How can you make your emails look good on smartphones?

It’s interesting to see how the way we market has changed over the years.  Now, nearly one in three UK adults uses a smartphone (Ofcom) and therefore emails are increasingly seen on mobile devices as often as they are on computer screens.  As with all technological advances it is vital for marketers to keep up with the latest changes, so it’s now time to optimise your email send outs. 

As emails are viewed on mobile devices almost as frequently as on computers, you must respond to this by sending multi-part emails.  Recipients must be able to choose between HTML and text only versions.  If an email comes through while your recipient is away from the computer and it can’t be viewed, they may hit the dreaded ‘junk’ button, or at best ‘delete’ it.  Additionally, I would advise that each email has a web version available as standard practice, as mobile browsers have greater technical capabilities to view emails than mobile email clients. 

Think about your own behaviour and the behaviour of your friends when they read emails on their phones, this is an opportunity to engage with your customer, to get them interested.  If they’re out with friends they may even pass on the message, for example “oh, Selfridges’ Christmas selection is out now, best go and get the Christmas pudding…”  Keep your message, subject lines and senders name to a minimum.  Generally, you can only see about 100 characters or 20 words at a first glance, this is your opportunity to tell your audience the most important offers and topic and entice them to read on.

The average resolution for a smartphone screen is 320 x 480 pixels. Fit your email around the screen as the screen won’t fit around your email.  Detailed graphics and pictures may look good in theory but will it work on a small screen?  Keep pictures small but legible, I would also suggest using ‘Alt Text’.  There is a debate among marketers whether this is necessary but if someone has minimal reception and the pictures don’t download correctly, it is worth having an alternative way to communicate ideas to them. 

As many email marketers will know only too well, it is not the device that matters but the software running on the device.  Find a template that works best with most of them and work from this each time.  Remember to make links easy to tap with a finger on a touchscreen. 

According to MarketingSherpa’s Email Guide, over 80% of email marketers still don’t ask subscribers about their preferred channel of contact.  During the registration process you should be asking them about their mobile behaviour, involve your customers, let them decide if they’d like to receive the mobile or web versions  of your email. 

Mobile phones can be seen as a more personal means of contact. Recipients may find it more annoying to get unwanted emails via a smart phone than on a computer or laptop.  Consider what information and content from campaigns will offer your recipients additional mobile value.  For m-commerce (mobile commerce) remember to put more relevant offers and “call-to-action” elements (like “buy now” or “click here”) at the forefront of your message, to make it easy to act. 

Mobile is an important channel to integrate with email marketing.  You can effectively grow your mailing list using this communication medium.  You should have a well-placed option to subscribe to email marketing on your mobile page.  Consider also using location-based marketing to enable customers to subscribe by texting their email address to a certain number, at the POS (point of sale) or POI (point of interest).  Professional broadcasting tools, such as eC-messenger, can automatically add this email address directly to your recipients list from a text message. 

Finally, as with all email marketing, the main advice is to test your creative as many times on as many different mobile devices as possible.  Make sure all images are displayed correctly, the text is easy to read and the links are rendered correctly.

This blog is a summary of an ‘Ask the Experts’ article from eCircle’s monthly newsletter “Inside Digital Marketing”, to view the full version click here.  If you wish to receive further news from the email marketing sector please subscribe here.