ListEngage

You can have the cleanest lists in the world, never purchase lists, and have very genuine opt-in practices, but somewhere along that path you'll wake up one day and find your email is blocked by a blacklist.

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An emarketing strategy is something that every company needs to move forward in this technology and social media driven market. Budgets are tight in this economy and every company is trying to leverage online marketing techniques for the lowest cost. Even though budgets are tight, businesses are finally realizing that they need to loosen the purse strings on their marketing and learning to embrace what can be gained from email marketing in 2012.

via Small Biz: The world’s economic future in 2012 seems bleak, and could become even bleaker.

The debt crisis in Europe still has not been fully resolved. Greece is getting it’s financial affairs in order, but there are other problems within the European Union.

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In this day and age, most people check their email on their iPads, cellphones, and smartphones - because of this all of our clients want to know what they can do to make their emails mobile friendly. We work with each client to taylor their email campaigns to look fantastic across all email platforms, including mobile devices. In lieu of a personal consultation with an email marketing agency, check out some basic tips to help make your emails more mobile friendly. 

Via WebTraffic ROI: E-mail marketing, with 92% of the U.S. internet users sending and reading e-mail, according to Pew Internet and American Life Project, it’s a no brainer.

Right? Yes and no. E-mail marketing no longer reaches your audience the way it used to. People used to sit at their Gateway desktops every night, dial into their Netscape and check e-mails while watching Family Matters.

The story is now a bit different. One in five marketing e-mails is opened on a smart phone. This changes a few things for your e-mail marketing campaign. Though you may have to modify a bit, you can and should make it work in your favor.

Give Your Newsletter a Mobile Lift

More than ever, it’s now important that you design your newsletter in a way that can be read easily on a smart phone.

As more people get into smart phones, studies show it has become the predominant way to check e-mail. Comscore said that 70.1 million U.S. users check their e-mail via smart phone every year.

Luckily for you, as smart phone technology grows, so does the phone’s ability to properly display a regular e-mail. Simply changing the coding and creating a narrower design may be enough.

Provide Interesting Snippets

There is a certain amount of scan and move on that happens when the e-mail immediately pops into someone’s inbox. People are most likely to read your business newsletters while they wait to get their hair cut or meet with someone. Thus, by getting your most important information into the intro clip, you can avoid the immediate deletion.

Then later, while they are watching TV on the couch, or sitting in traffic, they’ll take the time to click through the full article.

Offer Discounts, Coupons, Etc

Now that you know you’re readers are often out and about while checking e-mail, take this opportunity to get them shopping. Offering coupons that can be used right off the smart phone will make their decision to buy your product much easier.

This in turn gives them more incentive to buy. Scoutmob, a growing mobile application, offers their deals directly off the smart phone, giving users easy access to the coupons. I once went to a restaurant simply because Scoutmob offered a deal I couldn’t pass up. With easy access I was in and out.

Make it Convenient to Complete Online Transactions Later

When someone is lazily reading through your e-mail before a meeting, it isn’t likely that they’ll make a purchase from their phone. Online purchasing holds a large spot in the e-commerce world, 80% of people in their early thirties to mid forties make frequent online purchases, according to FifthGear.

However, this has yet to take hold on the mobile platform. On the newsletter, provide your customer care phone number in a click to call manner, give them access to their “shopping cart” to buy later, or allow a sharing feature to make it easy for them to share products.

E-mail marketing still holds an important spot in every company’s business marketing plan, as it should. We are seeing, though, that it’s time to shift the model a bit.

As with everything, technology is changing the way your customers function, which means you must make a slight shift as well.

To read the article on their website - please click here

Facebook is a major part of any company's social media portfolio - it benefits you and your company to be up to date on the latest and greatest features. We have all watched how Facebook has transformed over time from college based social media site into a real outlet to drive business and connect with fans/clients. The timeline format that Facebook has rolled out is just another step in connecting everyone, as it's proving itself to be a fantastic tool to track that client/business interaction over time. 

via InformationWeek: Social networking site hints that its Timeline feature may soon be available for brands. Here are some things to consider about Facebook Timeline and the value it could add to your business' social networking presence.

