Note to self: Throw that pair of socks away!  The pair, one of which has a rotten great hole in the heel!

If you are like me, you probably do silly things over and over again, get the same silly result each time but fail to rectify the situation, and so, your perpetuating scenario (whatever it is for you) keeps, perpetuating!

For me it’s the joy of finding a would-be clean and favourite pair of socks in the draw, unravelling them from their neat ball, only to find that one of them has, you guessed it; a hole in the heel! Do I put them in the bin? Not on your life, I roll them up and put them back in the draw! Why? I hear you ask – I can’t really tell you, but boy is it annoying!

Another question you are probably asking right now is: what the hell has a holey sock got to with e-mail marketing? If you are involved in any way with marketing and sending direct mail, and more specifically e-mail, then I have a question for you – if you know that at least 25% of the e-mail you send is opened on mobile phones, why can’t you send out mailers that are readable on mobile phones?

I guess there are only so many reasons, but the net result is that one out of every four e-mail mailers you send out will be opened on a mobile and simply deleted – but like the hole in the sock syndrome, you can’t seem to stop it!

The definition of madness is apparently doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result – I would say that there is something of more madness! And that’s paying for the same thing over and over, which under delivers by at least one quarter and not do anything about it! And madder still is the fact that mobile provides a stack of extra opportunities to get your campaigns more targeted, update databases with more information about the recipient and engage customers on a one-to-one basis and not tap into this power!

I’m not an e-mail marketing specialist, but I know that I get deluged with marketing e-mails – if the companies that sent them sent 75% fewer e-mails but made the perfectly optimised for every type of mobile device, two amazing things would happen: 99% of their e-mails would get read, and all of us would be freed from the curse of a spammed inbox.

Unlike my “hole in the sock”  I’m guessing that the reason for un-mobile optimised e-mail campaigns is not in fact madness but education – the technology is here to achieve amazing results with fully optimised HTML content rich mobile email. Demand it from your e-mail or marketing company and don’t be fobbed off with excuses that “it’s not possible”

In the second of our series of webinars in association with Alterian, Philip explores direct marketing and mobile.  He shows the importance of managing customer interaction across multiple channels and goes through the advantages of mobile optimizing your email campaign.

Enjoy…