Email Marketing Best Practices P4

We couldn’t really talk about email marketing without mentioning mobile optimisation for emails as well. We are in a time where over 50% of emails are viewed on a mobile phone, and that isn’t including tablets! Potentially half of your subscribers list will view your email on their phones!

The biggest turnoffs for people viewing emails on their phones according to clickz are:

• Receiving too many (44%)
• Not relevant (37%)
• Too small to read and interact with (32%)
• Website and landing pages not mobile optimised (26%)
• Not well formatted for mobile phones (21%)

We have previously talked about finding the right balance of email frequency and making it relevant to your list or sub-list of subscribers, the other points raised are all about having emails easy to use and read on mobiles, this is something that needs to be taken into account from the start of creating an email. When optimising your email for mobile you should;

Make it Responsive

People will be viewing your email on a range of different devices, mobiles, tablets, desktop computers, all with different screen sizes, you need to make sure your email is responsive to this, adjusting image size to the screen, text layout etc. to give everyone viewing it the best experience. Many email clients templates are built to be responsive to different devices and screen sizes, make sure you take advantage of them.

Shorter Subject Lines

With their smaller displays, you will have a limited number of characters for your subject line. Depending on the email client the person is using and the orientation they are holding the phone can change the number of characters they will be able to see, as a rule of thumb, it is best to try and keep it under 50 characters in length.

Optimised Pre-header Text

Having shorter subject line might make you say “I can’t properly convey my message in under 50 characters”, some of this can be made up with the preheader text.

This shows directly below the subject line and can help make up for shorter subject lines and give people a clearer idea of what your email is about, make sure you optimise this to increase open rates.

Big, Prominent Buttons

When designing and creating you need to remember that a lot of people won’t be using a mouse to click on your links, they will be tapping it with their fingers, and having buttons too small and close together can cause frustration for users.

A minimum of 45px X 45px is recommended (if you are looking to use square buttons), make sure once you have created it, you have a few people test it out on different devices to make sure that is is easy to navigate and use.

Make sure your buttons stand out from the rest of the email, with contrasting colours and calls to action, this will also help with your click-through rates.

Check Performance

Always make sure you check your emails performance afterwards, as well as finding wat does and doesn't work, you can also see device performance, that can help you better optimise your future campaigns, if you see mobiles or a particular mobile device has low click through rates, maybe there is an issue with it that needs to be looked at for next time.

Mobile Friendly Landing Pages

Lastly, ensure that your landing page is mobile friendly, otherwise all your hard work of testing and research, optimising your email for mobiles, and getting people to click a link in the email, could all go to waste if the person then can’t use your website properly on their phones, it is something we can often forget while we are working hard to get the email right, but it is an essential part of the experience, make sure it is optimised!

This email series should give you the necessary tips and tricks to make the most out of your email campaigns, tell us on Facebook and Twitter how they have gone, we would love to find out and see some examples of your emails, and if you ever need any help with your email marketing, you can always get in contact with us.