GraphicMail's Marketing Manager bleeps about Mobile

Mobile Marketing has gingerly settled into the mainstream of direct communications without really much fireworks  over the last few years, and has only more recently been implemented for campaigning on a large scale, professional level that can be tied to other channels. GraphicMail Head of Marketing and digital yogi, Barbara Ulmi, speaks about the relevance of mobile marketing in today’s commercial environment and chats about how to get started.
 
So the big question is, should all businesses go mobile, and why?

Well, we can also ask: should all businesses be online, have a website, a blog and a social profile? It all depends on the nature of your business. If you run a yoga school or manage a bakery in a small village, it may suffice to let good gossip bring you customers; if you have a guest house and you can solely rely on return visitors and word of mouth recommendations, great for you. However, if you need to attract customers over a distance or if you need to build your customer base constantly, which most of the businesses have to, then the digital space is your solution. Considering that 77% of the world’s population are on a mobile subscription (granted, without necessarily everyone able to access the net), and that the mobile web is growing four times faster than the traditional internet, I think businesses should definitely warm up to the possibilities and potential of mobile marketing and communications.

What are the various options available in the typical mobile marketing campaign?

There is no such thing as a typical marketing campaign; a campaign is very brand-specific and depends on the campaign goals that were set by a business, their target market and considerations regarding their target market’ s knowledge of mobile tools and type of devices and connections used. Text messages (SMS) work very well for both low and high-end markets, especially in combination with promotional shared codes, while USSD may be a good option for any campaigns that target customer relations and easy credit top-up such as prepaid electricity. MMS has not proven to be as successful an option as initially anticipated, since MMS first has to be enabled by the customers and response/ engagement rates are fairly low.  However, real engagement can best be reached by sending campaigns that provide an SMS plus link to a more graphic-rich experience such as GraphicMail’s mobile marketing tools, or by creating an app that makes life both fun and easier for the user; or even by setting up an augmented reality campaign. No matter what you opt for, don’t forget to integrate your mobile activities into your other marketing communication channels such as your website, email marketing and social communications.

Once your campaign is underway, how do you keep the ball rolling and progressively build up momentum and drive viewer-traffic?

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to shout about your mobile campaign on as many channels as possible, not just to increase your reach, but also to create some momentum. It’s also important to keep a firm eye on your campaign goals and adjust your campaign when you deviate from them (or adjust your goals if you see some surprising effects of your campaign that you haven’t thought to consider when you drew up your campaign plan). Also, not every one of your (potential) client is on a mobile phone or wants to receive brand information via a mobile phone. Make sure you find out beforehand who wants to opt in to this communication channel, or at least give them clear unsubscribe options. If you drive a campaign in an integrated approach on various channels, from email to social to events and mobile, you are more likely to reach more people via their preferred channels. And since mobile phones are becoming more and more of a substitute for PCs, you want to be heard and seen on the mobile platform. Viewer traffic is driven by engaging your market and by unique content, a positive can-do brand attitude and a real benefit to the recipient (every consumer will always ask: what is in it for me?).

Are there any mobile potholes? Where can a campaign go wrong and what brand-harming practices should be avoided?

Sure, things can go wrong. Mobile marketing has few standards, and mobile phones particularly are less standard than desktop devices. If you think it's difficult to design a newsletter that renders well over a multitude of email clients from Outlook 2008 to Gmail, think about how difficult it is to make sure your mobile news also displays well on thousands of different handsets with different screen sizes and coding issues. We can help you build mobile news, campaigns and mini mobile sites that render well over 5000 handsets, as we provide you with a mobile editor that has mobile phones "in mind". If you design an entire mobile site for your brand, there are quite a few pitfalls to keep in mind when coding your site. I’m sure businesses are painfully aware of the fact that the first impression they make on a client is paramount – and you don’t want to send them to a mobile newsletter or mobisite that takes forever to download, can’t be navigated, and requests them to scroll back and forth, left right and centre.

Could it be that all this mobile what-not is just a fad?

No, I think both the signs and facts are solid – we are moving into a “mobile” space. Not only does this move reflect constant technological advancements , but it also reflects a global change from “thoughtful decision-making” to “instant information and impulse (group) buying” And a mobile device, with its geo-tagging, QR barcode-decoding and instant communication and sharing facilities is certainly complementing that change (then again, maybe its development has been initiated by the change of consumer behavior).

