One of the many perks of working in the email marketing industry is the fact that as technology advances, email marketing (the oldest and most resilient digital marketing channel) just gets more powerful.
Perhaps the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was right when he said “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Despite facing stiff competition from a long line of newer and (in the eyes of many) more fashionable marketing trends (and occasionally fads), email remains the most lucrative (in terms of ROI) marketing opportunity available to marketers and business owners today.
In recent years, email marketing has proven itself to be a vital (I believe most profitable) component in paid search. Similarly, social media has actually enhanced email marketing’s proposition rather than killing it off, as many pundits, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, famously predicted.
Mobile is just another area that makes email marketing better than it has ever been.
Mobile – The Perfect Environment for Email
The mobile environment has freed the email inbox from the constraints of desktop devices. You subscribers now carry their email inboxes around with them everywhere and engage with them constantly.
This essentially means, as long as your emails and website landing pages are “mobile friendly,” there is never a bad time to engage your audience. The days of sending a B2C marketing campaign at 11am on Tuesday or Thursday and competing with every other marketer in the world are over. Emails can now be sent at the best time to drive the optimum results and not pushed out in the hope that your subscribers are sitting in front of a computer screen.
Tip: Check out the peak times people visit your website and schedule your campaigns to run just prior to these busy periods.
Mobile Best Practices
Because more than 65% of all emails are now opened first on a mobile device, email marketing best practices must be adapted to suit the mobile environment.
Note: The chances of a subscriber going back to an email on a desktop device that hasn’t worked well in the mobile environment are very slim. If you don’t believe building a strategy around mobile is important, ask yourself the following question: “Can you afford to lose 65% of your email marketing’s impact?”
Subject Lines and Pre-Headers
Your subject lines and pre-headers are key to driving mobile email engagement as your subscribers will see nothing else unless they choose to open your email. Your subject lines should tell the full story (like a newspaper headline). Avoid using the word “newsletter” or including the date in a subject line. This will eat up vital real estate and do nothing to drive engagement.
KISS Design Principal
When it comes to email design for the mobile environment, the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) design principal works every time. Complex design or navigation structure will do more to hinder engagement, so keep designs simple and give special thought to elements like your call-to-action (CTA), which should be “fat-finger” friendly. Never be tempted to use a graphic/image when text will do the job better.
Get to the Point
Long, convoluted copy will be difficult to consume on a small screen, particularly if your subscriber is on the move, so keep your messages short and to the point. In the mobile environment, the rules of relevance and timing are more important than ever.
Remember Social
Social media is equally at home in the mobile environment as email, so remember to share your email campaigns via social media. By socializing your campaigns, you will give them greater reach and potentially enable them to go “viral.”
Keeping a Close “Watch” on the Future
Nothing stands still for very long in digital marketing. The mobile environment itself is rapidly evolving. At iContact, we’re keeping a close eye on wearable technology, including the Apple iWatch. We believe if you want to move with the times, you’ve got to get mobile.
How has mobile technology impacted your email marketing strategy? Share your comments below:
Article Info
