When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first thing you do?
If you’re like 61% of other smartphone users, you check your email. Probably in bed. Right after shutting off your alarm.
While this may sound like an interesting bit of trivia, it’s actually an important realization for marketers.
If you don’t take time to figure out mobile, you’ll lose touch with your followers. Because they don’t want to pinch and zoom and slide the email back and forth just to read your message on their smart phone.
They have more important things to do.
So today I want to talk about the importance of sending emails that are readable on mobile devices as well as computers.
Do you have to create mobile emails?
Yes. If you want to stay connected with your followers.
Right now, 41% of emails are opened on a mobile device, and that number increases every day. In fact, experts project that it will top 50% before the year is over.
Now here’s the interesting thing. According to MarketingSherpa, 58% of marketers are not designing emails to render differently in mobile devices.
A look at my own inbox confirms this report.
Take a look at two emails I opened on my iPhone:
Both are professionally designed emails — the type that, just a few years ago, we’d be trying to imitate.
But things have changed.
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your email is, if it isn’t readable, you’re leaving money on the table, because you can’t connect with your readers (or sell to them) if they can’t see the words.
Now let me pick on myself for a moment
This is my email from summer 2012, as seen from an iPhone:
It’s ugly and impossible to read.
Here’s a recent issue, built with responsive design:
See the difference?
The first makes you want to click back to your inbox. The other invites you to start reading right away.
How do you implement responsive email design?
Believe it or not, it’s easy. All you have to do is select an email service with a mobile template.
With an increasing number of your followers reading emails on the go, you need to do this. If your email service doesn’t give you a responsive email template, you need to shop around.
Here’s the solution I settled on…
MailChimp
MailChimp provides some powerful cutting edge resources, the best of which is their drag-and-drop template with responsive design.
You simply drag and drop different design elements into your email to quickly build it from scratch. Do it once and you can replicate it for your next email. Just replace the old copy with your new message, and you’re done.
Best of all, you can preview it in desktop format or mobile as soon as it’s built, so you know exactly how it will render on different devices. Here’s a screen shot of the mobile previewer:
Other responsive email design providers
Unfortunately, there aren’t many email services that offers responsive design to non-enterprise brands (the Fortune 500s and their ilk). In researching this article, I spent several hours hunting for affordable options, but found that most of the well-known services aren’t thinking mobile yet.
Here’s the only other one I found:
CampaignMonitor
CampaignMonitor promises beautiful emails, and part of the beauty is that your emails will look good on any device.
Prices start at $9 per month. Not bad.
And they offer a free template builder that you can use even if you don’t have an account with them.
If you don’t want to change your email service but do want a responsive design template, check them out.
Now you
As more and more of your audience moves to mobile devices, it’s important to keep your message in front of them.
We’re at a tipping point that creates a unique opportunity for marketers. The way people consume information is changing. But few marketers are on board yet.
As a result, all you have to do is arrive at the table early, and you can easily stand out.
So take some time this week to explore your options. I highly recommend MailChimp as a resource for mobile emails. I spend about a fourth of the time creating my newsletters, and the results are 100% better than with my previous provider.
Have you implemented responsive email designs in your marketing? If not, what’s holding you back? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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By the way, MailChimp gives MonkeyRewards to every user, so the link I gave you above is an affiliate link. But that’s not why I recommend them. I honestly believe you’ll love their features and ease of use. And if you sign up with them, they’ll give you an affiliate link too.
Sources:
- Exact Target’s “Marketers from Mars” report.
- MarketingSherpa’s 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report
