Apps and Email, Together at Last

This integration seems likely to help increase the likelihood that what's inside that email is interesting to the reader.

Image: Winui / Shutterstock

Small-business marketing firm Constant Contact and its half-million clients have joined forces with Magmito, a cross-platform mobile content developer, and its more than 15,000 users to create an integrated system allowing small businesses to create mobile apps that promote their businesses and create an email marketing campaign to promote that app with its unique QR Code.

“More and more small businesses are connecting with customers through social media and email marketing, and mobile engagement is the next new frontier for them,” said Kevin O’Brien, director of the AppConnect Program for Constant Contact. “Today’s consumers are relying on their mobile devices more and more to find information.

Constant Contact customers can create Magmito apps ranging from product promotions to weekly specials and more, using Magmito’s Web interface. Apps can include text, images, video, maps, RSS feeds, and other features such as click-to-call.

Once a business is ready to publish its app, the developer navigates to the Promote tab, clicks Email, selects the Constant Contact option, and logs in to their Constant Contact account.

The email campaign is automatically generated featuring the app’s unique QR Code, which they can further customize and send to their lists—all within minutes. Constant Contact customers can also use Magmito’s existing distribution points, including SMS, social media, and select app stores to connect with their clients.

In December, Porfolio.com marketing expert Shama Kabani forecast a big year for email marketing in 2012.

In her article, she described the evolving email market:

It gets harder because people abuse the tools. There used to be a time when we loved getting email. It was easy to get people to give you their email address because it was a novelty. It was fun. And spammers hadn’t yet ruined it for us all. Today, people still like getting emails. And businesses still see a great benefit in marketing and connecting to their customers using email. What’s changed is the threshold. You have to make sure your emails are relevant, timely, and genuine. Anything less and email marketing certainly won’t be as effective.

With the integration of Constant Contact and Magmito, it seems likely Kabani was correct in her analysis, and by merging app development and email marketing, the two companies seem to hope the recipients of the emails will continue to find the message in their inbox relevant, timely, and genuine.