marketing/5-effective-email-marketing-design-tips/

Yes, you read it right. It's time to drag and drop those boring, pre-iPhone emails into your trash, and head to the creative department for something that screams - 'Look at me'. Your customers and prospects get a trillion emails in their inbox every day and the chances of them reading yours rests on one factor alone - RELEVANCE. 

As more email messages fill our inbox, we spend little or no time reading them. This does not mean email marketing is no longer effective. It only means we, as customers, have become smarter in picking only those messages relevant or ones adding value to us. You can increase relevancy by paying more attention to the following:  

Creative Subject Lines - Grab their attention instantly by using bold, and short, subject lines relevant to the reader. This way they do not get trimmed when accessed from a mobile phone. 

Concise and Interesting Content - Your email content should be easy to read and to share. It should easily direct the customer to the landing page. 

De -Spam Yourself - When irrelevant messages fill their inbox, customers hit the Spam button. Win back your customers with reactivation campaigns and tailored messages to interest them. 

Use Social Networking - Study your customer's social activity. How often do they share content? What influences them? Who do they share with? You can personalize your emails by capitalizing on these insights. 

Design for Small Screen - The messages you send are often getting read in your prospect's mobile inbox first. Design your messages to fit mobile marketing. 

Test Your Emails - Test your email marketing message. Key elements like the subject line, content, images, landing pages, design, address, etc. should be tested before you send your email. 

Need help crafting email messages that grabs your propect's attention, contains relevant content, and leads to action? Call the email marketing consultants at Delivra. 

Delivra is sponsoring All About eMail Live! - a one-day event for email marketers. This intensive workshop will allow you to join your peers and collaborate with an all-star lineup of industry leaders who will discuss the hottest email marketing trends, including best practices and strategies, acquisition, data management, email and social, rendering, and more. 

It's being held at: 

New York Marriott 

http://live.emarketingandcommerce.com/agenda/

I'm moderating a roundtable at 1:30pm entitled: 2012 Email Marketing Best Practices. 

We will be discussing the top trends and best practies for 2012 such as: data integration, relevant list building, content, content, content, mobile (design and messaging), testing and analysis and much more!

Look me up if you plan to attend...

The last entry for prepping your Holiday email campaign focuses on content and evaluating results. Choosing your content focus should be easy if you completed the tasks from week one and week two.

Test your subject lines and content. Can't decide on a subject line or where to place that "Buy Now" button? Email AB split testing takes the guess work out of it and shows you the results instead. Do not lean on just open or clickthrough numbers, instead keep the focus on conversion.

Keep your content simple. Just because you have lots of widgets does not mean they all need to be in the email. If you need to, refer back to your goals and ask yourself, does this addition to the content help meet our goals? If not, then take it out. Lastly, don't forget to add your social media share buttons. Your members are friend with other peope like them give them an easy way to share the info.

Use your results to make changes to the next mailing. Email is dynamic. Not happy with your results from your last mailing? Change something. Test. Repeat. While your goals should be pretty set by now, your roadmap should be etched in pencil and fine tumed throughout your campaign.

Benchmark and document for next year. Get a head start by writing out clear and detailed notes for next year. Document what worked, what didn't and ideas for trying next year. The longer you wait the more you will probably forget.

Best of luck on your holiday campaigns. Need some ideas for you campaign? Here are some ideas to get the ball rolling.

Holiday Email Campaign Ideas

• Dynamic Sequence- Create a drip campaign for certain interests. Maybe your recipients just want to see gift ideas for mom or a certain interest like running or reading or travel. Use dynamic content to send them one email with all of their choices rather than multiple emails.
• Themed Emails- 12 days of savings (make sure your members optin for this daily email). Need a special opt in? We can help. Contact us to learn more about profile and subscribe forms.
• Come back- Don't forget to set up shopping cart abandonment emails with an incentive to come back to complete the shopping process.
• Early Bird Campaign- Early shopping deals for "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday" can stand out in the inbox if done well. Email graphic design has different rules than Web graphic design. Need some help figuring that out? Check out our design gallery for some ideas, thencontact us to learn more.
• Smart Phone Focus- Creating a special campaign for your smart phone users can increase sales and provide valuable information about where your members are reading your emails. Do some testing to make sure your in store check out process can scan the barcode from a smartphone. Need to know where to start? Check out our mobile design whitepaper.

