Americans are on the go, especially during leisure time. How do you market to your customers when they’re not sitting at the computers? Some will have PDAs and BlackBerries and iPhones, but trust me, they’re not all that interested in your email marketing when out and about and scanning email on their phone: As great as your offer might be, chances are good that your email marketing campaign is a heck of a lot less effective on a tiny PDA screen than a full-size computer screen.

Does that mean you’re hostage to that customer getting back in front of her laptop or PC before she gets your email marketing? Not if you’re moving towards mobile.

Don’t shudder! Mobile isn’t as scary as you think. That’s because email solutions provider Lyris offers a Mobile Marketing How-to Guide that not only tells you how to do mobile technically, but also gets you thinking about how email marketing can be adapted to the mobile format. For example, think timing: The whitepaper suggests sending an offer for a pizza during the “big game.” A text message to a cell phone offering a deal on pizza at just about half-time? And the recipient can simply call the number in the text message to order? Brilliant. The ultimate in relevant, a recurring theme in this email marketing blog.

In just 6 pages, Lyris lays out the whys and how tos of mobile marketing in easy-to-understand, easy-to-act upon steps.

This email marketing whitepaper is available at our online email marketing library . Download it, act on it, profit from it.

So it’s not that we’re anti-Twitter. It’s just that we want to make sure the walls are up before we start painting the house.

According to eMarketer, only 7.4% of the U.S. population over age 18 is using Twitter. And you only have to use it once a month to count as a “user.”

Compare that to 80% of Americans using email.

That means less than one-tenth of the email users are using Twitter. Knowing that, where do you think you should invest your time and money?

Our advice to you as an email solutions provider: Make sure your email best practices are up to speed before you jump on the Twitterwagon. Below are some resources to help:

• This email marketing blog
• Our email marketing library of whitepapers and reports
• Our email marketing newsletter
• Our email marketing consultants

Tap into these resources and make sure your email best practices are the best. Then you can use Twitter to support your email marketing campaigns!

And some subscribe quite often. The article states 55% of email subscribers in North America unsubscribe occasionally and 14% frequently. Again, another high number.

We as an email solutions provider are tossing these numbers at you for a few reasons, all of which involve improving your email marketing results. Lessons to remember here are:

• Your email marketing content must be relevant to the subscriber. Most unsubscribes are due to irrelevant email marketing content
• Your email marketing must show up in people’s inboxes with a frequency that works for them, not you. Email too often, and they’ll unsubscribe. Email too rarely, and they’ll forget the subscribed in the first place
• Your email marketing must pass the “annoyance” test so you don’t get reported as spam. Many people will report an email as spam rather than unsubscribe when they think your email marketing is irrelevant, too frequent, or both
• Your email marketing must remind people that they did subscribe and asked to hear from you. Use welcome emails to do this, and include a brief line in each email reminding them they subscribed

Also note that these numbers are for permission-based email marketing, meaning these folks subscribed to the emails in the first place.

Wouldn’t it be great if potential customers just surfed the Web, looking for email newsletters and campaigns to subscribe to? You could just sit back, put your feet up on the desk, and watch your in-house email list grow and grow and grow.

But we live and work in the real world. That means people aren’t sitting around online signing up for emails from you. In fact, the opposite is true: They’re probably ignoring your requests. You don’t have to be an email solutions provider like ClickMail to know that people are extremely reluctant to give you that precious piece of personal information.

Growing your in-house email list can (and should) be a multi-faceted effort. But at its core, it is probably an option on your Web site, an option that has to work really, really hard. And that makes the wording on your Web site critical.

And what’s in a word? Everything. Keep in mind that different words have different connotations, and choose the word that will both most accurately reflect what you’re offering in exchange for that email address, and will most likely appeal to that Web site visitor. Consider the following possible words and their implications:

• If you ask someone to subscribe, that sounds journalistic, and implies they’ll get an email newsletter or something else wordy and content-oriented.
• If you ask someone to sign up, it begs the question, sign up for what? Are they signing up for specials? News? Spam? Be clear on that.
• If you ask someone to join, that might sound exclusive like you’re letting them into a community or club, but on the other hand, it might set the expectations high and you might not deliver.
• If you ask someone to register, that sounds like a real commitment, like registering for an event. On the other hand, it can have more perceived value.

What word do you use on your Web site to grow your in-house email list and drive your email marketing ROI? Let us know which word and how well it works at blog@clickmailmarketing.com. We’ll blog about it here in our email marketing blog.

Get some email design peace of mind! Download email solutions provider ExactTarget’s new email design checklist and make sure your email design works on screen, in the inbox, and no matter the email client. From brand to engagement to response, it’s a handy one pager you can review while designing and then refining your next email campaign.

