Designing emails for the iphone

The world of marketing is getting more complex rather than less as each day goes by. New channels, more data and now more devices. All these different size screens (mobile, tablet, desktop) may be great for the user (and Apple’s piggy bank) but its a bit of a disaster for resource constrained marketers.

With that said – this post by the guys over at STYLECampaign will reduce some of your time if you are sending a decent chunk of emails to people who read your email on an iphone.

Some of the things looked at include:

1. understanding zoom and sizing

2. Customising the look and feel of the email by device

3. font scaling

There are 2 parts – read them both in full here and here.

I can see the use of device specific templates being something that will be needed more and more in the future. The trick is going to be to do so in a cost effective way.

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At the end of each year I usually jot down some areas within online marketing that I think are worth keeping a closer eye on the following year and usually easily come up with 3 or 4.

Albeit a bit late posting, 2010 is looking like it will be a year of accelerating change in online marketing.

Here’s some of the areas I am thinking about:

1. Mobile

With the growth of smartphones and in particular the success of the iPhone and Android; 2010 is promising the return of the old guard in the mobile space with Microsoft and Nokia talking about major improvements to their devices so mobile data usage can only continue its acceleration in usage. Add the launch of a tonne of new ereaders; the growth of netbooks and now the launch of the new iPad and it is no wonder that I think mobile is the number one place for innovation in internet marketing in 2010.

Of course, everyone jokes it is always the year of mobile every year so in that sense 2010 is no different. But I don’t remember seeing as much potential in mobile marketing since the launch of mobile data services circa 2003 (though.. umm.. yes that did flop. Big time).

Still, although the answers to mobile marketing are not there yet; ads are being delivered and general usage is growing quickly – Admob released some statistics at the end of last year which illustrate this growth: In September 2007 AdMob had 1.6 billion ad requests, in September 2008 5.1 billion, and in September 2009 10.2 billion.

2. Social Media Marketing
The hottest topic and growth area of them all in 2009 – it is hard to see this juggernaut stopping in 2010. Expect to see some serious advances in metrics and marketing technology in 2010.

3. Video
Having worked in the video ad space for several years before Silverpop this seems like something that has been around for a decade. 2010 might be too soon but expect to see HTML 5 play its role in ads both in email and on the web over time and less flash (which you should not have been using inside emails anyhow right?) .

4. Location
Each year that goes by marketers get hit with more data to deal with online. Did you think it was going to get better in 2010? Not a chance. Real time location data is the latest piece of data to get your head around and deliver better more engaging and relevant messaging. Right now foursquare; Gowalla and MyTown (at least in the US) are leading the way in consumer usage but I expect to see Facebook and Twitter continue to roll out location based technologies integrated into their platforms for a significant increase in both usage and opportunities for marketers to take advantage.

5. Ad Optimisation
Companies like the Rubicon Project are delivering better returns for publishers and better results for advertisers by matching unsold publisher inventory with the right ad all in real time. This type of automation significantly improves the efficiency of buying and selling ads and should deliver better results at the same time.

Some others: Augmented Reality – still a way to go I think. Real time ad testing – with Adobe buying Omniture I fully expect the multi-variate testing capabilities to be integrated into the ads themselves allowing for real time self selection.

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Apple just announced their newest iPhone - the iPhone 3G S and is due to launch on June 19th.

The S stands for Speed supposedly, which feels more Microsoft then Apple in style. No that isn’t a complement. It also seems a bit light on new features if you already have an iPhone as you can download the updated 3.0 software using the latest version of iTunes on June 17th (more instructions here).

If you do that you’ll miss out on a longer battery life, a 3MP camera, hands free voice contol and the ability to record video. The battery life is the same as the previous version when using 3G but is approximately a third longer using WiFi, listening to audio or watching video.

Existing O2 iPhone users are out of luck this time though. Whereas previously there was an option for existing iPhone users to upgrade to the new version by extending the length of their contract to O2, this time the only path to get the new iPhone is to pay out the remainder of your contract.

Most of the comments on Twitter when searching for O2 and iPhone are complaining about this state of affairs.

My take: most people will not pay and Apple could stand to take a hit. If Twitter is anything to go by, O2 is taking a bit of a hit to its brand as well. It is certainly not winning any plaudits

One thing is certain though, when those who bought the iPhone 3G when it launched come to the end of their contract (about 6 months from now) the mobile industry could be a different beast altogether in the UK. There is no Palm Pre today and the Google phone (G1) has been slated for its hardware (though not its software). In the next 6 months though, the Palm Pre should be available in the UK (on either  O2(!) or Vodafone) and there are supposed to be a large number of new Google phones (18+!) hitting the market by the end of the year.

Interesting times in the mobile phone market..

for the ultra geeks amongst you – this guy made his iphone walk!

I love the iPhone – grudgingly of course as it is an Apple product – it really has moved the mobile phone forward and everyone else has been left scrambling to catch up. Both Microsoft and Nokia are seriously struggling. But there are still major gaps.

One of the toughest things for Apple, is that it is trying to target two very different markets: business and consumer. It has had the consumer aspect tied up with its interface, music and phone capabilities (though it needs a better camera). On the business side, the simple support for Microsoft Exchange has helped it to quickly penetrate the business user. The number of iPhones in our office has rocketed and is now the most popular phone in the office – beating Microsoft phones.

But there is a downside – it syncs Email/Calendar/Contacts but does not sync Tasks and Notes (unlike mobile phones which use Windows Mobile).

There are some 3rd party solutions out there:

KeyTasks – Good interface but it does not seem to sync properly and there is no category support.

TaskData – It does not have a great interface and again no category support.

Surprisingly there is no Exchange Notes sync app that I am aware of. There is however a great app out there that provides this funcitonality (without the Exchange Sync). It is called Evernote. It allows you to type out notes, record voice clips, capture photos and even has some basic to do functionality. The only thing it really needs is Exchange sync support – and possibly the ability to record video clips but I guess we are waiting for Apple to support that first.