Justine Jordan from Litmus has posted a fun infographic that outlines, "ten important guidelines to an amazing mobile experience, as well as six things you'll definitely want to avoid."  

See it here.

By the way, Litmus also has a tool to help you determine the kind of mobile device your email subscribers are using to view your messages. Rendering is limited to the following list. 

• Android 2.2
• Apple iPhone
• Apple iPad
• Blackberry Text & HTML
• Symbian S60
• Windows Mobile 6.5

Delivra uses their service and we like it!

My wife and I recently undertook a much-needed and long-awaited kitchen renovation in our home.  Before we started, we asked advice from family members, friends, Google searches, etc.  One interesting (and unfortunately prophetic) piece of advice: The four most expensive words in a renovation are "While we're at it".  

Basically, the thinking goes, that as long as the house is covered in a fine layer of dust, and as long as there are contractors traipsing through it, we might as well get other work done too. The experts, or at least others who have gone through this will tell you of the importance to fight this urge, if you want to stay on budget, on time and hold onto the last vestige of your sanity during a renovation.

It got me thinking about our customers and how they might feel a similar urge to overhaul their Email Marketing program.  What started out as an effort to follow Delivra Best Practices for list hygiene may creep beyond Email Opt-in and over into Mobile Email Sign Up or a review of email design.  

Resist that compulsion to do it all at once!  Yes, all of those things are important but they are most impactful when they are part of a larger, deliberate plan to improve results.  Figure out where you want to take your Email Marketing Program and break it up into manageable tasks.  Our Account Managers are here to help with advice or even a quick sanity check on how to get started.

Delivra's blog, eMailchatr, is committed to offering email marketing advice, best practices, and expertise. However, this blog is also intent on sharing information based on other business related topics.

A website is often times considered the hub of a company. The main location for potential customers to quickly go in order to see a variety of information about your business. Therefore, it should be a well-designed, easy-to-use tool for visitors.

In a previous blog post, I mention three tips to ensure a reader has a great experience on your site. Below are a couple I'd like to add to the list.

1. Simplicity. Some companies really overdo it with the amount of information they try to add to their site. To start with, most prospects skim through a site. Make your website clean and organized, making it easier for navigation.

2. Mobile. More and more people own smartphones. Consider creating a mobile version of your website for those users accessing your site while on the go. Creating a mobile version makes it easier to see and navigate through your site on their mobile devices.

Any other helpful website tips you can think of?

Lavon Temple | Marketing

In the United States, approximately 96% of the population has a mobile phone. With so many people owning mobile devices, it is pertinent companies focus some attention on their mobile presence. If you are using an email marketing service provider, are you sure they are supporting not only your email efforts, but also your mobile ones? If they aren't, they should be.

Many people are able to receive and check their emails from their mobile smart phone. Therefore, it is important emails are designed to appear properly on these devices. Is your email marketing service provider assisting you in making sure that your email is ready to go mobile?  Make your email as mobile as your recipients.

Delivra can help you:

• Create a Mobile Strategy
• Integrate your Email and Mobile Efforts
• Design a Mobile Email

Besides creating an email to look and function properly on a mobile device, you want to be able to connect with your audience in other ways that fit their lifestyle - which is becoming more and more mobile, not less. Along with being always attached to a mobile device, people like things to happen quickly. As a company trying to increase their mailing list, it might be wise to look into text-to-subscribe - an efficient, affordable feature allowing people to sign up for your email list immediately. By using text-to-subscribe, people don't have to hear about your email list and then try to remember to sign up later - which likely won't happen. Instead, they can sign up on the spot. BAM!

