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.





