Making the Most of Mobile – Mobile Email

Having your emails essentially attached to our hips changed how people interact with each other. If we look at where people read email, almost 25% of all emails are now read on a mobile device. Looking at these numbers, desktop reading has been on a decline, webmail reading is also on a decline, but mobile reading has risen exponentially. People are spending a lot more time reading emails on tablet devices, particularly on devices such as the Apple iPad. More people are also using their mobile devices a lot more. They open them a lot more for different needs. Websites now need to make sure that they have a nice format for their emails to make it mobile friendly. You should also give consideration on when people use their devices. In Ian Everdell’s latest webinar, he talked about the emergence of mobile devices and its role in internet marketing.

The Mobile Email Experience

There is an interesting contrast between how people are using mobile email and what they actually think about it. Almost 55% of people check their mobile email at least once a day. But only 25% of them say it is easier to use mobile email rather than on their desktop. There’s a conflict between what people want to do and the actual experience they are getting.

The question now is; How can we increase that to a 100%? How can we make mobile email as easy or easier than it is on desktop. What do people like to get in their inbox? All this information will provide great guidance to what sort of campaign you should be focusing on for your mobile emails. You should also consider what to optimize first to get the best returns. Special offers are the biggest one. There are also e-commerce types such as real time delivery tracking, new products, newsletters and other sorts of categories. You need to work extra hard to get people engaged with these things.

How to Craft Mobile-Friendly Emails

There four tips we can give you and we will go deeper into them, but remember when crafting mobile friendly emails that convert, use:

• Front load the subject line
• Have a single column of text
• Use plain text phone numbers
• Curate your content

Front Loading

By conveying the most important part of the message in the first two or three words, you would be able to instantly capture the attention of the reader. If you look at how people are scanning through the inbox portion, you can see that they are focused on the left side of the screen.

What they actually read in those first 8 to 12 characters of the subject line will let them decide whether they click through and read that email.

Single Column of Text

A single column of text is very important because, as you go to multiple columns, it becomes very difficult to read. And no one would want to scroll through and read your email. In terms of text size, it is important to use a larger font than what you use on a desktop computer. A good sort of baseline font size to start with is around 16 pt; 14 pt or higher for body and 30 pt for headers. If you keep the text to 400 px width or less, it will resize perfectly on a mobile device that is maybe around 3.20 or 4.80 in width.

It is also not advisable to put text in images. As soon as you re-size the images, the text becomes very difficult to read. Technically, these images are very large in size. It will appear very small on a mobile device and it will be very hard to read. As you zoom in to try to read it, it gets very blurry. The other problem with this is if the image does not load, the reader will not get a contact.

Use a Plain Text Phone Number

When crafting an email, you want to make it easy to read. By using a plain text phone number or click to call button, it enables your reader to have easy access in contacting you. You want to have that information on top of your email. Along the same line, you should also have a call to action button. It entices the reader to click your number and phone you. The problem with not putting the number on top is that people have to scroll down to get to it. You need to make sure that this call to action is high up on the page and super obvious.

Curate your Content

Engaging content is the most important part of your email. Spending time writing or curating content that your readers will enjoy and fostering a relationship based on trust are essential parts of any great email campaign, according to Mailchimp.com

One of the best practices for mobile email, as shown in Mailchimp’s article; Email on Mobile Devices, is by having a concise and well thought-out email that will keep people interested in. If you want to find out more a out making the most of Mobile Device, you can view the entire webinar here.