With times changing, it's important for you to be able to rely on your email marketing service provider to stay focused on the latest trends and then sharing this information to keep your company current.

Want more information on establishing a mobile presence? Contact us today!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

The winds kicked up out of the south last week, bringing spring temperatures to most of the United States. The earth started its annual rebirth as flowers started peeking through the ground and people once again ventured outside.

Marketing seems to be going through a rebirth of its own, and the season is called mobile. The mobile season has marketers donning bonnets of marketing ideas and gathering baskets of cell phone numbers.

It's not surprising. Research shows that mobile marketing will play an increasingly important role for companies wanting to get messages out to consumers. More than 250 million Americans carry a cell phone today, and more than half of those phones have Internet access. The Direct Marketing Association believes that mobile will be the fastest growing app over the next five years.

Most marketers understand that they can no longer count on email as the only channel for communicating with a diverse customer base. Sure, customers may be able to read emails on their phones, but they are increasingly using Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS) to send and receive information.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), Americans sent approximately 1.8 trillion text messages in 2010. Another 56 billion multimedia messages were sent. So how can email marketers capitalize on this trend?

Start by designing mobile campaigns that respect the customer. Unlike other marketing channels, mobile marketing demands customer attention almost immediately. Annoying customers by sending unwanted messages that interrupt their lives is a quick route to losing customers.

To find out what initial steps email marketers can take to ensure a good user experience, please click here to read the rest of the this Media Post article.

I work for a directory of mobile developers called MobileDeveloper.net, so right away you must be thinking, “This guy is biased. He sees the world through one lens and it’s attached to an iPhone.”

First of all, I don’t own an iPhone. I do own an iPod Touch, but it’s an old one and doesn’t have a camera so I don’t get to use any of the fun photo apps, which makes me a second-class app store citizen at best.

Secondly, I also manage a directory for web design companies called Xemion, which tempers my enthusiasm for mobile because I see every day how much more important the standard web is and will be for a long time.

And finally, I understand your skepticism. I’m biased in the regard that I’ve been anticipating the onslaught of mobile, but even I feel a tipping point coming this year that I didn’t expect for a while longer.

Enough with the build up, here’s why I believe that’s true.

The Reasons

Reason 1: Google’s mobile operating system, Android, is exploding in popularity

Stat: In December 2010, Android passed Apple iOS in smartphone market share.

While RIM, the makers of the Blackberry, still has the largest smartphone market share, Apple and Android represent the future of mobile computing. Most people would be surprised to learn Android has passed Apple since the iPhone has been the darling of the media and early adopters – which proves my point.

This market is growing in ways that most marketers haven’t noticed and if an upstart mobile platform like Android can grow from almost nothing to beating out the perceived industry leader in less than a year, than it’s time to pay attention.

Reason 2: The iPad is a tablet and it is drastically more successful than almost anyone anticipated

Stat: In Q4 2010, Apple made $4.6 billion off of iPad sales, passing MacBook sales of $3.69 billion.

I want to make this clear - the iPad has bigger revenues than the MacBook, which at a price point that is about half of the average MacBook ($499 compared to $999), means it has sold significantly more units.

This is important because it suggests that mainstream users do want tablet computers. Previous attempts at bringing tablet computing to market have failed to catch on with the masses, causing many pundits and analysts to conclude that users simply did not want a tablet computer.

It turns out, they just didn’t want those tablet computers. They like the iPad though, and it seems probable they’ll start liking Google’s version of a tablet platform as well (see my point above).

In my opinion, the growing popularity of tablets is more important than the popularity of smartphones. A phone is almost never viewed as an acceptable replacement of a laptop. Instead, it’s a “good enough” device driven by the convenience of always having one in your pocket. The tablet, however, replaces a laptop for those people who just browse the internet and read email.

