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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.

With the rise of social media, people assumed email marketing was dead. I'm assuming that with the number of mobile phone owners increasing, people will again think...email is dying. I can't agree.

In fact, just like there is great potential in email and social media integrating, I think the same is true for mobile and email.

Recently, a HubSpot blog post highlighted effective email list growth tactics based on information from MarketingSherpa. It was encouraging to see that mobile capture was proving to be a valuable tool for B2B companies. I have no doubt that B2C will also soon find the effectiveness of using mobile capture for email lists. There are so many opportunities to engage with your customers via the mobile marketing channel, such as text to subscribe, SMS, and email.

According to one article by Christmas of 2011, 1 in 2 Americans will own a smart phone. With so many people in possession of a mobile device, it's pertinent marketers start to infiltrate this marketing channel. If you haven't started engaging with mobile marketing yet, here are a few quick tips to get you going:

1. Plan. As with most new marketing strategies, it's important to prepare a plan. You have to determine which areas of mobile marketing are the best to implement based on who your audience is and how active they are on mobile devices.

2. Goals. Once you've determined that your audience is, in fact, going to benefit from your company engaging with them via this marketing channel, it's important to figure out what your company's goals are with using mobile strategies.

3. Budget. Next, figure out what available funds you have to incorporate this new tool. Once you have an idea of what you can spend, you can start the implementation process of some of these tactics.

Of course, these are just the very beginning steps to get started implementing mobile marketing. If you are currently working with an ESP to send your email marketing campaigns, you may want to check with them to see if they also provide mobile marketing services as well.  Delivra plans to soon launch the text to subscribe functionality for it's clients, allowing people to text a keyword to a short code number in order to subscribe to your email list.

I think we all agree that mobile marketing is on the rise. Have you seen a mobile marketing campaign that you thought was exceptional? Please share in the comments; I'd love to hear about it!

Lavon Temple | Marketing

Email marketing, although barely a decade old, is an established tool for marketers and it plays an important role. How can you improve performance? Here are a few ideas for your 2011 email marketing objectives list.

1. Integrate your email marketing with emerging marketing channels like social media. At the very least this tactic extends your email reach to recipients' friends and followers.

2. Insist that your email marketing efforts produce a ROI. I like to say that a good open rate cannot be deposited in the bank.

3. If your monthly email marketing budget is less than your monthly cell phone bill, you're not doing email marketing. You're starving the marketing channel with the best chance of measurable results.

4. Sending highly relevant content to your target audiences is a key to success. The more relevant your email campaigns, the more  content is required. Developing quality content costs money. Budget for it.

5. Understand email deliverability. A reported successful delivery may not be an inbox delivery. Work with your provider to know the difference. A reported successful delivery to a recipient who has not opened for over six months is not successful. Work with your provider to fix the problem.

6. Building your recipient list is on every new year's resolution. This year, Delivra will have a new tactic - text/SMS to subscribe. Check back for more on this exciting development early in 2011.

7. Have an email marketing strategy. Without it you're just sprinkling the lawn on a windy day (so to speak).

8. Throw out opens and clicks as primary metrics. Instead, focus on post click activity and conversions. Use automated remarketing efforts to make a real difference.

9. Last, don't go it alone. An experienced agency or email service provider can get you started on the road to success.

Best wishes for a happy new year and successful 2011!

Neil Berman | President & CEO