Despite continued innovation and sophistication in regards to email marketing platforms and software over the past ten years, quality control measures remain largely unchanged with responsibility remaining in the hands of the email marketer themselves.

A few months back, the Email Experience Council (EEC), a leading email industry group, came under fire after repeatedly including errors in a series of email communications.  It signaled a growing need for basic quality control in email marketing campaigns big and small, given the fact that even the so-called “industry ambassador” was making the same mistakes.

Some common errors and mistakes present in a surprising amount of email marketing campaigns include things like broken links, missing images, incorrectly coded subject lines, unsubstituted personalization fields, faulty unsubscription methods and duplicate messages.

The fact remains that a simple HTML message has links that must work, images that must load correctly, authentication mechanisms such as SPF and DomainKeys (or DKIM) that depend on appropriate technical configuration, various response addresses (from and reply to, possibly unsubscribe), character sets and content encodings that must match, and a list of recipients that may require data loading and suppression.

Still, most e-mail solutions leave all the heavy lifting in the hands of the sender, with essentially manual processes to boot.  Things like link destinations, images, response addresses, and authentication can all be checked automatically, but a lot of the time it’s not.

This is when you, as the marketer, must adhere to basic quality control measures to not only make sure you don’t include silly mistakes that could jeopardize the credibility of your campaign, but to also make sure your campaign is as efficient and successful as it can be.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

For mobile marketing, a tale of two cities has emerged. And it’s a story with which many mobile marketers are already familiar. Although mobile marketing is growing by leaps and bounds as an industry, issues remain with the consistency of consumer engagement among various demographics.

A new study from BIGresearch suggests that while a vast, wide open sea of opportunity exists for the mobile marketing industry as a whole, choppy waters thrive in the short term for consumers who continue to express reluctance or outright disdain for many of mobile marketing’s most common practices.

Among the findings most unsettling to some mobile marketers is that “since June of 2008, the percentage of people who don’t like mobile marketing has increased.” That unwelcome reality is partially due to the growing number of mobile customers who have become resistant to the appeal of text ads (67% now find them unfavorable as opposed to 64% last year). Higher disapproval is also being logged for voicemail ads and video ads.

Although such findings are disturbing to those who once expected mobile marketing to become universally beloved, mobile advertising remains advertising nonetheless. And at times, mobile ads will reach those who simply have no desire or interest in the products and services being pushed.

Of course, all is not gloom and doom for mobile marketing. BIGresearch’s findings, for example, reveal that mobile marketing’s audience possesses an accelerated tendency to purchase a broad variety of consumer electronics – televisions, computers, cameras, etc. If the ultimate objective of mobile marketing is to sell a product or service to a targeted consumer group, it’s evident that mobile marketing continues to help drive consumer electronic purchases.

Taking the good with the bad is a way of life in advertising, and for that reason, its important to reject the temptation to think that any consumer resistance to mobile marketing is a deathblow to the industry as a whole. So while the tale of mobile marketing remains a tale of two cities, it may still prove a tale that ultimately yields a happy ending for all.

Rapidly fading to an antiquated era of advertising is the tireless marketing guru toiling for hours if not days to craft unforgettable jingles and eye-catching ads for print or broadcast advertising. The era of 21st century advertising is poised for dominance by mobile marketing and its many efficient and cost-effective tools.

According ABI Research, “Mobile marketing has the same potential to change the advertising and marketing space in the same way that the emergence of the Internet did a decade ago.” Yet, incredibly, a vast number of businesses continue to shy away from this emergent force in contemporary marketing. Rooted in the erroneous notion that mobile marketing is the exclusive province of bottomless budgets and mega-corporations, scores of entrepreneurs and small business owners consistently fail to harness the enormous but still cost-effective potential of mobile marketing.

In recent years, the cost of launching a mobile marketing campaign has been reduced dramatically, both in terms of the affordability of turnkey platforms involved in SMS marketing and the cost of SMS dropping from $0.15 per message two years ago to about $0.07 today, with even lower rates available for larger campaigns.

Apart from the industry-wide innovations and developments that continue to make mobile marketing more affordable, there remain innumerable steps advertisers can take to personally reduce the overall expense of an otherwise invaluable mobile marketing presence.

• K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid)

Crafting a successful mobile marketing campaign doesn’t require the full time assistance of a dozen hired consultants, mobile strategists, graphic designers, etc. The tools and resources to personally but professionally plan and implement an effective, affordable mobile campaign are widely available.

• Target, not blanket

The growth of mobile technology allows mobile marketers to target small but critical segments of the population rather than wide swaths of consumers, most of whom will have no need for the product or service offered. If a quality campaign is effectively targeted to a niche market, a successful mobile marketing campaign can be executed without incurring exorbitant costs.

• Planning is pivotal

Have a game plan and a time frame for your mobile marketing efforts. One of the biggest contributing factors to a blown-out bottom line is failing to adequately budget time and expenses. From the leasing length of your dedicated short codes to the duration of the campaign itself, having a plan and sticking to it ensures that even a minimal budget won’t be exceeded.

• Observe and react quickly

A watchful eye on your return on investment (ROI) is critical to any mobile marketing endeavor. Guage the efficiency and effectiveness of the plan in place and be quick on the draw to make any changes necessary to avoid wasting time, money, and opportunity.

