Inbox Marketer News: November 2009 Best Practices in Strategic Online Marketing ********************* What 2009 Taught Us About 2010 By Lauren Amundsen U got 2 ♥ mobile. In 2009, smart e-marketers learned that bringing social media into email was a great way to increase new viewers; it's like email subscribers posting your newsletter on their virtual bulletin board. The plain truth: everyone is on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and everyone has a cell phone. More than 65 million Facebook users access the site via a mobile device 1, while in January 2009 alone, 735 000 unique mobile visitors visited Twitter 2. Users are also relying on their mobile devices to read and send email. Mobile ad spending in 2010 will top $593 million 3, so keep in mind that the rest of the industry is catching on to this venue. For the year ahead, integrate the three pieces - email, social, mobile. Make sure that your emails are mobile-friendly and always contain a "share to social" button. Move over paper coupons. Fast, easy to use, and almost impossible to lose, mobile coupons take the best of tech-savvy consumerism (attachment to mobile devices) and pair it with today's recession-conscious spending habits. Mobile coupons can be used for virtually any good or service, and they're successful - in fact, mobile coupons are redeemed upwards of six times as often as paper coupons 4, the latter often being lost before customers can use them. A mobile coupon can be targeted to a user's exact location and even timed to expire at a set time. Look for an increase in these little digital treats in 2010 as more and more customers rely on mobile coupons. Everyone has an opinion. Although they're a mainstay for many mail-outs, those "do-not-reply" lines on some email newsletters can rub some readers the wrong way. Your customers are used to texting, tweeting, and Facebooking every opinion and review they have, and these opinions - shared with endless social networks - count for something. Online word-of-mouth has been said to account for the massive financial success of many otherwise unremarkable movies 5 throughout 2009, because people like being able to change via their online activities. For e-marketers, this means allowing readers to give feedback. Telling them that they literally cannot reply to your email is akin to telling them you don't care about their opinion; newsletters should always include a clear and easy method for readers to reach you. 2010 is just around the corner, and with it comes a set of new challenges and possibilities for e-marketers. It's the beginning of a new decade - in fact, it's been referred to as "the decade of digital devices." People love their mobile devices, and they love getting things done with them: paying bills, downloading music, reading movie reviews, and connecting with friends. As mobile devices and smartphones become more affordable and the customer base grows, the possibilities in 2010 for marketers will grow too. Visit mobimarketer.com for more mobile marketing news. 1 Source: Facebook 2 Source: Nielsen Wire. 3 Source: E-marketer; Figures are in US Dollars 4 Source: Juniper Research, as reported by Mobile Wire. 5 Source: CNN