Currently, the Facebook Timeline format--which replaces profile pages and is basically a chronological scrapbook of your life--is available only for personal pages. Facebook has hinted that Timeline will be available for brands at some point in the future, but the company has not announced anything explicitly.

An interesting study commissioned by Mashable examined how users view Facebook Timeline and other revisions to social networking sites. The study, conducted by EyeTrackShop, compared the old Facebook profile page with the new Timeline. The study found that Facebook Timeline cover photos get noticed first, that Facebook ads get noticed more in Timeline than in the old profile format, and that personal information gets more attention in Timeline.

Clint Fralick, VP of client services at Boston-based social media agency Pandemic Labs, sees potential value in Facebook Timeline for business.

"As concept/metaphor, Timeline's value for businesses is the historical perspective it lends to the interaction between business/brand and Facebook community," said Fralick. "Previously, the date a brand was created and the date a brand got started on Facebook were completely separate, and brands' Facebook lifetimes always seemed to be incomplete. Brands didn't use Facebook in a chronological way, like regular users, and users couldn't do with brand pages what they so often do with friends: skim through old posts/photos, remember past good times, etc." 

Fralick thinks businesses can benefit from Timeline even before they can deploy it for their own brands, via the residual effects of what users post on their own Timelines.

"Users filling out their own Timelines will generate a large number of stories organically that are linked to brands," he said. "Large fashion/lifestyle brands, for instance, are going to benefit from every person who uploads 10-year-old photos and goes on a thorough tagging/dating mission."

Alison Kimszal, an analyst at business and technology consultancy DefinedLogic, said Facebook Timeline would enable companies to tout their histories and provide improved navigation. "If Timeline is enabled for Facebook pages, it will allow companies to give a graphical representation of their company history--when the company began, significant milestone events over the years, photos, and videos," she said. "Timeline has also improved the navigation of profiles, allowing users to easily browse via months or years."

However, while experts can see some potential value in Facebook Timeline for brands, they also see drawbacks--most notably, interference with current Facebook apps and the potential for distraction. "There will be several drawbacks regarding brands that currently have Like Gates, Tabs, and other apps installed--Timeline will affect the way these currently function," said Kimszal. "Another drawback would be that customers who are used to the way brand pages look now may not like the new Timeline on the page."

Fralick agrees that Timeline could affect brands' existing Facebook apps, and notes that it might distract from what he sees as most important for businesses on Facebook--"posting simple, quality content and talking to their communities."

If Facebook Timeline becomes an option for businesses, what they need to keep in mind when deciding whether to implement the format is that Facebook is about engaging users with relevant content, said Kimszal: "The more relevant posts, photos, and videos are, the more consumers will engage with your brand."

Learn more here...

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Our platform has implemented an amazing new A/B Testing feature in each account in the past year. This feature has helped our clients decide which email campaigns are doing the best - from subject line comparison to send time, this feature gives tracking information you can use. In addition to testing your email campaigns, it's also a great idea to test out your landing pages. B2C.com has compiled a short list of the top tips for effective testing---

A/B testing is one of the best ways to raise your landing page conversion rates and overall online marketing ROI.  A/B testing or split testing is a testing method where a control landing page is compared to a variety of test pages.  Testing landing page experiences against one another with A/B testing offers the opportunity to create and test wildly different things – think in terms of testing apples and oranges.

Here are five tips to help you effectively plan and run landing page A/B tests:

With the marketing  mix becoming  much  more varied - as online technologies mature - and previously separate marketing channels become far more integrated, it easy is to get caught up in the latest trends and lose sight of the things that make business to business marketing successful.

