Around 293.6 billion emails are sent per day worldwide (in 2019). That figure is projected to reach 347.3 in the year 2023. That’s a lot of emails, and, for a marketer, those figures present a picture of stiff competition.
With numbers so high, you need to do everything in your power to make your emails stand out, and one of those ways to do that is to make your emails mobile-friendly.
More than 50% of emails are consumed on mobile devices
What does “mobile-friendly” mean?
Mobile-friendly emails are emails that are designed to be easily consumed on mobile devices. This encompasses every aspect of the email, from the templates to the content and everything in between. These emails, although optimized for mobile devices, display well across all devices and screen sizes.
How to measure an email’s mobile-friendliness
So how can you determine if your emails are mobile-friendly or not? It’s easy to do with ESPs like Campaign Monitor, which allow you to test your emails before you send them out to your list.
Source: Campaign Monitor
It’s also a good idea to send yourself a test email and check how it looks across all device types.
How to make your emails mobile-friendly
Keep the following tips in mind to help ensure your emails are mobile-friendly.
Use responsive email templates
The first step in making your emails mobile-friendly is to use a responsive email template. Responsive templates are coded to respond and adapt to the screen on which the email is being read. Thankfully, you don’t have to do any coding yourself.
For best results, use a linear single-column email template.
Keep your subject lines short
Because of the limited screen size on devices like smartphones, it’s essential that you craft short, yet effective subject lines. It’s recommended that you keep your subject lines within the 25-30 characters limit.
Use larger fonts
Small fonts that can be easily read on desktop computers are not so easy to read on small screens. When designing your mobile-friendly emails, make sure you increase your font size. You can even use larger fonts to highlight key text.
Generally, your headline font size should be no smaller than 22px, while the body font should be 14px minimum.
Use images with care
Images make emails look amazing. However, you need to make sure your images are:
- Compressed – this will make them load faster
- Not the main content – some email clients don’t block images by default. If your email is predominantly made up of an image, the extra step of clicking “show images” can cause some readers to drop off.
Keep your content short
When designing mobile-friendly emails, keep your content concise. Use different font styles to highlight important parts of the text to keep readers engaged. Most of all, make sure the most important information is near the top.
Make your CTA prominent
Whether your call to action is a button or text, make sure it’s clear. For longer emails, you should have it appear in several places.
Does it really matter?
Mobile-friendly emails are definitely a must if you want to make an impact with your email marketing. In fact, research shows that, if an email doesn’t render properly on a mobile device, it could be deleted in as little as 3 seconds.
What now?
If you haven’t adopted mobile-friendly emails in your campaigns, you’re losing out on a big chunk of the market. However, it’s never too late to adapt. So go ahead and adopt these tips into your email marketing and watch as your metrics soar.
If you need more convincing on this subject, check out these stats that’ll prove to you that mobile-friendly emails should be the norm in your marketing strategy.