The world is quickly spinning into one that only has mobile devices. Don't allow your intriguing email marketing campaigns to get lost in some junk folder. Instead, look to the future and adjust the way you are interacting with your email marketing list.
Before You Begin
Do some research on your subscriber list for your email marketing campaigns. Analyze the data collected on what type of device your subscriber typically uses to view your emails.
Segregate your list into two categories and design for each. Design one strictly for subscribers viewing your email on their mobile devices and the other that is flexible, depending on what device (mobile or computer) they are looking at your email.
After each campaign, distill your information down so that you have a more accurate picture of who is looking at your email through what type of device. Not only does this increase your chance of opens, but also subscriber response and action. Take time to learn their viewing habits.
Understand the Device
Virtually all mobile devices are equipped with clumsy keyboards with even clumsier fingers operating them. Design your email to ensure that it's easy to navigate through your email without much "clumsiness."
What does that mean?
If you do include a "call to action," whether it is a promotional code, coupon or link, ensure that it's big and easy to tap on.
Also, just like a computer's email preview page, many mobile devices are optimized for minimal viewing of emails. So, ensure that your main message is clear and visible in the first two sentences of your email. Oh, and don't forget to have an intriguing subject line. For some inspiration, check out our latest blog.
Design Layout
Unlike your email marketing campaigns, mobile email campaigns are a different beast. Sure, with your email marketing campaigns, you can have a multi-layered, multi-paned design. But, with mobile devices, keeping to one pane is a best practice.
One pane and one panel ensures that your information is easily viewed and even easier to act upon. Having a sidebar only scrunches your information into teeny-tiny bits, rendering it unreadable to most views. If your subscribers have to increase the visibility of their email, then you're already in trouble.
Clear, simple and easy to navigate.
Links
So you have designed a giant button that allows your subscribers to easily jump to your landing page. Have you considered how your landing page looks on a mobile device?
If you haven't already noticed, most, if not all, websites have a little toggle button that allows views to switch between the "mobile only" site and the "regular site." Don't do this. Since you're already targeting mobile device users, make sure that any link and any landing page is suitable and designed for mobile viewing.
Social Media
Chances are, your users already have applications (apps) for their favorite social media site, albeit Facebook or Twitter. Why not incorporate that usability directly into your email marketing campaign?
Connect directly to the major mobile apps for Facebook and Twitter (to begin with) and ensure that if your subscriber clicks on the icon embedded in your email, that it goes directly to their mobile device application. The concern is here that if you just have a link to Facebook or Twitter that it will load directly to the web-only site, rather than the subscriber's personal log-in.
Have you tried adjusting your email marketing campaigns to make them more mobile friendly? If so, what results have you found since?
