Are you optimizing your emails for mobile? More than 27 percent of emails are now read on mobile devices. Studies show a 7 percent increase in just one year. It’s clear that the number of emails being read this way is steadily rising.
But that doesn't mean you have to retreat to plain text emails. While plain text is compatible with all mobile devices, it’s still possible to craft HTML campaigns that look great on a mobile device. With plain text, your fans will miss out on great email content like images and your personalized layout, and you’ll be missing out on analytics like opens and click-through rates. Instead, check out the four easy things you can do to optimize email for mobile.
Follow Email Best Practices
A lot of what’s good for webmail inboxes is good for mobile mail inboxes. For example, make all images you use in your email web quality as opposed to print quality and not too large (aim for no larger than 1MB and no wider than 600 pixels). This makes for a pleasant email experience, but it is especially important for emails being read on mobile devices. Imagine trying to upload an email with several high-resolution graphics on your phone with a weak Internet connection. Impatient fans might skip over to the next email before yours has the chance to load.
Use a Combination of Text and Images
It’s important to make your email a combination of text and images so that when your message is first opened, your fans see at least some parts of your message before they enable images. If your email is comprised of a lot of images (but you are still keeping to the image best practices as described above), be sure to make use of alternative text (the description that appears in the space where a picture should load ) so that your readers instantly get a rough idea of what your email is about.
Plan for Touch Screen Navigation
Place your linked text and images far enough apart from other linked items to make it easy to navigate on touch screen devices. It can be hard enough to type out mobile messages with accuracy, and selecting the right hyperlink among a sea of many others can be equally irksome for those with less than slender phalanges. A good rule of thumb (see what I did there?) is to make any linked images at least 44 x 44 pixels. And if you have a row of linked images next to each other, add a padding of 5 to 10 pixels around each to give plenty of room to select.
Test! Test! Test!
Yes, here at FanBridge we praise testing your messages in different email carriers, but now it’s also important to test out your message on your mobile device.