2011 saw social media rise to new heights and it was inevitable that it would soon be adopted as a core business tool. Social media marketing in many ways reinvigorated firms' online marketing efforts and allowed them to refocus their aims on producing far-reaching campaigns that spanned a plethora of different platforms. It was this 'all inclusive' attitude towards social interaction that set the pace of marketing in 2011, which is why we saw firms returning to tried and tested methods - like B2B email marketing - but using them in fresh, integrated and innovative ways.

While there were a number of new tools also pushing their way into the mainstream - such as online video and the rapidly growing platform of mobile marketing - it is clear that underpinning all this innovation were familiar techniques and methodologies. While content was to remain king for 2011 web-based marketing strategies, data was the cornerstone of B2B marketing - in particularly, segregated, up-to-date, highly-organised business lists.

It is this underpinning of sound business data and insight that meant so-called 'traditional' marketing platforms - like email - remained extremely popular. This looks set to continue in 2012 with email marketing is set to undergo something of a resurgence and staying high on the agenda for digital marketing specialists.

Interestingly, one of the key reasons that email will have such as successful 2012 is because of the rise of new methods of communication which were previously seen as rivals - namely social media and mobile. Far from undermining email as a rock solid business to business marketing tool, social media and the rise of smartphones and tablets have, in many ways, made it far more useful to the marketing professional.

For starters, access to email has become both instant and continuous. People can check there emails 24/7 using any number of new technologies - you can even gain access to it through your TV and mp3 player. This 'always on' view of email has cemented its reputation as the all-pervasive communication tool of choice. Its benefits over and above social media marketing are clear. It is targeted - if you have the right business data to underpin it - it can be easily personalised and it is easy to measure the success of it. What's more, with the clever use of new technologies, it can be far more responsive than it has been in the past.

So what will the key goals be for the email marketing professional in 2012?

First up, businesses need to get the targeting of their marketing messages right. Email marketing is ubiquitous and millions of messages will simply go unread or be blocked by spam filters - particularly as a result of poor email design. This means the data used for your mailshots needs to be high quality. It is no use going into 2012, spamming potential clients and customers from lists that have out-of-date information on them. Businesses will need to start using their B2B marketing data lists more intelligently if they are to boost email penetration rates.

Secondly  there is the design. Many messages are deleted because they don't display properly or cause inboxes to malfunction. Email design will continue to be a hugely important factor when it comes to business to business marketing. With the rise of mobile technologies you must also consider smaller screen resolutions if you intend to run  mobile email marketing campaigns.

Read more here...

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This a busy time of the year at ListEngage as we undertake lots of e-marketing activity on behalf of our clients — but as 2011 comes to a close we want to extend our warm thoughts of gratitude and holiday cheer to all of you who make our work worthwhile.

ListEngage, an interactive marketing agency based in Framingham, is seeking a technology-driven specialist to implement large scale email marketing campaigns. Applicants should have at least 6 months experience with a major Email Service Provider, preferably ExactTarget. This role will help onboard new clients onto the ExactTarget email marketing platform and will involve a complex understanding of data management, automated programs, and 3^rd party SaaS applications.

The ideal candidate will have:

· In depth knowledge of Email Marketing and SaaS platforms including automating programs, creating triggered emails, managing data.

· Proven track record of working with large teams to provision and implementation email marketing software.

· Working knowledge of HTML beneficial. Experience with SQL and relational data is a plus.

· Ability to manage multiple projects at a time and demonstrate great time management skills.

· Excellent problem solving skills coupled with great interpersonal skills (verbal and written) and an ability to explain complex technological projects to marketing and non-technical teams.

· A team-player attitude and a willingness to take on projects that land in lap and may not always fit your standard “job description”

· Experience with API programming, and/or programming languages (MS.NET, JAVA, PHP) is welcomed, but not necessary.

