Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. digital marketing lead Kip Edwardson said mobile marketing offers several advantages, notably that it's "immediate." Suggestions: With apps, it is critical to personalize the content and "optimize the site for mobile, especially with HTML5." Also, mobile phones offer a cone of privacy, so "by all means, you have to respect that privacy." Moving to Twitter, Edwardson was to the point: "I don't like Twitter." At Scotts, it's used more as a customer service tool. The customer service team manages the Twitter presence and uses it to answer customer questions and a lot of times suggests a customer …

In the opening keynote at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit Thursday, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. digital marketing lead Kip Edwardson said the company has grown its email list by close to 20,000 through an iOS app given to store reps throughout the South, allowing them to can sign people up swiftly. The program involved the IT, marketing and other departments to create a simple Web page optimized for mobile facilitating the service. Email marketers increasingly are looking for innovative ways to grow lists at the point of retail.

In the opening keynote at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit Thursday, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. digital marketing lead Kip Edwardson said "when you can impact consumers in the way that they can do the marketing for you" -- whether posting photos or other involvement -- that's immensely powerful and email can propel that. Certainly, in the case of Scotts, there is ample opportunity with people posting photos of pristine lawns. Edwardson challenged the continuing perception that email marketers sort of spray and pray: "Email marketers don't blast anything, I can't stand it when people in our company come to us and …

Trendline Interactive CEO Morgan Stewart, the MediaPost Email Insider Summit programming chair, began the event by saying he feels there's been a shift where email marketing is "kind of cool again," which was a shock to him because "I didn''t know I was retro and turning out to be cool again." "This debate -- is email dead? -- I think we can officially call it dead," he added. Of course, in the age of fragmentation challenges remain as far as integrating social media and other tactics into the email arena.

There is immense excitement building for the keynote address at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit Thursday by Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. digital marketing lead Kip Edwardson. It's always great when Scotts comes out of its winter marketing hiatus and begins with its spring push. It's a rite of spring and a particular welcome sign that the baseball season is coming. The company is the official lawn care company of Major League Baseball and has relationships with individual teams such as the Yankees and Red Sox. Its ads also appear on Fox and other MLB broadcasts.

A StrongMail executive said four biggest challenges emerged in research for email marketers for 2012: Data Integration Resources and Staff Content Management Deliverability Comments were made Thursday at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit.

At a sponsored presentation, a pair of StrongMail executives began with a story regarding Albert Einstein, who as a professor gave a single test each semester, which offered the same questions An assistant after a few years wondered what the point was. Einstein's response: "You're right, the questions don't change. It's the answers that have." That's the same in the ever-evolving email space, an executive at the ESP said. Comments were made Thursday at the MediaPost Email Insider Summit.

To promote the relaunch of Brides Magazine, the publication has kicked off a campaign called “We Love It” that includes a specialized mobile app and mobile-activated print component. The “We Love It’ companion app for Android and iOS allows users to scan pages in the May issue of Brides containing digital watermarks for various sponsors including DeBeers, Cuisinart, OPI, Clarisonic, Waterford, and The Container Store. Scanning the watermarks powered by Digimarc gives users access to videos, coupons, sweepstakes contests and the ability to purchase products directly. The offers include three grand prizes totaling more than $100,000 in value for readers …

Google was again the top Web property in March, with nearly 190 million unique visitors in March, up slightly from about 187 million in February. The latest data from comScore showed a familiar lineup trailing the search giant, with Microsoft second, with almost 179 million visitors, Yahoo (175 million), Facebook (159 million) and AOL (110 million). The only significant change among the top 10 was Glam Media, which fell from No. 8 to No. 12 on the list after seeing its audience contract from 86.7 million to 78.3 million last month. That total is also down from 90 million …

Google was again the top Web property in March, with nearly 190 million unique visitors in March, up slightly from about 187 million in February. The latest data from comScore showed a familiar lineup trailing the search giant, with Microsoft second, with almost 179 million visitors, Yahoo (175 million), Facebook (159 million) and AOL (110 million). The only significant change among the top 10 was Glam Media, which fell from No. 8 to No. 12 on the list after seeing its audience contract from 86.7 million to 78.3 million last month. That total is also down from 90 million …