Slowly but sure, email messages are dominated by mobile devices with 38% of emails today opened on mobile devices. On the other hand, B2B emails have a lower percentage of mobile opens (between 10% to 30%, depending on the audience). However, business marketers need to pay more attention to the content and design of their messages to make sure they’re readable.
One reason why B2B emails see a lower mobile open rate may be that business people still send and receive many emails from their desks. However, as the mobile trends continue to expand, mobile-friendly emails will be even more important for B2B marketers. In some ways things are getting easier, because email is consolidated around fewer platforms.
To make mobile marketing a little easier, The Website Marketing Group provides these three tips:
- Consider reflowing your design. The traditional email design of two or three columns doesn’t work on a smaller screen. Recipients don’t want to scroll from the right side to left. You might want to reflow your design from two columns into one stacked column. Column size is important, too. Desktop emails might look great at about 600 pixels wide, but mobile devices look much better when shrunken down and restyled so they are 220 pixels wide. Pay attention to the text size as well. Make sure the recipients can see your messages.
- Start thinking about retina displays. Retina displays are high-resolution, which means everything appears sharper and clearer. Emails can potentially look worse if not designed with this in mind. Some people have even equated transitioning from regular displays to retina displays to the change from VHS tapes to DVDs. We are going to have to start paying more attention to how images and texts look like in an email.
- Use Web resources to check how emails will render on mobile devices. Marketers can use websites to see how their emails will render on different mobile platforms. In addition, many of the ESPs offer their own built-in emulators. This is especially important for email marketers that send different versions out to customers. Most people will never use the ‘Forward to a Friend’ button. They are just going to forward it in email.