Candidates with experience with ExactTarget will be given special consideration, however, candidates with other ESP experience (Cheetah Mail, Silver Pop, Constant Contact, Responsys, Vertical Response, etc.) and candidates with a web/technological knowledge and an enthusiasm to learn and adopt the appropriate skill set in “record time” should not hesitate to apply.

Will consider remote candidates if extremely well-qualified.

What should you do to apply?
Please provide cover letter, resume, references, and salary requirements to: jobs@listengage.com position will be considered on a rolling basis.

Want to connect and learn more about us?
Follow us on Twitter @ListEngage
Become a fan on Facebook.com/ListEngage
Read our blog (ListEngage Blog)

Image: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Earlier this fall I was invited to speak on a panel at ExactTarget's Connections 2011 User Conference entitled "Bridging the Divide: Internationalizing Your Marketing Efforts" where I presented a case study of how ListEngage has helped Parametric corporation with their monthly international email sending needs in 9 different languages and solved some specific challenges. Collectively the panelists offered some great insights. Charlie McAtee from ExactTarget summarized them well. Here they are:
Thanks to Charlie for his insight and great breakdown of the session! Have an email dilemma of international proportions? Email us and we'll share our thoughts.

This past September the ListEngage team traveled to Indianapolis to be part of one the largest interactive marketing conferences in the world - ExactTarget's "Connections 2011" user conference. The event was host to email and digital marketers from around the globe and touched upon online marketing techniques, email campaign tips, social media marketing and B2B marketing.

Thanks to a tip from AdWeek and our friends over at HubSpot we’ve got some dirt on a feature on LinkedIn that we’d really been wondering about: LinkedIn’s “Follow Company” feature. Up until now this hard to find, and fairly uninspired feature allowed individual LinkedIn users to “Follow” a company. As a user you could “follow”, and see who else was following a specific company, but there was very little (if any) other functionality. It wasn't exactly the most effective online marketing tool for business, but we knew there had to be something else behind it.

Now, it seems that not only have LinkedIn execs touted the “Follow Company” functionality as the next wave of LinkedIn’s customer engagement but LinkedIn officials are warning companies to get their follower base now: “We believe there is a finite number of brands that any single LinkedIn member will follow,” said Mike Gamson, SVP of sales for LinkedInGamson said, adding that he estimates that the number is in the low single digits, or a couple of brands per category. “Right now is the moment of acquisition of a follower base.”

By the way, have you checked us out and followed us on LinkedIn lately? J

It’s the end of August, one of the traditionally slowest months for productivity and growth for many industries — and maybe you found a little dip in your email marketing ROI this summer? All of those “Out of Offices” and clicking latencies are precisely the reason it’s time to restructure your email goals — and plan to hit your targets dead-on once “school’s back in session”.

So this summer, as the dog days dwindle – why not swing back into action with

3 Fool-proof Ways to Deliver Targeted Email Marketing:

Send Emails Based on Attributes: Your “Master List” is a living database of all of your many, and uniquely different subscribers. If you’re a sporting goods store who knows their customers favorite sports you can pre-determine that while Joey the runner from Chicago, IL may want nothing to do with your “Fall Footbal Blowout Sale”, Coach Bill in Plano, TX might be looking for all new padding for his defensive line. By sorting on the “Sports” profile attribute and sending the email to Coach while avoiding Joey, you’ve made one football fanatic ecstatic and saved another customer the grief of deleting another email from his inbox!

Drip Campaigns: Someone shows up on your circuit board website and asks for a quote, but certainly isn’t ready to buy. They leave their name and email, and you send them a series of emails based on what you know about your buying cycle. Day 3 after quote, a handy “What to Consider When Buying Circuit Boards Email”; Day 8 after quote, a reminder email; Day 11 after quote a discount coupon worth 10%; and if they happen to buy somewhere in between the mailings stop.

