Marketers Preview Rendering for More Effective Mobile Email Campaigns

INDIANAPOLIS, IN—February 1, 2008—ExactTarget, a leading provider of on-demand, email and one-to-one marketing solutions, today announced the availability of its Mobile Email Optimization Solution. The technology enables marketers to preview the rendering, links and image display of messages on multiple mobile devices before sending as part of an email marketing campaign.

No longer reserved for the business elite, consumers around the world rate email as one of their top two must-have’s on their mobile devices. In fact, according to industry analysts, the increasing availability of smarter and less expensive phones will result in a phenomenal 1600 percent growth rate in the number of business and consumer users with access to mobile email over the next three years.

Unlike SMS and MMS messaging, mobile email does not carry hefty per message charges for the sender. Other benefits include quicker execution and deployment from existing email systems, making it an appealing medium for marketers. Yet email rendering concerns and the variety of mobile devices available on the market today, paired with disparate software and carriers have left many marketers wondering how to capitalize on this opportunity while protecting the look and branding of their emails.

In partnership with longtime partner Pivotal Veracity, ExactTarget’s solution is enhanced with a host of critical features for mobile email including:

• The ability to view how the email renders for over 85 percent of the global mobile market—in addition to support for all major mobile operating systems, including BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and others, clients are able to view their emails in mobile phones from all leading U.S. and international carriers and manufacturers, with or without images and in varying screen sizes.
• Mobile readiness scoring and validation for emails, landing pages and websites—to address the limited web browsing capabilities of mobile phones, the solution uses a combination of W3C HTML and mobile standards to assess and score the digital asset, identifying both technical and best-practice issues, and provide detailed instructions on what changes are required to maximize the mobile user’s experience.
• Size, link and image checking—in addition to verifying the functionality of all links and images, the size of the email (both with and without downloaded images) is assessed with real-time recommendations when the size exceeds best practice mobile email thresholds or will result in a costly and timely user experience.
• In-depth insider guides on the capabilities of mobile email readers with exclusive tips on what works and what doesn’t.
  

“Our new mobile email solution furthers ExactTarget’s leadership in helping organizations execute on their mobile messaging campaigns,” said Chip House, vice president of marketing services at ExactTarget. ”The face of email marketing has changed dramatically in the last few years. Now, this new mobile messaging optimization tool enables marketers to preview how their emails render on mobile devices allowing them to engage with consumers in a new, on-the-go capacity more confidently and effectively than ever before.”

“ExactTarget’s 2007 whitepaper entitled Email Marketing for the Third Screen, provided marketers with the best insight to date into the ways to best leverage emerging mobile technologies via email and SMS messaging,” said Deirdre Baird, CEO of Pivotal Veracity. “Together, we intend to make the elusive industry promise of integrated multi-channel communications a reality—today’s announcement is a giant leap in that direction.”

About ExactTarget
ExactTarget, Inc. is a leading provider of on-demand email marketing software solutions. The company’s suite of on-demand one-to-one marketing applications enable clients to send business-critical and event triggered communications to increase sales, optimize marketing investments and strengthen customer relationships. ExactTarget offers four editions of its on-demand software application along with integrated solutions such as ExactTarget for AppExchange and ExactTarget for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. ExactTarget offers a range of optimization services including support, implementation and training, integration, deliverability, account management, design and deployment and strategic consulting. ExactTarget’s software powers permission-based email communications for thousands of organizations including Careerbuilder.com, Expedia.com, Florida Power & Light, Gannett Co., Inc/USA TODAY, the Indianapolis Colts, The Home Depot, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Liberty Mutual Group, Papa John’s and Wellpoint, Inc. For more information, please visit www.exacttarget.com or call 1-866-EMAILET.

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Becky Caudill
SHIFT Communications
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