Recently, Designer/Developer Nicole Turner was putting together an e-mail template for a client of ours and asked, “What do we want people to do when they read this email? What’s the best way to communicate that [call to action]?”
In a previous post, we discussed the importance of jumpstarting your email and making sure you’re approaching the content in a relevant matter. Here, we’ll investigate an important piece of how that content is being delivered to your prospects, clients, users, etc.
Email is tough.
People get hundreds of emails everyday, and most of them really suck. They are loaded with text, begging for you to complete 3-4 actions, and—even if they’re not—appear to be completely spammy. To make matters worse, an email layout that looks cluttered on a desktop screen becomes a magnified mess on a mobile screen.
These are the ones you delete. Especially when you are waiting in line at lunch and you’re playing defense with your email, deleting everything that will consume your time back in the office.
Mobile email rates continue to rise
Current data (as of Jan. ’14) shows that 51% of emails are being opened from a mobile device. That’s a 9% increase from 12 months prior!
Our phones and tablets have become a way to play the email game non-stop, 24 hours a day.
Additionally, mobile readership of emails provides the largest conversion rates (40%) of unique email clients.
If we don’t design a mobile friendly/ responsive version of the email template, then we are doing our client a disservice. It will result in lower click through rates, potentially losing opportunities for sales.
PROTIP: mobile specificity
If at any point, the reader has to use two fingers to smoosh the screen together, zooming in to find a phone number or complete the call to action, we have failed our client.
Why? Because mobile users don’t want to waste time on that. One solution for properly communicating that particular call to action and converting your audience is to create a thumb-size icon—immediately accessible upon opening the email—that directly calls your company when tapped from a mobile phone.
What about everything else?
As a marketer, you have a very limited time frame to capture your reader’s attention and get them to take action. The more accessible your call to action is, the more likely your attempt will succeed.
So, we get it. It’s a wise decision to design your email for mobile use.
But what if you aren’t a designer and you own a business? Well, you could always pay someone to do it (cough*goBRANDgo!*cough). Or for the bootstrapped entrepreneurs, there are other options (Don’t tell our sales department I said so).
A bit about MailChimp
I may not get paid to endorse MailChimp, but I do endorse just about everything their business stands for.
They provide incredible amounts of resources and research based on the mass amount of data they collect regarding email usage.
If you are the bootstrapped entrepreneur, use them. Sign up for an account and as long as you have < 5,000 contacts, your account will be free.
MailChimp provides templates that are already mobile responsive. Create a “Regular ol’ Campaign” and complete the prompts until you arrive at the design phase of the campaign steps.
Next, select “Predesigned” templates.
Now, here is the important step. Within the templates, select “Categories” and make sure you sort by “Mobile-Friendly” templates.
It’s as simple as that. Of course, templates are just that – they can’t be customized to a great degree. However, if you’re bootstrapped and just getting by, this is a very free alternative that will make your marketing more dynamic and ultimately successful.
Look into it, and be sure let me know if you have any questions! What do you do to keep your email marketing relevant?
Woman on phone photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/astrid/3822808508/”>AstridWestvang</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
