How mobile do emails need to be? — As mobile as your readers!
Email has been mobile for a long time. A recent analysis by Return Path shows: 60% of all people surveyed in Germany check their emails daily on mobile devices — and 76% read their emails on the desktop. That makes... more than 100%. This is because many people read their emails on both smartphones and desktop computers. For marketing emails to have the best effect, they must be just as flexible as their readers: According to another study by Return Path, 63% of all Americans surveyed and 41% of all Europeans surveyed say they would directly close or even delete emails that are not optimized for mobile devices on such a device. What a waste of potential conversions!
How is responsive design possible in practice?
The magic word for maximally flexible emails is responsive design. Thanks to CSS3 media queries, it is possible to design emails in such a way that they automatically adapt to the respective devices of their readers (see also part 1 of our series). But responsive design can be a time-consuming and costly task due to the complicated nature of the email source code - and the requirements that different email clients have for the code on the recipient side. The solution lies in a combination of template-based email campaigns and a platform that automatically does a lot of technical work in the background.
Automatic adjustments
In practice, responsive design can only be used consistently for all campaigns if the additional effort required to produce each individual campaign is limited. A convenient solution is to use a template in which the more complicated part of the coding is already firmly implemented — the mobile version is thus virtually “automatically generated” when the template campaign is created. With Mobile Sense technology, the following benefits are built into every responsive template as standard:
1. Text: Optimum readability
Font sizes that are easy to read on the desktop are difficult to decipher on small smartphone displays. Only a lot of zooming and scrolling helps? Wrong. With the appropriate responsive template, the font size is automatically increased to a comfortable level on mobile devices.
2. Call-to-action elements: Optimum usability
Text links that are easy to navigate with the mouse become a problem as soon as they have to be clicked with the thumb on a small smartphone display. For mobile users, our demo newsletter therefore does not contain a text link, but a convenient button at the end of text sections. The space around the button is large enough — this allows you to click directly one below the other. And since most users hold their smartphone in their right hand and use their right thumb to scroll and click, the orientation is also optimized accordingly: text links, call-to-action elements (CTAs) centered or also left-oriented.
3. Design: Optimum look
Wide layouts with two or even three columns are not only no problem for the desktop version of an email — they are often the best solution for the wide desktop format. However, this does not apply to smartphone displays: Even when oriented in landscape format, they are still fairly narrow. A good responsive template should therefore ensure that the horizontal desktop design is converted into a vertical layout on mobile devices — with just one, easy-to-read column. With Mobile Sense, bulky horizontal navigation bars can either be completely hidden, displayed with a reduced number of elements, or converted into a vertical layout.
Manual adjustment options
The described “automatic” mobile template adjustments are ideal for adapting the email to the technical and ergonomic features of mobile devices. However, the specific reception context of mobile users should also be considered. E-mails read on mobile devices are often opened on the side or skimmed over in between — the attention span is therefore even lower than when reading on the desktop. That is why the content of mobile emails should also be concise and concise. This allows the “message” to have an optimal effect on mobile users. So when it comes to mobile emails, less is more!
Hide content
In order to quickly and radically reduce the content of the campaign to the most important things, many responsive templates offer the option of blocking out entire sections for mobile devices.
Hide graphics
Pictures should not be missing from the desktop version — they are real eye-catchers and speak to us emotionally. Mobile users often only perceive large images as space-wasting disruptive factors, which is why more scrolling is required. If you do not want to completely hide a section with a graphic, you can also hide only the graphics in the section for mobile devices.
Replacing graphics
But what can you do if a graphic should also be displayed for mobile users but takes up too much space in the mobile version? For this purpose, it is possible to select a separate “mobile” graphic for the mobile display. For example, smaller banner graphics with larger lettering or completely different images can be used for mobile presentation.
Mobile can now start!
Responsive design can be simple and uncomplicated for the user — but only with the right tools. With a platform that provides high-quality responsive templates, emails can be easily and quickly optimized for mobile readers. We are happy to advise you which email delivery platform or email builder offers the best and most flexible template editors for mobile design.