Dynamic Content: Don’t want to make 50 emails with varying content for the 50 states you send to from your Daily Deal website? With dynamic content, a feature that ListEngage is fully versed in, you can create one email and define what content you want to go into a template based off of what data you have on the subscriber. With dynamic content you can send one email and simultaneously feature the daily “Lobster Roll Deal” in Boston and the daily “Wine Tasting Deal” in San Francisco! It’s easy enough to pull together and a tremendous time-saver that delivers targeted results.

Can you think of other ways that have helped your business target your subscribers? Do you have a targeting problem you think ListEngage could help you with? Send us a note and let us know!

My friend Joel Book is a very smart guy. As the (handsome) face of ExactTarget, he often has some great research, products, and ideas to share. In a recent article on the ExactTarget blog, he shared the need for marketers to be able to view all of their cross-channel integrations in one, real-time manner and dropped some great marketing 2.0 nuggets in there as well.

Joel’s Article: Effective Customer Engagement Means Real-Time, Cross Channel Service
Marketers have long relied on multiple channels to drive engagement, but today marketing requires a new approach – one built on a single view of the customer that values real-time interaction over static channel-focused campaigns. The antiquated one-to-many monologue of mass marketing has given way to the one-to-one digital dialogue of engagement marketing that is fueled by customer data and enabled by interactive marketing technology.

In “The Age of the Individual,” the most successful marketers are using a carefully integrated mix of Email, Mobile, Social media to attract, engage and retain customers. This “triangle offense” strategy is enabling brands like Scotts Miracle-Gro, Belk, and Papa John’s to accelerate their ability to engage customers in real-time and dramatically improve marketing and sales performance.

From “Campaign Management” to “Interaction Management”

The days of the “single-channel” customer are gone and they’re not coming back. Today’s customer interacts with a brand through multiple online and offline channels. Every conversation, every interaction a customer has with a brand – whether it occurs face-to-face, through Email, on the phone, on the website, on Twitter, on Facebook, or SMS – shapes the customer’s opinion and influences how he or she talks about the brand.

When these channels operate independently – instead of cohesively as one – messages often conflict, offers are not consistent, and the customer’s perception is that the brand is dysfunctional and totally unprepared to anticipate and respond to his or her needs. Not exactly a positive brand experience.

On the flipside however, when a brand creates a single database of knowledge about that customer and uses it to deliver consistent messages and timely offers across multiple channels, the customer’s brand experience is quite different.

This is the fundamental difference between “Campaign Management” and “Interaction Management.”

Customer Data is an Asset. Manage it Accordingly.

A company’s customer base should be managed like an investment portfolio, and like a good investment advisor, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all share responsibility for maximizing the performance of that portfolio. And that requires a single source of reliable customer data that fuels the operations of each department.

That’s why it’s so important to manage information about each and every customer interaction in a shared business system that all customer-facing employees can access and use to communicate with and serve the customer. This way, the customer is treated correctly and consistently because Marketing, Sales and Customer Service are all aware of his or her needs and interests, previous purchases, and value.

Not only does this single view of the customer make it easier for employees to make smarter marketing decisions and interact with customers more effectively, it also creates a better experience for the consumer. Integrating cross-channel data in a single database creates an invaluable corporate asset, and accelerates the ability to interact more effectively with individual customers in real-time.

Serving has become the New Selling

To truly serve customers better, companies must learn to market to a “segment of one” because today’s customer wants more control over the content that is being delivered through Email, Mobile, Social Media and Website channels.

No longer is it appropriate or acceptable to guess what information or offers the customer wants – in fact it is destructive to the customer relationship. The recent Subscribers, Fans & Followers research conducted by ExactTarget revealed that 90% of consumers unsubscribe, unfan, or unfollow when the communication received from brands is too frequent or the content is irrelevant.

In the “Age of the Individual” consumers expect to be served, not sold. When companies make the commitment to understanding individual customer needs and interests, and using that insight to deliver content that is timely, relevant and useful, they not only sell more, they create a community of “brand advocates” who become some of the company’s most effective marketers.

