Sniff Out the Platform You're Mailing to -- Every Time

I've been a bit of a wireless naysayer. (As in 'Don't get too excited, this won't be a major marketing tool for a few years yet.) But today I saw the power of PDAs in action, when I met Jeanne Jennings, Director of eMail product Development for Cahners Business Media for lunch.

As I came running up (late as usual) she was standing at the metro stop with her little Blackberry out, reading the MarketingSherpa issue I had just published! I mean, I hit the publish button, ran out the door and there she is reading it on the street. How fun is that?

Jeanne gave me a great tip to share with you: If you are sending email campaigns to a demographic that's likely to own wireless devices (such as IT pros, teens, and many folks in Europe and Asia), make sure the list service you use automatically sniffs out what platform recipients are reading each different email you send. Because sometimes they might read email at their computer and sometimes on their Palm. If your email "sniffer" program only checks once when people first join a list, it won't be able to adjust to serve text-only when needed. And the LAST thing you want to do is send HTML email to a wireless device such as a Blackberry. It just looks like gobbledegook.

So, even if folks checked the HTML option when they join your list (or rental file) it doesn't mean they can always receive HTML. You gotta check every time.