Plus there’s a quick little reminder about the order in which someone views your email and tips for improving each component:

1.    From name
2.    Subject line
3.    Preview pane
4.    Opened email
5.    Full email

Download the one-age email design checklist from email solutions provider ExactTarget here and feel free to contact us if you want some input on your email design at blog@clickmailmarketing.com.

Email solutions provider ExactTarget has already proven people prefer to receive marketing messages via email, not social networking sites.

And a new report from Forrester also backs up our claim that email marketing still prevails. In fact, the new email marketing report claims email spending will reach $2 billion by 2014. People (and businesses) vote with their pocketbooks. That’s a lot of money to spend on a marketing tactic who’s future has been in question in the media. If all those businesses are betting on email marketing, you can bet this email marketing vendor is too.

A few quick email marketing highlights from the report:

• Retention email will account for three quarters of the spending
• Email remains a low-cost way to communicate
• Even in a down economy, people keep their at-home Internet connection
• The number of active email individuals will grow from 145 million in 2009 to 153 million in 2014
• Transactional messaging will be the biggest growth area for email spending between now and 2014

People spend money on what they believe in and where they see results. With spending on email marketing on an upward slope to $2 billion, obviously businesses still believe in the power of email marketing!

On the down side, Forrester predicts companies will waste $144 million on emails that never make it to the inbox in 2014. That’s sad to think that in 5 years email marketers could still be that behind on email best practices that get you into the inbox! Don’t be one of those email marketers! Keep reading this email marketing blog!

Read about the Forrester report by clicking here.

So how does a responsible email marketer grow his or her list with qualified names?

A new email marketing white paper from email solutions provider ExactTarget offers some guidance. The 2009 Email Growth List Study whitepaper (under ExactTarget in the eMarketing Library) was compiled with the help of the Email Marketer’s Club and Ball State University. The researchers polled over 350 email and online marketers and came up with 17 definitive email best practices for list growth.

And renting lists of email addresses is not an email best practice, nor is email append, or other myriad ways of growing the numbers but the quality. As this email marketing whitepaper states, “The core of a successful list growth strategy is incorporating the right subscribers into the right list. By putting your subscribers first, listening to their individual wants and needs, and leveraging permission-only tactics, you can create and grow a powerful, effective email marketing program.” And that means organic is still the best way to grow your email list!

It seems one email best practice of note in here is tracking the sources of list growth, looking for trends and opportunities. Another trend to note: how many email marketers either are or plan to integrate social media into their list growth campaigns. Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this email marketing whitepaper is the fact that these are tried-and-true email best practices for both B2B and B2C email marketing.

Get 30 pages of email best practices and list growth insight today when you download the 2009 Email List Growth Study whitepaper  in our eMarketing Library under ExactTarget.

We recently did that for a federal credit union with more than 72,000 members worldwide and close to one billion dollars in assets. You can imagine how much email marketing an organization that size must do. They use email for transactional messages as well as to confirm new accounts and settings changes.

Email solutions provider Silverpop was providing an email marketing solution to the credit union, including building a custom interface. But the email solutions provider’s workload meant that although they could be the ESP, they couldn’t build out the custom interface in time to meet the credit union’s schedule.

Silverpop had email marketing vendor ClickMail (that’s us!) step in and build the custom interface, while sticking to an aggressive delivery timeline.

This credit union situation demonstrates how we as an email marketing vendor work for and with our email marketing clients. We’ll help you launch your email marketing programs, and we’ll also go the next step by helping you create custom reporting tools or windows. And we’ll do it all on time and on budget, just like the case study project!

• What it takes to make it to the inbox
• How to use the available tools to deliver relevant content
• How to measure and gauge the results to ensure continuous improvement

And the other reason you’re in luck? A discount! As an email solutions provider participating in OMS, we can give you a discount for this informative seminar. OMS events are crammed full of useful tips, innovative ideas and proven best practices. Read more about the Online Marketing Summit in Denver by clicking here.

Then email us at blog@clickmailmarketing.com for a discount code that will get you in the door and full of new online and email marketing ideas for less!

On the 21st, speakers Loren McDonald and Richard Evans of Silverpop present “In Search of the Ideal Email Send Time.” If only you had a crystal ball that could look into your customers’ minds and see when they would be most receptive to your email! Because that’s what it’s really about, as the Silverpop email marketing rock stars will tell you during the webinar.

It’s only an hour out of your day, but will be time well spent as you learn email best practices you can use right away to begin optimizing your email send time. And that will in turn optimize your email marketing results!

Register for this email marketing webinar by clicking here.

And keep watching this email marketing blog for information on other email best practices that will improve your email marketing ROI!