Read More of Joel’s Insight on the ExactTarget Blog

image: ExactTarget blog

ListEngage is seeking a technology-driven software developer with at least 6 months experience working with an Email Service Provider, preferably ExactTarget. This role will help on-board new clients onto the ExactTarget platform and/or will facilitate projects that enhance already established ExactTarget accounts.

The ideal candidate will have:

• In depth knowledge of Email Marketing and SaaS platforms including automating programs, creating triggered emails, and managing data (or demonstrate a desire and willingness to learn quickly).

• Solid experience with programming languages (MS.NET, JAVA, PHP)

• Experience with API programming

• Experience with SQL and relational data

• Front-End web development (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQuery, etc) a plus.

• Ability to manage multiple projects at a time and demonstrate great time management skills.

• Great interpersonal skills (verbal and written) and must be able to explain complex technological projects to marketing and non-technical teams.

• A team-player attitude and a willingness to take on projects that land in lap and may not always fit your standard “job description”

Candidates with experience with ExactTarget will be given special consideration, however, candidates with other ESP experience (Cheetah Mail, Silver Pop, Constant Contact, Responsys, Vertical Response, etc.) and candidates with a web/technological knowledge and an enthusiasm to learn and adopt the appropriate skill set in “record time” should not hesitate to apply.

Will consider remote candidates if extremely well-qualified.

What should you do to apply?
Please provide cover letter, resume, references, and salary requirements to: jobs@listengage.com by 8/26/11 – although position will be considered on a rolling basis.

Want to connect and learn more about us?
Follow us on Twitter @ListEngage
Become a fan on Facebook.com/ListEngage
Read our blog (ListEngage Blog)

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In the past few months, we have been witness to a major social (and worldwide) paradigm shift. Hi-tech communications and more nimble forms of messaging are allowing people to convey info at unprecedented speeds, and almost limitlessly via cell phones, twitter, facebook – and now one more establishment has been rocked (in a good way) by this.

9-1-1 will soon be taking your texts.

According to a recent article on Mashable.com – the 911 Emergency Response system will soon be rolling out plans to receive images, texts, and videos to help facilitate communication in any emergency and to help emergency responders get information and arrive on scene faster.

With social media, smart phones, and other technologies lending a hand in getting the word out fast for causes good (the “Arab Spring” demonstrations this year, earthquake/tsunami disaster relief in Japan) and bad alike (the current riots in London) – it will be great for our emergency responders to be armed with one more (social) weapon.

Read the Mashable article here.

Every year you take part in plenty of annual events to ensure your health and well-being: you go for your yearly check-up, you participate in yearly performance reviews at work, and maybe you even recharge your life with some New Year’s Resolutions in January.

If you think about it, a lot of your annual routines are about assessment and renewal – so when was the last time you stopped to assess your email marketing initiatives? Maybe it’s time to mark the start of summer as your annual “Email Marketing Check-Up”… a lot can change in just one year, after all.

Some things to consider when assessing your current email marketing plans:

1. Does your email marketing platform offer you exactly what you are looking for? Not just batch and blast capabilities but dynamic content, triggered emails, advanced marketing automation capabilities.

2. What is your current CPM rate, and could it be better? This alone can save you thousands of dollars annually.

3. Does your best of breed email marketing platform integrate with your CRM software or are you still operating in silos?

4. Does your email marketing system tie into social; or is this just another missing link?

The only problem with considering these questions and others is that the answers aren’t always that straightforward – and sometimes you need an email expert in the first place just to decode the jargon that you’re looking at.

Well guess what, we are email experts and we would love to help you! Go ahead and call us: run your current email marketing program by us, and we’ll offer unbiased insight into what you could be doing better, or where you could possibly improve sales, automated interactions, or strategy. We know that not everyone needs dramatic changes to their programs, or that maybe now might not be the best time for a change – but we’ll certainly share our years of industry expertise and knowledge on specific steps your company can take to improve your e-marketing initiatives and eventually your bottom-line. Just reply here, and let’s plan a time to talk.

