Every now and again, people like to declare a certain form of marketing “dead”. One of the forms of marketing that has been declared “dead” or outdated several times is email marketing, the latest declarations coinciding with the rising popularity of platforms like Facebook and Twitter for business purposes. Aside from other issues with that declaration, the people who claim that email marketing is no longer useful are usually ignoring a huge factor in the debate: the rise of smart phones.
By Christmas 2011, one out of two Americans will own a smart phone. That’s a full 50% of the population who will have access to email on their mobile devices. In addition to the fast growth rate of smart phone users, studies that have been done on the ways people use smart phones imply that email marketing will not be obsolete any time soon.
The ComScore 2010 Mobile Year in Review analysis of smart phone usage showed that accessing email far outranked any other kind of mobile web use. The same analysis showed that in Japan, smart phone users are beginning to use their phones for email more than text messaging, and given that Japan is a world trendsetter when it comes to technology, it’s a fairly safe assumption to make that the United States and Europe will soon follow suit.
How can you take advantage of these factors in your email marketing? Here’s a few tips:
Optimise your emails for mobile viewing.
This includes keeping them fairly short, making them easy to skim by using bold text and bullet points, and keeping the number of large images to a minimum. Before you send out an email to your list, check it on a mobile device if at all possible, to make sure that it’s easy to read when on the go.
Make sure that your website is optimised for mobile viewing.
Most email marketing campaigns include links within them, and having a mobile optimized email does not do much good if the user clicks on the link and then is led to a website that they cannot view on their phone. Double check to make sure that your business website is usable on a mobile device, up to and including all steps of checkout.
Consider having the option at sign up for users to choose mobile emails.(As opposed to HTML or text emails.)
This is an option that has been available to email marketers for a while, but has not been used much, because until recently there was not a need for it. Letting them choose to receive mobile emails shows that you are on top of recent trends, and also shows that you understand that many people now prefer to view their emails on mobile devices. Giving your customers the choice will make them happier and also make things easier for you in the long run.
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