Promo - July 2008 - (Page 33)

E-Mail MARKETING Are your e-mail messages being read? By Brian Quinton Illustration by Mike Dawson IF YOU USE E-MAIL as part of your promotional campaigns, you’re probably already checking to make sure that your messages get delivered. You may also be working with your service provider to detect their open rate. And you’re probably designing and processing e-mail to get it past ISPs’ spam filters and out of recipients’ junk folders. That’s great. But do you know where consumers are reading your messages? If not, you should find out. As Web-enabled smartphones make their way deeper into the U.S. market, the odds will only increase that your customers will see your message on a mobile device rather than a desktop or laptop computer. And that mobile setting can affect how the message displays, what options it offers for interaction, and how effective it is as a marketing element. What’s likely to lead people to e-mail on the go? In a word, the iPhone and other devices that can reach the Web relatively comfortably and quickly. “I don’t like using the overused phrase ‘game changer,’ but in this case it might just be true,” says Cindy Krum, a senior analyst and mobile marketing expert with digital agency Blue Moon Works. “The iPhone has reset the bar. Until its introduction, we were all acting as if there were two Webs, the desktop one and the mobile one. Now, largely because of the iPhone, you need to make sure that everything that works on your computer can also work on a mobile phone—including e-mail.” Right now, of course, the majority of consumers access their e-mail from a standard computer-based browser. But that status quo may not apply if your target buyer is part of a high-mobileusage segment. Research cited in July 2007 by MarketingSherpa suggests that about 64% of key decision makers first encounter an e-mail message over a mobile device. So if your marketing involves reaching C-level executives, you may benefit from optimizing your e-mail campaigns for mobile. devices they’re using. Or include a check-off box in the opt-in product that lets them indicate a preference for mobile reading. Many e-mail service providers and Web analytics programs can also detect what software visitors are using for access. If you see a lot of Windows Mobile usage, for example, you may want to develop a mobile email strategy. Don’t be surprised if you find consumers doing both, says Krum. MOBILE E-MAIL HAS DIFFERENT RULES. FOR ONE THING, SMALLER SCREENS MEAN SHORTER SUBJECT LINES. Research also suggests that mobile e-mail users skew younger than traditional e-mail readers, and that many of them are so accustomed to their mobile devices that they use them for e-mail even when they’re home and presumably near a broadband computer. Again, advertisers who want to push communications to 18- to 44-year-old Gen X’ers may find they’re doing so on a smartphone. That’s especially true for users who are likely to be on the go, from young parents and college students to travelers. With that in mind, what do you need to do to get your e-mail the best mobile reception? First, try to determine how readers are choosing to read your messages. Do that in the simplest way possible: Ask them. Conduct a survey of your opt-in e-mail recipients to learn what “People want flexibility and options,” she says. So it makes sense to adopt measures such as designing your marketing e-mails in the multipart MIME standard. Many mobile phones render e-mail as text-only messages. Using MIME ensures that they will at least look readable and right in that format. But marketers taking aim at onthe-go readers must also recognize that mobile e-mail has different rules. For one thing, smaller screens mean shorter subject lines: approximately 20 characters rather than the 30 to 45 in PC-based e-mail readers. That’s not a lot of room in which to squeeze a memorable and compelling value proposition that can drive opens. And since at least some mobile Continued on page 34 Promo / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / July 2008 33 http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - July 2008

Promo - July 2008 Contents Editor's Note Shelf Help Beautiful Bovines Rest Stop Who Let the Dogs Blog? A Helping Hand Commentary Solid Gold Q and A: Mighty Mattel Flying the Coup Putting E-mail in Motion Resource Center The Agency Center The Young Prefer Mail Index of Advertisers

Promo - July 2008

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