So the question is, how does your marketing change if you know your users are on a tablet instead of a laptop or desktop?

Reason 3: Smartphones and advanced mobile devices are becoming more affordable

Stat: Today, you can buy an iPhone 3GS with a new 2-year contract for just $49

I’m not kidding. You can buy arguably the greatest phone of all time for just $49. I’m almost positive I had a Motorola Razr that cost me more than twice that less than 3 years ago.

If my college economics class managed to teach me anything, it’s that as the price goes down, demand goes up. At this price, demand goes way up.

I’ll grant the skeptics the point that even some of the consumers who can afford the $49, can’t afford the data package that is required to go with it; however, this is still a game changing price.

My Advice for Marketers

If you’ve stuck with me this far, you’re probably wondering what advice I have for small business marketers who believe in the imminent rise of mobile devices. I just have two things you should keep in mind as a busy marketer.

1. Don’t dramatically change your marketing strategy

You probably already suffer from anxiety caused by information overload and I’m not here to add to it. The truth is, I don’t believe 2011 is the year for most marketers to take big leaps in mobile marketing. If I did, I would have titled this post “3 Reasons for Small Business Marketers to Dump Their Entire Marketing Strategy and Incorporate Mobile Now.”

Instead, I’m consulting you to start paying attention to the world of mobile devices, which leads me to my next point…

2. Get your hands on these 3 mobile devices: an iPhone, Android Phone, and iPad

These devices represent the important cross-section of today’s popular mobile devices. (Note: you can substitute an iPod Touch for an iPhone). If you can, try to spend at least 3 days with each of these devices. Incorporate them into your normal daily routine. See what your website looks like on them. View one of your email campaigns with them.

Also, just play with them, because the future isn’t going to be like today just with smaller screens. It’s going to be different in ways people haven’t even thought of yet, and the only way to keep up is to get creative.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally find creativity in the same worn path from my homescreen, to my browser, to my email inbox. The Angry Birds game on the other hand...

Brennan Knotts | Xemion & Guest Blogger

Brennan is the Director of Marketing for the Xemion network of sites, a leading online destination for marketing managers and small business owners looking for professional web design firms and mobile developers.

For those of us that have not been hiding under a rock, you've probably witnessed the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, where Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White (my personal favorite), and Larry the Cable Guy put on a comedy act that has entertained the masses.  One of the more infamous segments of their act is the "You might be a redneck if..." piece.

If you have, you'll recognize my spin off: You might need an email makeover if...

• You do not have a strong call to action in the email telling your readers the next step you'd like them to take.  A strong call to action should be placed in the email subject line that also shows up in the preview pane.  In the content of the email, there should also be a hyperlink to the call of action.
• You are using too many pictures and not enough text.  Sometimes all your pictures won't load and you want to make sure people aren't losing the message because they can't see all of it.  Put enough words in your content so that people can understand the message without the pictures!
• You haven't considered how it looks on mobile devices.  Many people are checking their email on mobile devices, so shouldn't you be considering how your emails look to them?
• You haven't inserted social media links into your email marketing campaign. So many people are involved in the social media world, you want to make sure you give them the opportunity to share your emails or parts of your emails to their followers and friends.

So, I have to ask...are you guilty of making some of these email marketing mistakes?  If so, DON'T PANIC!  Delivra can help!

Lucky for you, Delivra has launched its first ever Extreme Email Makeover Contest and you still have time to participate because the contest doesn't close until July 31st.  That gives you plenty of time to upload your email designs.

Don't forget what you could win! If the winner is a current client of Delivra, they will receive a custom made, sophisticated email template placed into their established account for use in future mailings.  If the winner is not a Delivra client, they will receive one custom designed email template, one hour of email strategy consultation, access to Delivra 101 and 201, and a 90 day trial account.

So, don't be embarrassed if you have a terrible email design, enter it in the Delivra Extreme Email Makeover Contest and save yourself!

Lavon Temple | Marketing