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.”

(more…)

One of the major challenges of email marketing is creating an email that people read and understand once they open it. A good way to get on the right path to engaging your reader is following a few simple steps as part of your email creation process.

Put your offer in the first paragraph. Whatever the goal of your email may be, for instance a purchase or a sign up state your offer prominently your starter paragraph. Along with the subject line, the first paragraph is the most read part of your email. Don’t get flowery- this is not a novel. Tell your reader why they are reading your email, and you will increase your chances of them both reading the entire message, and also taking the action you desire.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Maintaining consistent email delivery can be a very tricky thing. Sometimes, even if you are following best practices such as proper email collection, removing bounces and generally being a “good” sender, your delivery can degrade over time. Once this happens, it’s time to reassess what is going on and look at the potential pitfalls you may have triggered. One of the most obvious symptoms can be whether or not you are on a shared IP or a dedicated IP.

Let’s quickly talk about the basic differences of each:

Shared IP – A shared IP means that your mailings are being sent off an IP that includes other users/companies. Most ESPs will start your account on a shared IP. They sometimes use this as a probationary step because they need to see what you are like as a sender before determining where best to place you in a tiered structure.

(more…)