Many consumers are using mobile devices more than ever. They've done something on their mobile device whether its sending a text message, surfing the Internet, or checking email. So is your business addressing the needs of your mobile customers? I've researched and found some things you can be doing today to make your email a bit more mobile-friendly, that is, make it look better on your recipient's mobile devices. Here are a few things to think about when creating your emails, if you have recipients who might be reading emails on their mobile devices.
Don't Make them Download the Rest of Message - Your message might get truncated if it is too big. If it is too big your recipient might be prompted to "download the rest of the message". I'm sure many of your recipients check email on their mobile device to make sure things are not blowing up at the office and they probably save the marketing messages until they get to their computer, so you'll want to avoid running the risk of them not seeing your entire message or worse, deleting it.
Don't Make 'Em Scroll - You will want to avoid having your recipient do a lot of scrolling. Make sure your key takeaways are up near the top.
Let 'Em Know Who You Are - Make sure you include your logo at the top of email so you're recognized immediately. You'll want your recipient to keep that email until later when they can act upon what you want them to do.
Click To View in a Browser - You'll want to have a link for them to click to view your message in a browser, however you might think about putting it somewhere other than at the very top of your email. Many mobile devices render the beginning of the email in your inbox so your recipients can decide if they want to click to the entire email or not. Including the link text, to view in a browser, might take up some valuable space.
Make Your Email Lose Weight! - Make your emails 500-600 pixels wide. VerticalResponse creates our pre-designed layouts in this fashion already.
Let Them Call You - Include a click-to-call link if possible. The easier you make it for your recipient to get more information, the better.
Text Version is a Must - Make sure you have a text version of your emails in the event that your mobile recipients can only get text. Make sure you keep it short. Since emails usually have line breaks at about 60 characters and mobile devices 20 characters, you'll want to cut back on some of your copy and direct them for more information to your website.
So there you have it, the top things you need to think about when you are creating your email for those who are viewing it on their mobile devices.
Any thoughts? Let's hear them!
This is a great post, thanks so much for taking the time to write it!
With mobile devices growing in popularity, it is becoming more and more important to test your email before sending. It’s easy to forget how many different mail readers and platforms there really are and it's no secret that readability can make or break an e-marketing campaign.
Posted by: Michelle Klann | August 21, 2009 at 08:54 PM
Thank you for your informative article, to be honest ... It just never occurred to me that HTML e-mails would potentially create a problem for my recipients. I have always just based my messages on the look of my signature in html. I will from now on take your advice and switch to text.
Great articles, and thanks again for some great advice. Ron Gallagher ( www.yourcelebrant.com )
Posted by: Ron Gallagher | July 28, 2009 at 06:23 PM
Thanks for the tips - of course people are reading our emails on their phone and we're not (yet!) doing anything differently to accommodate them.
Posted by: Lesley Russell | July 28, 2009 at 08:15 AM
The problem is that email marketing on mobile phones sounds like even more spam. i already receive dozens of emails each day and don't even have time to look at the ones that I want to read, so receiving heaps of marketing emails on mobile phones is probably going to tick off a lot of people.
We have better plans than that.
Posted by: David Lockett | July 28, 2009 at 08:13 AM
This is very good advice, and I'm not sure how many people understand how relevant and critical this advice is.
Kim Dushinski (author of Mobile Marketing for Profit) keeps saying this over and over, but I don't know how many people are listening. And it was good to hear you say it too.
S-
http://wwww.psychotactics.com
Posted by: Sean | July 23, 2009 at 12:08 PM