Comparing Mobile E-Mail Marketing Methods

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The Essentials of Building Your E-Mail Marketing Lists

Think of e-mail marketing as one of many forms of mobile communication. Each of these many methods has advantages and disadvantages. This table compares the main forms of mobile communication so you can understand where mobile e-mail fits into your strategy:

E-Mail Compared with Other Forms of Mobile Communication

	Mobile E-Mail	Text Messages (SMS or MMS)	Social Media	Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Delivery Options	Mass delivery to private inboxes and one-to-one personalization are possible.	Mass delivery to private inboxes and one-to-one personalization are possible.	Mass delivery is public. Personalized delivery to private inboxes is manual.	Mass delivery is public. Personalization is a challenge because opt-in is often anonymous.
Delivery Rates (% of Messages Delivered Correctly)	E-mail delivered by a good e-mail marketing provider can exceed 97%. Filters and changes to e-mail addresses can degrade deliverability.	Assume 100% delivery. Carriers control opt-in and delivery gateways, so filtering is low. People don’t change mobile phone numbers as often as e-mail addresses.	Mass messages are posted rather than delivered, and anyone can view them. People can easily un-follow and ignore posts.	Mass messages are posted rather than delivered, and anyone with an RSS reader can view them. People can easily unsubscribe and ignore posts.
Audience	Almost everyone uses e-mail, and people can easily make the transition from reading e-mail on a computer to reading e-mail on a mobile phone.	Usage is increasing rapidly for users older than 30, and text messaging is a standard for most people younger than 25. More than 95% of phones on the market can send and receive text messages.	Once popular only with young audiences, social media usage is now widespread. Few people, however, consider social media to be their primary form of communication.	Fewer than 15% of consumers realize they use RSS*, but the technology is used to enable many familiar blogging functions like feeding a blog post to other Web sites or posting someone else’s content to your own blog or social media page.
Building a List	Obtaining e-mail addresses and permission is required. Confirmed opt-in is not required, but it’s still a good idea.	Obtaining mobile phone numbers and permission is required. Confirmed opt-in is required by all the carriers.	Obtaining personal contact information is not required. Permission is inherent in the decision to follow your messages.	Obtaining personal contact information is not required. Permission is inherent in the decision to follow your messages.
Formatting	Nearly unlimited text and graphic designs are possible. A variety of links and images can be included.	Text limited to 160 characters and graphic design limited to images. Links are subject to character limits.	Text limited on some sites, such as Twitter. Limited graphic design. Links to files and downloads are limited.	Text and graphic design are limited unless the reader clicks through to the source of the feed. Links to files and downloads are limited or not included.
Cost	E-mail service provider recommended. Flat-rate and per-message plans are available at fractions of pennies per message.	Service provider required. Per-message plans start at around $0.10 per message and go lower based on volume.	Going direct to each social media site is free. The service provider is required to manage multiple sites and audiences. Costs are minimal.	Service provider or programming skills are required. Most services are free or very low cost.

* According to a ClickZ report

E-mail is perfect for sending highly personalized, targeted, private, and interest-specific messages to a large number of people at once. You can include links to files, mobile web pages, and other content, and you can control your brand identity with colors, images, and text formatting. You can also deliver e-mail to personal inboxes on a mass scale. This means you can reach a lot of people efficiently, and your recipients are more likely to pay attention to your e-mails because they sit in an inbox until they're opened or deleted.

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