7 Facts About Responsive Email on Mobile You Need to Know in 2014

Responsive email is more than just another marketing trend. Mobile has changed the way we consume content and it's important as marketers that we make information easily accessible to consumers.

In 2014, it’s very clear that in order to have the maximum impact, you need to have an integrated marketing approach. It’s vital to make sure you are maximizing the impact of your promotions across multiple channels.

I’ve written about this in the past and it’s often easy to start with integrating paid and organic search with content. Yet, the real benefit is when you start tracking the conversion and customer value from this – more often than not, that means capturing potential customers early in the buying cycle, and then converting them later in the journey once they are ready to buy.

This means email is hugely important!

Once you’ve got someone to your site, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to remember you and come back. That means you need to be able to get them to sign up to receive content, newsletters, offers – anything that can get them back in further down the line.

Mobile usage has soared over recent years, and as a result you now need to ensure that your mobile experience is as well optimized as possible, whether that’s in a search result, on your website, or in an email.

Responsive email has been at the forefront of every email marketer’s mind as industry statistics show that 50 percent of emails are now opened on mobile devices. According to Litmus, “70 percent of brands see their email opened on mobile” and GetResponse reports that as “294 billion emails are sent daily,” so companies need to keep up with industry trends in order to continually engage with their customers in order to achieve better results on mobile devices.

If you’re curious, here’s the email client market share tracked by Litmus in January 2014:

litmus-1

Deciding to move over to responsive email strategy takes collaboration and should be well thought out, so here are seven need-to-know facts to keep in mind:

1) Responsive email isn’t a new concept; a short definition of this is creating an all-in-one design that adapts itself to the device that is being used to view it. It does require team effort to address the efficiencies of creating responsive email templates.

2) Define your goals on what you would like to achieve and how you would like your clients to interact with your services or products in order to provide a smooth customer journey. Create a road map with the goals that everyone on your team agrees are important.

3) How are you measuring up to your competitors? Keeping up with industry trends is key and GetResponse provides a few infographics on the dos and don’ts of email mobile marketing:

dosanddonts

4) Clear customer journey – is your messaging consistent from website to email message to landing page? Creating a clear click-through is just as important as creating a responsive email. Econsultancy offers their top 25 sites with responsive designs from 2013, with an example from VoucherCodes.co.uk:

vc-5

Page 2

5) Design/write for mobile first – this allows you to keep your keep your focus on action-oriented content and will increase your conversion rate. Econsultancy offers good examples of what a responsive email should look like as well as what to think about when getting started on responsive email design:

  • Responsive email means you just need to create one code for all devices with the idea of just needing to optimize on different platforms.
  • Change your content with simple call to actions.
  • Target specific devices. You have to experiment and see what works in terms of rendering, readability, and usability across as many platforms as possible to get it right.
  • Analyze your results. Find out what works in terms of open rates and engagement so you can use this data to create a more targeted campaign next time around.
  • Here is a good example of Asos prioritizing their content from desktop to mobile. asos-6
  • Long-term efficiency is key – optimizing for responsive email may seem daunting at first, but once the templates are created, they will be more structured than newsletter templates.
  • Monitor results – has you user engagement increased? If not, what sort of improvements do you need to make? Be aware of what your customers are saying or not saying to you.
  • Choose the correct email layout for your messaging – are you using the right template? Be sure that the template works with your content, whether that’s with:
    • Shrink Wrap – Adopted by letter formats and newsletters.
    • Column Drop – If you have multi-column layouts, you can design the columns to drop down so they sit underneath each other.
    • Layout Shifter – This format is least used in email as it features the most dramatic changes in email.

6) Know your customers. Do you know how many of your customers need responsive email design? Is this question included on the Web sign-up page? If not, you should ask.

7) Now that your templates have been created, continually test everything from design, keywords, and content to imagery in order to stay ahead of your competitors. Once your responsive templates are optimized, GetResponse gives us some great email principles to keep in mind:

  • Customize content: Your email needs to be 100 percent about your customers’ needs and interests.
  • Mind the design: Make it easy to read, scroll, and click on all display devices, not just desktop.
  • Sound human: Let your subscribers feel the email is from you – a real person, not an impersonal and indifferent brand.

Summary

Responsive email is more than just another marketing trend and is a reality as more consumers move over to everything mobile. Mobile has changed the way we consume content and it’s important as marketers that we make information easily accessible to consumers.

Discovering better ways to keep your audience interested is always an exciting challenge. Redesigning your email can be a daunting task but the insight you can glean is priceless – test, optimize, and repeat to determine what you can do next!

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