Earlier this month, I read an article about Research in Motion, or RIM as most people know it – the company that designs and manufactures the Blackberry brand of smartphones and tablets… and the guys who used to be the leaders in the booming world of mobile devices. The article was entitled “The Real Reason There Was No Email on the BlackBerry PlayBook” and it made me stop to take a look, since I used to be an avid Blackberry user. The gist of the article, and the huge underlying issue for Blackberry – is that they designed a product that won’t let them use an email address on more than one device. They’ve seemingly backed themselves into a corner.

Back when Blackberry first designed their operating system for mobile devices, the Blackberry team could not begin to fathom a day when a user would want or need to access their email from more than one mobile device, ever… and that is how they set up their operating system architecture. 1 email user = 1 device. No room for add-ons.

Now, I’m not saying that I would have been any better at projecting that users would want to access anything from multiple mobile devices, let along native email… but then again I’m not a smartphone manufacturer, I’m an emarketer so my radar is pointed in a whole different direction. Either way, I still think there’s a lesson to be learned here:

Technology moves fast, and it doesn’t help that it’s cyclical – technology pushes consumers to want new technologies and devices, and the consumers push back with new wants and desires that push technology further forward. Within this, we’ve seen many companies thrive and many more rise to the top and then give up the lead due to some “minor detail” that turned out to be a pretty major one.

Though it’s impossible to tell what the “minor detail” may end up being, I think it’s important to learn from the companies that keep evolving versus the companies that may internally resist the evolution revolution. It seems to me that the companies that grow the best listen to all ideas and allow many to contribute, they reinvent themselves the fastest, and they don’t spend time trying to resuscitate ideas-gone-bad.

Though I don’t know for sure what will happen with RIM/Blackberry, I can say that their problem really made me stop and think: How could they have seen this sooner? What could they have done differently?

Maybe those questions are too hard to answer yet, but the lesson that we are watching unfold with RIM is intrinsically tied to all business: adapt and evolve.

Let’s see how they react, and learn from their next moves.

Full story on Blackberry Playbook, and its missing native email support.

Just walk down a crowded side walk at rush hour – and try not to bump into someone posting Facebook updates on their iPhone, checking in at the train station, or tweeting about work that day. It doesn’t take a super-sleuth to see that Americans are using their mobile devices more than ever to browse the web, check email, and update on social networks. But, the actual percentage of increase in mobile browsing from last year to this year – 45.7% to nearly 64 million users in total – is pretty mind blowing.

Within that growth, social media is posting up the most impressive statistics; it had the highest growth recorded in any user category. According to a recent study by comScore Mobile Lens, the number of users who accessed social media sites via mobile device “almost daily” increased more than 70% Year over Year as of March 2011.

So what does this phenomenon mean for mobile web users, and what sort of ripple effect will it have on industries that rely on these users? In the short term, it means more advertisers will start venturing into mobile where they can find new audiences, our data providers will likely have to invest double-time (and hopefully not charge double) in these new networks and, of course, you might have to pay a little more attention to all of those crazy new mobile browsers and updaters who have been let loose on the crowded sidewalks!

It’s always great to get “press” but when 2010′s #1 Most Influential Person in Sales Lead Management, Mac McIntosh looks to you for advice, tips, and insight — and then shares your thoughts on his blog, well, then that’s just awesome!

Recently, Mac approached me to give my Top 3 Tips for Email in this modern age of emarketing, social media, and new media. You can read my responses, here on his blog: http://www.sales-lead-insights.com/2011/b2b-email-tips/

Do you have any additional thoughts that you would add? Have you found these to be true, or do you have other “tried and true” secrets you’re willing to share? Let us know, and I hope that this post can be a resource to you as you plan out your email and online marketing efforts now, and in the future.

Thanks,

Altaf

To learn more about Mac McIntosh, visit his website here.