emailbestpracticesEmail is still one of the most important communication channels of our time; therefore, we want to give some tips on how to customize your email marketing for mobile devices.

According to GfK, smartphone sales continue to break records month after month, showing a staggering growth of 43% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2013. In Southeast Asia alone, smartphone sales reached 18 million in units and USD 4.2 billion in worth, while the demand for phablets surged to over 1.1 million units.

You should let these numbers sink in, if email marketing is an important sales channel for you, especially the fact that the most popular feature on a smartphone is email. The share of email use on mobile devices has increased by nearly 20% since 2007, and the trend continues upwards.

So, how can you optimize your emails for mobile devices? By customizing your email marketing to mobile email habits first!

Mobile devices change the way people read their emails. For instance, more emails are opened in the evening, late at night or even in the early morning hours.

Referring to this, check your sender time, which can be easily and quickly elicited with a few tests. Besides that, it is crucial to make sure that your emails are displayed correctly on all popular mobile devices.

Tip 1: Make sure at all costs to find out how your email advertising materials look like on iPads, Android phones and all other devices.

Tip 2: A cell phone screen is much smaller than that of a desktop. Fingers are not as precise as a mouse when it comes to a "click" on a mobile device. Hence, don’t force the user unnecessarily to maximize the email on his smartphone or to scroll back and forth. Instead, make links clearly visible and place them with sufficient space above and below.

Tip 3: Use shorter, attention grabbing, headlines and put your key messages at the top of your email.

Tip 4: Reduce the image size as the download speeds for mobile receivers vary widely, but are usually slower than the computer.

Tip 5: Choose a clear sender address. In general, a smartphone does not have a preview of the email. Hence, show your recipients in the sender ID who you are and that way avoid that your message gets immediately pushed to the trash.

On average, about 40% of all emails are opened on smartphones and tablets, therefore, you should optimize your marketing messages for mobile devices in order not to disappoint your customers, don’t you think? In any case, it is worth considering how the observed new smartphone behaviors can be used for your content strategy or when looking for new newsletter recipients.

By Daniela La Marca