Furniture shoppers are responding brilliantly to messaging campaigns from the retail chain Ashley Furniture HomeStore of Charlotte, N.C. and upstate South Carolina. And mobileStorm 4.0 gets part of the credit.

Hey, we can’t help but brag when ROI includes a whopping $20,000 in one day’s revenue (!) generated when the chain announced a 12-hour sale by subscription message, sent out only the evening before the sale began.

It’s an inspiring case of a seasoned marketer unfamiliar with digital messaging who quickly—thanks to an easy, all-encompassing platform and the wise use of best practices—executes successful campaign after successful campaign.

The Charlotte-based Ashley Furniture HomeStore regional chain came to SMS marketing a bit reluctantly. Admits co-owner and COO Charlie Malouf, “We were initially against the concept, because we thought that text message marketing was just annoying spam. Then we found out that it’s not spam; instead, it’s based on highly regulated permission marketing principles where you only send text messages to people who have opted in to subscribe and receive special offers.”

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I’m writing this from the sky as I fly over the Atlantic Ocean, on my way back from Heidelberg, Germany where I attended a MAAWG conference. I always enjoy going to MAAWG, not only because of the vast amount of socializing and networking that goes on, but also because of the high level of knowledge and expertise there. For example, I attended a panel discussion that included the managers of the postmaster teams for both AOL and Hotmail. These people are the ones who make the decisions on how email is delivered, and whether it is bulked or blocked. From my standpoint as the one in charge of ensuring good delivery for mobileStorm, the value for attending these conferences is clear.

Overall, from the panel discussions to the hallway discussions, some fundamental truths were again reconfirmed to me. These aren’t new concepts, and have been discussed at length in the past, but I will reiterate as they are becoming increasingly important.

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It’s only been three months since mobileStorm started offering digital video distribution—and using our own service to disseminate mobileStorm’s marketing news/comedy show. Already our product release and own leap into online video marketing have proved astute, at least according to a new survey.

Ipsos MediaCT—which researches the media, content, telecoms and tech industries—says that early this year, online video viewership rose while viewership of other types of media fell. Among those surveyed:

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I took a little break from blogging, and am now back in the saddle again. However, rather than getting to hear me preach about deliverability every week, I am going to share my slot with my esteemed colleagues Jared Reitzin and Shaneli Ramratan. So enjoy the new schedule!

The FTC recently approved some slight modifications to the CAN-SPAM act. While these changes will not dramatically impact the way we send email, they are worth noting, as they do affect the way some mailers manage their unsubscribe process, among other things.

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