• If you build it they will come

Plain and simple, mobile marketing requires a leap of faith. Although many old-school advertisers find it difficult to embrace mobile marketing, consumers have grown exceptionally unresponsive to traditional marketing such as billboard and television adverts, print adverts, telemarketing and email spam. If marketers who are still tentative about the prospects of mobile marketing can just resist the temptation to invest in traditional media, the leap of faith could ultimately prove an enormously rewarding decision.

For more information, check out this comprehensive whitepaper on mobile marketing and how to select an SMS vendor.

It’s no secret that email marketing is a powerful tool for communicating with visitors, customers and prospects, but like other marketing mediums, you have to uphold a certain set of rules or best practices to ensure a compliant and successful campaign.

Two of the most important aspects of successful email marketing campaigns are adhering to certain codes of conduct regarding unsubscribing and signup confirmation.  In certain countries, there’s actually laws in place that mandate an unsubscribe link in all marketing emails, so it’s always a good practice to include your link at the bottom of each email and direct users to a courteous page that removes them from your mailing list quickly.  Making this a “one-click” process is also a good idea.

In terms of signup confirmation, you should always use a double opt-in confirmation process.  This means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send a “confirmation” email.  This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.  This ensures you don’t come off as “spammy,” which could be detrimental to your email marketing campaign.

Speaking of spam, try to avoid using keywords such as ‘free,’ ’save,’ ‘discount,’ etc. in both your subject line and content to avoid getting caught in your users spam filters- which have become very complex in recent years.

The concept of personalization is key in email marketing campaigns as well.  Instead of using the common “Hi there,” or “Dear Subscriber,” you should use individual subscriber names to create a more personable relationship with your readers.  It’s estimated that by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the boring “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%.  Why?  Put simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

To maximize click-thru rates, which is most likely the goal of any email marketing campaign, it’s good practice to include clear, concise links that ensure your readers don’t get confused by a design filled with graphics, text, buttons and more.  There’s been numerous research papers that prove that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link as opposed to a banner or button.  If you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they’re bold, blue and underlined.  This will mean more subscribers click through and subsequently more conversions/sales for you.

In terms of the best days to send your emails, studies conducted by online research analysts have shown the best days are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication.  This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend.  On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend.  This has been heavily experimented with, and the best results were achieved by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday, studies have proved.

These are just a few simply rules, best practices and tips to ensure your email marketing campaigns remain successful.  Of course, it always takes testing and a trial and error approach to determine what the best strategy is for your particular campaign, but certain aspects and un-spoken rules must always be applied to ensure you don’t upset your readers and to make sure you don’t violate any of the most simplest of rules regarding the sending of mass marketing emails.

Since there’s a lot that goes into an email marketing campaign, it’s sometimes best to leave it up to the professionals to worry about the boring technical and compliance issues.  Check out MobileStorm’s PRO offering for an all-inclusive digital marketing platform that will allow you to focus solely on the outcome of your campaign.

Often mysterious but never in short supply, the digital creatures known as mobile coupons have become a presence far more profitable, formidable, and ubiquitous than most realize.

With the tangible benefits of mobile coupons beginning to resonate with consumers just as the newspaper clipping variety once did, businesses and entire industries have accepted that mobile coupons are among the best promotional tools of the trade in contemporary, cutting edge marketing.

Although many companies large and small have exhibited reluctance to hop aboard the mobile coupon bandwagon due to their lack of understanding of mobile marketing and its potential, retailers who successfully craft and implement effective mobile coupon campaigns promptly discover how the pennies they offer in savings can quickly yield enormous monetary and branding gains.

Why are mobile coupon campaigns effective?

• Rather than viewing mobile coupons as spam, most consumers who receive interesting mobile coupons actually review the offer. A sizable portion of those views consistently result in sales.
• The average cell phone user’s handset is switched on for the majority of each day. As a result, mobile coupons can reach the masses efficiently and effectively, which is important, particularly during time-sensitive marketing campaigns.
• The accessibility and eco-friendly attributes of mobile coupons provide consumers with a highly attractive purchasing opportunity.

It should come as no surprise then that the findings of a recent PROMO magazine poll indicate that better than a quarter of all North American marketers are now actively investing in some form of digital coupon marketing endeavor. And even though the look and feel of each marketer’s offering may look slightly different, the overwhelming majority of mobile coupon campaigns adhere to one of several established models. For example:

• A buy one, get one free coupon or promotional code.
• A free trial opportunity – an incentive coupon or code for first time buyers or subscribers.
• A rewards-based offer – a coupon that rewards customers of a product/service with a discount on a related product or service.

The great potential for growth in the business of mobile coupons is ultimately rooted in the nearly sixty percent of consumers who report being eager to receive a coupon on their mobile phone. The average consumer’s warm embrace of mobile coupons is the reason a new report from Juniper Research is forecasting that consumer usage of mobile coupons will likely generate close to $6 billion in global retail redemption by 2014.

When appropriately chiseled out to follow the same regulations and best practices governing the distribution of mobile messages, a mobile coupon campaign can prove a surprisingly cost-effective way for businesses and retailers to generate lasting streams of revenue.

To find out more about the power and potential of mobile coupons, check out this all-inclusive Mobile Coupons Webinar.