5 Mobile Email Marketing Tips

By Janine Popick

The growth of mobile devices affects more than just how people communicate; it’s changing how they consume everything: news, entertainment, and advertising. The Pew Research Center’s Internet Project found that more than one third of the people who access the Internet go online using their mobile phone. You may, in fact, be reading this article on your mobile phone right now.

So what does all this mobile usage mean for your email marketing strategy? It means you can no longer assume that the majority of your email recipients read your newsletters or promotional messages and invitations on their laptops or desktops.

Your email marketing needs to be optimized for mobile devices, now. And here are five quick tips to show you the way.

5 Mobile-friendly Email Marketing Tips

1. Use a clean and simple email design. Emails should be about 500 to 600 pixels wide, so that they’ll be easy to scroll through.

2. If you use a predesigned template from your email service provider (ESP), choose a responsive template. Responsive templates fit whatever size screen recipients use to view your email. Your message will look great on a smartphone, a tablet or a PC.

3. Pay close attention to your “from” label, subject line and preheader text. Because you’ve got such small real estate to get your message across on a mobile device, it’s more important than ever to grab your reader’s attention as fast as possible. Be concise.

4. Break up your text. Avoid long paragraphs, and don’t crowd too many hyperlinks together at once. Put the most relevant and important information first, as attention spans may be limited when recipients view your messages on mobile devices.

5. Use buttons for calls-to-action instead of links. Buttons are easier for people to click on when using a touchscreen (which most smartphones have these days. Leave plenty of space around your links and buttons; most adult fingers are roughly 37 to 53 pixels wide, so your buttons and links need to be large enough that a finger can land squarely on them.

One final thought: Make sure the links you have in your email direct readers to a mobile-friendly Web page. There’s perhaps nothing more frustrating for an on-the-go reader to click off an email to a Web page that doesn’t render correctly on a smartphone. Most likely you’re directing people to your company’s website; consider a service like Dudamobile to help make your site mobile-friendly.

Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse (a Deluxe company), a provider of self-service email, social and event marketing solutions for small businesses. Connect with her on Twitter at @janinepopick.

Do you have a comment or question about this article or other small business topics in general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com Forums. Join the discussion today!

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