It’s easy for people who have been in marketing a long time, especially digital marketing, to make claims that mobile marketing is a waste of time. MobileStorm CEO Jared Reitzen put up a passionate post earlier this week confronting the prejudice against mobile marketing among e-mail marketers.

One of the biggest problems with email marketing is the turnover rate of email addresses. Within one year 33% of email addresses in your campaign list are no longer valid. Cell phone numbers have a far lower turnover rate, and most people keep their cell phone number for life. With virtually no delivery issues and 95% of cell phones SMS enabled, getting the message in front of eyeballs is much easier via mobile than an email campaign.

He concludes that the biggest hindrance to mobile marketing is the opposition from e-mail marketers, who are bitter about problems with email marketing and don’t understand how mobile marketing differs from email.

“I speak with prospects all the time that won’t try mobile because they feel their customers will get upset,” writes Reitzen. He points out that mobile marketing can equal a “horrible user experience if not executed properly.”

The if, though, is the key. You do have to be careful because, yes, users can get pissed off at your brand if you are sending them SPAM. But if they’ve opted in to your campaign and you are sending them useful messages, mobile marketing, especially SMS marketing, can yield great ROI. Much better than email marketing.

Reitzen points out some useful tips:

• Your first approach to a mobile strategy should be to offer something only available via the mobile phone.
• The incentive should be good and be the only place your customer can take you up on your offer.
• All mobile clubs should have a double opt in so you cannot sign up anyone but yourself. The subscriber takes the action of responding with a “YES.”
• Make sure when you are opting people into your database, you not only get them to respond “YES” to join, but you manage their expectations with the types of messages they will get, how often they will get them, and how they can opt out.