Smartphones and the overall mobile experience is here to stay. We as marketers better get used to it and learn to adapt. A recent study shows that more than 88 percent of smartphone users will check email on their phone daily. This can lead to a steep decrease in email activity if you fail to focus on email mobile optimization.
Below are points that will help your emails become more mobile-friendly:
- Subject line – Keep your subject lines at a 15 character limit. Most email clients will cut off the subject line if it is any longer. If you are unable to create a compelling subject line that’s within 15 characters, make your strongest point in the beginning. You should still use all the best practices in your subject lines. If you missed my blog on subject line best practices, you can find it here.
- Call to action – The secret to having an effective call-to-action is to stay simple and keep user experience in mind when creating your call-to-action button. For example, a user is more likely to click on a large button than a small text link. Additionally, the location of the button is also very important. Your call-to-action buttons should be in their own row and centered to make it easy for users to click.
- Font Size – Like most other things in life, size matters, it makes a big difference. A small font that’s hardly visible will ultimately lead to a poor click-through rate. With that said, keep your email font size to a minimum of 14pt for the body and 30pts for headlines.
- User-friendly – When designing an email template, keeping user experience in mind is very important. Complex email layouts can be a bit overwhelming on a mobile device, so I recommend sticking to a single column layout. Also keep in mind to include descriptive alt text for all your images, just in case images are not loaded automatically. For those who are not as familiar with HTML, alt text is the text that shows up when images are not loaded; therefore, having descriptive alt text in your email templates can increase the chances of your users loading your images.
As a final note, always remember to test your emails, not just for desktops, but also on mobile devices as well. Mobile users are on the rise and email mobile optimization is becoming a common issue for marketers. Using the tips discussed above will get you started in the right direction when it comes to email mobile optimization.