How can GraphicMail help one get set up in mobile and how much of an investment in start-up capital and time does this require?
At GraphicMail we believe in keeping things simple, user-friendly and low cost. Yes, we do offer a lot of advanced email features, but our core offering is to help you get your newsletter campaign out fast, efficient and in an affordable way. The same applies to our approach to mobile marketing. We are offering you tools that make it easy to not only send a personalized, tracked SMS, but an SMS with a link to a mobile page or an entire mobile site which can contain graphics, images, videos, polls, forms, buttons, you name it - helping you get messages out that are not constrained by 160 characters!  We do not charge you for setting up your mobile campaign with us; our mobile editor is free to use. We do charge you when you send your campaign to your subscribers – see prices here. Time? A mobile page and SMS is quick to put together, you don’t need design or HTML skills – as long as you know what content you want to push out. The creative phase probably takes more time than the implementation phase!

Expert tips on Email Newsletter and Mobile design from our guru

Recently we spoke to GraphicMail Designer, Ruan Benade, about professional best practices to be consider when working on a HTML Newsletter design, and how these principles can be commuted to the mobile platform.

Introduce yourself briefly and elaborate on your main roles at GraphicMail.

My role at GraphicMail is as Head of Design. I am involved in all projects requiring design, from trade show stands to application interfaces to email newsletters. I plan projects and ensure they are executed at the required standard. I am a Graphic Designer specialising in digital media, interface design and usability. I started out in the print industry way back in the 90's and changed over to digital media around 1998.

How would you differentiate between the emphases of web design in small business as opposed to the corporate setting?
 
Budgets would be much smaller and rules would be a lot more flexible. Both environments have pros and cons of their own. Projects would be much bigger in scope, with bigger budgets and longer timelines in the corporate environment. Branding and design would be much more valued, enforced in guidelines documents and by marketing departments. In the small business arena jobs would typically center round a specific need… a website or email newsletter.

What are the three chief best practices that you adhere to in the area of HTML Newsletter design in the email industry?

The 3 most important practices to adhere to in email design, are:
1)    Keep your designs and layout simple. The more complex it is, the more things can go wrong.
2)    Code like its 1999. Use nested tables for structure and inline styles to style everything else.
3)    Test and test again, but keep in mind pixel-perfection is not an attainable reality for all email clients.

There are a number of additional best practices that will improve the user experience, but the above 3 practices are non-negotiable.

When choosing a newsletter template, what should users be looking for to ensure that they are getting a top quality product?

When choosing an email newsletter template there is two important considerations:
a)    How well is it coded? Meaning: Will it look as it’s supposed to in your inbox?
b)    How well is it designed? Meaning: can it do the job it is supposed to do?

Establishing the quality of the design comes down to asking yourself or a test-subject a few task-related questions. Establishing the quality of the coding comes down to testing the email template on multiple email clients. Selecting or downloading a newsletter template from an established email marketing service would ensure a certain level of quality I suppose, but it really comes down to the experience and skill level of the designer and coder.

How do you strike a balance between artistry and functionality?

The client’s requirements are the most important. Without it there would be no newsletter or emailer. There is some scope for creative expression by a designer, provided the client brief is satisfied and the technical considerations have been addressed. An experienced designer and/or coder should be able to balance these requirements without sacrificing any of them.

Conventional design houses can be a tad skittish to make the conversion when a new movement is in vogue. What advice would you give to other email professionals in transitioning to the mobile platform?

What is important on a mobile device is the same as what’s important on any other device - how useful is the information and how does the user experience it. When transitioning to mobile, it's important to consider that mobile screens are smaller, that long load time of content will increase bounce rate, and that you're talking to people on the go, and via a device that is more private than many others. Consider time of your mobile campaign sends, and make sure add an unsubscribe link in your header and footer of your mobile news.

How do you treat a newsletter that you want to appear on a mobile screen vs. one that you want to appear on desktop?

Well, if you send your newsletter out to your subscriber list, the chances are high that quite a percentage of your readers will open your email on their mobile screens. In order to make sure that the mobile newsletter looks well on any device, you should at least choose a template that only has one column, and make sure your images are small (don't take too much time to load). GraphicMail has recently launched new mobile campaign tools that help you send out a newsletter campaign to your mobile readers via an easy mobile editor. And this is not where it stops - you can take it a step further and create an entire mobile mini site which you send to your clients via a link in an SMS. If you want to know more, check out this page.

What do you imagine the status quo of the direct marketing industry will be 5 years from now?

