This is a guest post by Aidan Hijleh.
These days, you never know what device a subscriber will be reading your email on. Could be their laptop, but it could also be a smartphone, tablet, or a range of other gadgets. According to Nielson, over 50% of mobile users are checking email on their devices multiple times per day. The opportunities are there, but as other evidence suggests, marketers are not taking advantage. 80% of people said that reading business-related emails is more of a hassle on a mobile device than it is on a desktop PC, according to a report on MarketingTechBlog.com.
This data suggests that far too many companies are still not making the adjustments needed to take full advantage of the situation.
Mobile is getting stronger day by day, and as an email marketer, you have no choice but to embrace it. Following are some ideas you can use to effectively prepare your strategy for this rapidly emerging channel.
Understand Your Audience
The first thing you need to do in order to prepare for mobile is understand how the channel itself pertains to your audience. Without this knowledge, you are essentially treading blindly in unfamiliar waters of unknown depths. Just knowing a couple of your subscribers read email on a mobile device isn’t enough. You need to get as specific as possible with your strategy.
Is mobile adoption widespread across your audience? If so, what devices are individual subscribers using? There’s tons of them out there. What email clients are they using to read those messages? You can’t afford to make assumptions here. Before you dive into the deep end, learn as much as you can about your audience so you can deliver the best possible mobile experience.
Revisit Your Design
When it comes to mobile, design is arguably the most important element of your email marketing strategy. This is also where many are failing. Without paying attention to design, your message could end being difficult to read and navigate, which would essentially make it useless in most cases.
Luckily, creating a mobile-friendly design is relatively simple. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Simplicity. HTML can give your email marketing message instant appeal and functionality. However, it can be troublesome on the mobile front because not all devices support or render it properly. Since screen resolution can be a nightmare in this situation, your best bet would probably be to shoot for the lowest denominator, or look into a way to borrow the “responsive” concept from the web design industry.
Clickable calls to actions. Properly placed links and calls to action are an integral part of driving clicks. Unfortunately, they may not be placed where you intended them to be once a subscriber opens your message on their mobile device. Here, the main concern should be making sure your calls to action are clickable, and that whatever can be clicked accommodates touchscreen functionality. In this channel, the touch of a finger often replaces the click of a button.
Testing. The importance of testing increases tenfold when email is introduced to mobile. Testing is vital for understanding how subscribers are experiencing your message on the broad range of devices they may be reading it on. Commit to the process, and you will eventually know what it takes to make sure everyone receives the same great message on every device.
Take the Best Practices with You
Mobile may be a different channel, but email marketers should be comforted in knowing that many of the best practices we have all come to know and love still apply. Take images, for example. Whether it’s an iPhone or Android, Mac Mail or Gmail, images are not guaranteed to automatically load on a given device. So just as you would ordinarily, you should design your email to look and perform well with or without images.
You can apply this same line of thinking to relevance, frequency, subject lines, and other aspects you keep in mind with your current Joomla email marketing email marketing efforts. Step into this new arena armed with the best practices, and you will be in good shape.
Time to Move Forward
Some businesses have a whole list of reasons why they have yet to embrace mobile. It’s too expensive. Too complicated. They’re not ready yet. How much longer will you wait? How many opportunities will you allow to pass you by? How much money can you afford to leave on the table? Email marketing offers one of the easiest transitions to mobile, so if you’ve been making excuses, now is the time to get serious and move your strategy forward.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily WebDesy.com.
