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Stewart Friedman has over 22 years experience in sales and marketing, so when he talks about the e-mail service provider industry, in which he’s owned and operated his own business and held several top-level positions, well, you probably want to listen.

And we’re in luck: He’s offering three golden tips on mobile e-mail marketing.

Watch your design. If you want responses from mobile e-mail, Friedman says, well, design your email for mobile viewing.  All those heavy graphics look great on desktop or laptops, but mobile users detest them. Go big on the quick-loading text messages. Yeah, some graphics are okay, they’re fun in moderation and can be an integral part of the message. But bear in mind all the hours of your life you’ve spent waiting for irrelevant graphics to load, and think to yourself “Am I delighting my customer when I inflict that on her?”

As TMC’s (News - Alert) Jacqueline Lee wrote last week, “Regina Gray, vice president of strategic services for Experian CheetahMail, says that the key is to understand what customers want” is to “ensure that the most important message of the email is front and center and still able to be seen even if images are not displayed” in e-mail campaigns. Amen. Nobody wants time-intensive graphics, no matter how cool they look in design.

Pay attention to the “from” line. “Take a look at the email on your phone.  What element is the most prominent element when viewing each individual e-mail?” Friedman asks. That’s right -- the “from” line. So why are you fixated on the subject line? This isn’t Gmail on a desktop box here, friends.  As Friedman notes, “with mobile e-mail the ‘from’ line can be as important.” That means having one that is recognized and trusted by the recipient. Oh, and as Friedman says, blindly repeating what the from line in the subject line qualifies as a first-class waste of valuable real estate.

By the way, when it comes to the subject line, Lee writes “Customers want to be known. Simply using the customer’s first name in an e-mail subject line from time to time, for instance, may increase the open rate.”

And finally, is the e-mail as attractive as you can make it? Not too many graphics? Good. Because as Friedman warns, “many email recipients are using mobile e-mail to screen their e-mails, or preview them.” You know this -- you do it too. Would you delete your own marketing e-mail? Why wouldn’t someone else? To make that mobile e-mail “as appealing as possible,” Friedman advises, put the offer, product or time-sensitive call to action as far forward as possible.