At the rate of change we’re experiencing it’s anybody’s guess. I will however say that mobile devices will play a much bigger role. It’s suddenly not so outrageous to hear sci-fi authors’ predictions of communication devices built into our bodies.

Cisco routers - defending the realm of email marketing lists

Cybercrime has touched everyone. Whether you’ve had your credit details stolen, logged into Twitter only to see some naughty statements made in your name or whether you’ve electronically been pronounced dead thirty-five times.

TripAdvisor users’ email accounts have been hacked in to during March. Online retailer Play.com reported recently that some of their clients’ personal information may have been compromised, and that their users could receive spam e-mails containing questionable links.

Millions of people were in danger of email phishing after a massive violation of security at Epsilon, which is having an effect on some of the USA’s big business entities, like JPMorgan Chase, Walgreens and Citibank. Where hear about these incidents all the time.

These days our lifestyles are becoming cradled by technology. Almost every day we are forfeiting security and placing our privacy in jeopardy, all for the sake of convenience and speed. Electronic crime Stormtroopers have been brawling with online users, almost nearly all the way back to the days of the abacus.

As long as there is a platform and a method, there will always be a certain amount of connected criminal behavior: more or less ensuring that your granny will consistently be dumping cash underneath her mattress, shielding her life savings from a kid figuring out how to hack mailing lists from knitting sites from of his room on the planet Tattooine.

But some knightly orders are standing up the fight for balance. The first quarter of 2011 has seen a surge of severe electronic security breaches via email marketing, and only the best measurements possible will fend off these consumer-oriented attacks. GraphicMail, a web-hosted self-service email marketing provider committed to helping small businesses and organizations, has juiced-up its security once again, after serious breaches in the email industry.

The infrastructure itself is designed to protect clients’ sensitive personal info. Every effort is made to ensure that no person or entity other than the owner of the data can access it.

Speaking fervently about this uncomfortable subject, Ernie Retief, CTO at GraphicMail says: “By using SQL server security together with IP restricted access, our data is secure. What this means is even if you have all the information about our setup, with all the database passwords, you won’t have access if you’re not on the correct IP address. “

Top of the range Cisco routers and firewalls are used to accomplish this. Cisco is the industry master in network speed, reliability and security, with their digital-Jedi fighting the good fight.

CTO Ernie further went on to say: “Our application is also written with malicious attacks in mind. We use external companies to conduct monthly attacks on our code to look for any loopholes. We also undergo a network audit every few months to make sure our security is in order.”

Who’s who in the direct marketing zoo

Like it or not, it’s a jungle out there.

Recession-savaged South Africa has seen the private sector fleeing from familiar hunting grounds and, while working to retain their consumer-base, companies are migrating their portfolios to find greener promotional pastures.

Pushing your brand to further fields outside the bondage of a niche market is no small task, especially if you have been contented with your little corner of the business food chain up and till now. With advertising budgets at an all-time low everywhere, companies that do not have the financial frameworks of the corporate big game can’t afford to beat around the bush when it comes to direct marketing solutions. But even though times are tough, we shouldn’t be reading this solely as 'survival of the cheapest'.

Small Businesses have relied on using GraphicMail’s email marketing tools to save money,  time and greatly improve the value the get from their bulk communications marketing exercises.

Owned and managed by Hannah Williams and Laura Glover, one such business is The Pixel Zoo, a specialist design agency with offices in both Cape Town and Johannesburg offering a broad range of design services in the online environment. Pixel Zoo has found a partner in GraphicMail, providing them with the tools they need to cut through the brush.

Email marketing for small businesses can produce an inbox wilderness for professionals who try to send their marketing communications with personal email software such as Outlook or hosted email servers such as MSN. 

With the growth of the internet over the last few years, SMEs are experiencing a growing demand for cost effective and dependable bulk email solutions. After conducting research on several available email marketing prospects, says Pixel Zoo: “We settled on GraphicMail. Our decision was influenced by the fact that they were extremely helpful and friendly, had a competent technical team on hand at all times, were cost-effective and offered a wide variety of useful functionality that was easy to use and that could be extended by using the API.”

New media carnivores prowling the market are often punting services that aren’t necessarily customisable for small enterprises. On the other hand, taking a big bite of the communications services offered by one ESP in a commercial culture that’s partial to digital grazing is not something that budget-weary companies do every day. Although small business email marketing is not untamed lands, not everyone can give you what you really need, which at its core, is conducting flexible opt-in advertising campaigns that finely measure your ROI balance and give you the ability to herd in new clients penny for penny.